Form of Government Still Matters: Fostering Innovation in U.S. Municipal Governments

Using data on the adoption of e-government, reinventing government, and strategic practices, and the Nelson and Svara (2010) typology of municipal government form, the authors investigate the characteristics of municipal governments that are related to the implementation of innovative practices. The authors find that higher innovation rates are associated with council-manager governments—both with and without an elected mayor, higher population, greater growth, lower unemployment, sunbelt location, and higher population density. Controlling for all other variables, form of government (and variations within form) account for the greatest explanation of the adoption of innovative practices in municipalities. The authors conclude that form of government remains an important variable to consider when investigating local government management and performance

The Dynamics on Innovation Adoption in U.S. Municipalities: The Role of Discovery Skills of Public Managers and Isomorphic Pressures in Promoting Innovative Practices

abstract: Research on government innovation has focused on identifying factors that contribute to higher levels of innovation adoption. Even though various factors have been tested as contributors to high levels of innovation adoption, the independent variables have been predominantly contextual and community characteristics. Previous empirical studies shed little light on chief executive officers' (CEOs) attitudes, values, and behavior. Result has also varied with the type of innovation examined. This research examined the effect of CEOs' attitudes and behaviors, and institutional motivations on the adoption of sustainability practices in their municipalities. First, this study explored the relationship between the adoption level of sustainability practices in local government and CEOs' entrepreneurial attitudes (i.e. risk taking, proactiveness, and innovativeness) and discovery skills (i.e. associating, questioning, experimenting, observing, and networking) that have not been examined in prior research on local government innovation. Second, the study explored the impact of organizational intention to change and isomorphic pressures (i.e., coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures) and the availability and limit of organizational resources on the early adoption of innovations in local governments. Third, the study examines how CEOs' entrepreneurial attitudes and discovery skills, and institutional motivations account for high and low sustaining levels of innovation over time by tracking how much their governments have adopted innovations from the past to the present. Lastly, this study explores their path effects CEOs' entrepreneurial attitudes, discovery skills, and isomorphic pressures on sustainability innovation adoption. This is an empirical study that draws on a survey research of 134 CEOs who have influence over innovation adoption in their local governments. For collecting data, the study identified 264 municipalities over 10,000 in population that have responded to four surveys on innovative practices conducted by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in past eight years: the Reinventing local government survey (2003), E-government survey (2004), Strategic practice (2006), and the Sustainability survey (2010). This study combined the information about the adoption of innovations from four surveys with CEOs' responses in the current survey. Socio-economic data and information about variations in form of government were also included in the data set. This study sheds light on the discovery skills and institutional isomorphic pressures that influence the adoption of different types of innovations in local governments. This research contributes to a better understanding of the role of administrative leadership and organizational isomorphism in the dynamic of innovation adoption, which could lead to improvements in change management of organizations.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Public Administration 201

Portuguese local government: exploring alternatives of service delivery

Nowadays, Local Governments have a heavy burden of dealing with much of the services with added value to citizens. Their competences kept on growing at the expenses of central government responsibilities’ cope with all these challenges, local governments use several mechanisms to deliver public services to their citizens. In this paper we analyze New Public Management (NPM), and post-NPM as mains reform paradigms with impact in the governance alternatives

E-government process in the public sector and the barriers against its implementation: A case study in Greece

Copyright @ 2013 EMCIS.The study aims to gain insight into the of e-government as it has started taking place within the public sector and access the barriers that are related to its organizational structure and consequently prevent the fully incorporation and implementation of such technological efforts. In order to obtain vital and accurate information, the study adopted quantitative research methodology by using the tool of self-completion questionnaires. More precisely, this study is based on a single case study, the public administration in Greece. Moreover, the sources of data collection were relied upon primary data. Furthermore, this study revealed the organizational barriers against e-government by focusing on the major impediments as the participants captured them. Non-availability of high IT-staff, age of employees and the structure of the political regime as well as the way that the central government operates affect the structure of the public sector and are considered the most important barriers that guide to difficulties as far as e-government adoption is concerned. Indeed, Greek Public sector is facing many organizational problems and should eliminate the majority of them by undertaking radical changes and effective measures

Urban governance in times of fiscal stress: muddling through efficiency and democracy

Recent worldwide financial crisis puts local governments under sever stress to change and reshaped their strategy, attitude and commitments to citizens in order to control spending patterns. Cutting-back services, breaking contracts, rethinking welfare and additional austerity measures are a worldwide path that local governments follow to handle financial adversities. In this trouble times, although keeping in mind the need to ensure the basic conditions for local government to perform its functions and the capacity to implement them, several actors struggle to reshape urban governance, according to their preferences (Pierre 1999). Political parties, unions and interest groups are joined by engaging citizens and aggressive media to build new forms of social ties (Clark 2000). The way in which rules, values and behaviors are established can alternate the equilibrium between the elements of urban governance forcing a change in kind and nature. Oscillations occur in a democracy-efficiency continuum promoting four alternative forms of urban governance: autocratic efficiency, democratic inefficiency, democratic efficiency and autocratic inefficiency (Waldo & Miller 1948; DiGaetano & Strom 2003; Norris 2012). The goal of this paper is to analyze the different divers that constrain the settings of urban governance. The paper claims that urban governance is the grass root for a compatible combination among civic engagement, political responsiveness and efficient mechanisms of service delivery. The main hypothesis of the paper suggests an optimal level of democracy translated into an invert U-shape relation between democracy and efficiency. Using a quantitative approach, the paper collects data from all Portuguese local government and builds two set of indexes to test the hypothesis. Findings confirm the supported argument and contribute to some clarification on the interaction between democratic procedures, and managerial initiatives to achieve higher standards of democracy

