A reflection on the administrative roles of a chief executive officer in Ghanaian universities: what has really changed?

The functions of chief executive officers of universities differ only slightly from chief executive officers in other organizations. As special bureaucracies with very large concentration of professors and other professional groups, chief executive officers supervise their staff to teach, research, disseminate knowledge and to collate divergent opinions towards national development. The paper consults and criticizes the views of earlier writers on chief executives of universities. This paper painstakingly examines the roles of chief executives, highlighting their backgrounds before becoming chief executives, and their roles as heads of administration upon becoming presidents or vice-chancellors. Besides observations, the study relied on literature review (Desk Study). The paper further looked at the perceptions and attitudes that promote or impede the efforts of many presidents/vice chancellors. Changing university environments through large enrolments, aging professors, and stakeholder interests, curricula reviews for relevance, quality and equity among others have resulted in changing parameters in the searches for vice-chancellors. The changing scope and demands may be useful for sitting and future vice-chancellors in their search for jobs or in their performance upon appointment. A fundamental familiarity with motivation and respect of human beings for collegiality have been behind those presidents who were acclaimed as effective executives.