Houqe, Muhammad NurulMarasigan, AlvaDe Villiers, Charl Johannes2025-04-092025Houqe, M.N., Marasigan, A. & De Villiers, C. 2025, 'How can vice-chancellor compensation be justified? Evidence from New Zealand', Accounting and Finance, doi : 10.1111/acfi.70019.0810-5391 (print)1467-629X (online)10.1111/acfi.70019http://hdl.handle.net/2263/101982DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : The data are available from the authors upon request.Vice-chancellors' salaries have been criticised in the media and examined by scholars. Therefore, we examine whether vice-chancellors' compensation can be explained by performance, job size/complexity, and/or the incumbent's characteristics/abilities. Our sample consists of all New Zealand universities' vice-chancellors' pay from 2010 to 2023. We find that university characteristics (higher university rankings, having a medical school, and more students), university governance (larger size of the senior leadership team), and vice-chancellor characteristics (being female, older, and being a New Zealander) are associated with higher vice-chancellor compensation. The prior literature has largely ignored the added complexity of a medical school.en© 2025 Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article : 'How can vice-chancellor compensation be justified? Evidence from New Zealand', Accounting and Finance, vol. , no. , pp. , 2025, doi : 10.1111/acfi.70019. The definite version is available at : http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/acfi.Executive compensationNew ZealandSenior leadership teamTertiary Education CommissionUniversity governanceUniversity rakingVice-chancellor compensationSDG-08: Decent work and economic growthPostprint Article