Factors Affecting Uses and Impacts of Performance Measures in Mid-Sized U.S. Cites

This research investigates the factors that affect municipal use of and the impacts they experience with performance measures among mid-sizedU.S.cities. The goal of this research project is to advance our knowledge about the adoption, use, and impact of performance measures among mid-sized cities. Several research questions were developed and a mail survey was administered to 670 city officials in cities with populations 25,000 to 250,000 in order to help provide answers to these questions. A total of 280 completed surveys were returned for a response rate of about 42 percent. Among the chief findings of this study are that larger mid-sized cities are more likely to adopt and use performance measures. Performance measures also are more likely to be adopted and used by cities that have a council-manager form of government rather than by cities with a mayor-council form of government. The performance results expected to be achieved by municipal officials respondents corresponded with the three reasons that local officials cited as being most important for adopting. Analysis indicated that there is very little, if any, “cognitive dissonance” with respect to the reasons offered for adopting performance measures and what local officials expected to see as a result of their implementation. The study’s findings suggest that local officials in mid-sized cities believe that performance measures have real value for improving the quality of management and budget decisions. Moreover, they think that the information generated by these measures helps their cities to respond to citizen demands for greater accountability. In addition, many local officials believe that the use of performance measures has helped to improve the quality of communications with citizens about how well the city performs its service responsibilities. Performance measures tend to be used more extensively when managers are the primary audience for performance data, when their staff has data analysis talent and when council understands performance information and provides adequate financial support for collecting performance data. This study finds that support by government stakeholder groups, particularly department heads, line supervisors and city employees, local elected officials, particularly city council members, and citizens and community interest group leaders are especially important in terms of whether performance measures are likely to be perceived as having a significant positive impact on the local decision making process

Ideas Matter: A Comparative Analysis of Two Neighbourhood Regeneration Programs Associated with the Administrations of Two Toronto Mayors Between 2005 and 2012

This paper examines how the neighbourhood regeneration programs of David Miller and Rob Ford in Toronto compare based on the approaches to public administration taken by each mayor. It uses a comparative analysis of the two cases with a specific focus on Miller’s Priority Neighbourhoods (PNs) and Ford’s Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIAs). The findings reveal that the two programs are based on different approaches to public administration, with Miller emphasizing the community development approach and Ford favouring the economic model of public administration

The welfare state and new challenge from the back door

1980s in Germany, Britain, France and Italy suggests a convergent and consistent process of homogenisation driven chiefly by institutional mimetic isomorphism. This new 'organisational settlement' is increasingly shaped by the structural autonomisation of individual service delivery units. This paper argues that, when organisational autonomy becomes normatively sanctioned, that this increases the likelihood of its adoption, even in the face of different institutional conditions and welfare regimes. Hence, the paper is foremost concerned with explaining similarities and decreasing variance across countries and across sectors, and with accounting for the main driver of this homogenisation process. Why would different organisational fields across countries and welfare regimes adopt similar structures, in light of inconclusive evidence of economic efficiency gains? The convergence of the organisational settlement of the welfare delivery state is not only driven by economic globalisation or efficiency linked to performance, but primarily by the political demand to find new sources of legitimation in an age of increasing displacement of political authority to managers. The paper is structured in three main parts. First, it revisits the theory of organisational isomorphism by its application to the new patterns of change of welfare delivery. Secondly, it discusses the reform trajectories of autonomisation in schooling and hospital care in Britain, in comparative terms with France and Italy. Thirdly, it concentrates on Germany and it establishes empirically how this case does no longer fit the characterisation of 'immobilisme', especially in the health care sector. Lastly, the wider implications of organisational homogenisation for the TRUDI constellation are discussed. --

Performance Measurement in an Era of New Public Management

The last two decades have witnessed a proliferation of scholarly discourse on performance management. This discourse evolved out of a number of forces in the early 1990s from the new public management movement, which called for government to show its efficiency in expending public resources as well as prove that substantive results—or outcomes related to a program’s effectiveness—had been generated by its activities. As federal agencies developed performance standards at the program level as well as in the management and administrative functions, state governments and their localities were compelled to adopt the same measures as a method of assessing their activities and enhancing their reporting mechanism under federal programs and mandates. This analysis examines the literature on performance-based management and offers recommendations on how to implement successful performance measurement system. The analysis begins with a historical synopsis. This is followed by a discussion of applications and types of performance measurement, limitations and benefits, and a comparative analysis of performance measurement efforts in the State of Georgia and the City of Kennesaw, Georgia. Additionally, the analysis offers some implementation challenges and solutions