Who Gets A Seat at the Table? Higher Education Decision-Making Team Composition During COVID-19

Many organizations across the United States were severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including institutions of higher education. Campus leaders were required to rapidly make decisions about closing campuses, increasing financial constraints, shifts in research, and changing class modalities. Past research shows that one preferred method for making decisions during an organizational crisis is using teams of decision-makers, although there has been little research focused on the composition of these teams. Other approaches advocate for including various stakeholders in the decision-making structure; however, it is not known how often stakeholders, including faculty, below-director-level staff, and students, are included. This study asks two questions: (1) What stakeholders were included on crisis decision-making teams at organizations of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) what institutional factors influenced stakeholder participation in crisis decision-making teams at organizations of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic? These questions are answered through a content analysis and survey of 150 US higher education institutions and institutional data from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The results show about half of decision-making teams included stakeholders, with faculty being the most likely to be included and students the least likely. There were no statistically significant associations between institutional characteristics and stakeholder inclusion. Larger decision-making teams were more likely to include stakeholders than smaller teams. Additional research is needed to explore how the inclusion of stakeholders impacts institutional decision-making and overall crisis management success.