Municipal Performance: Administrative Capacity and Upper Echelons Theory

• In Event: Public Management and Performance

Abstract

As local governments take on a broad range of responsibilities, understanding the drivers of their performance becomes a salient issue for the scholarship of public management. While the literature has explored the interaction between capacity and management for performance in local governments, little research has gone beyond the managerial effect of mayors and city managers. Using a survey of 250 Colombian mayors, this study explores the role of chief planning officers and administrative capacity to achieve municipal performance indicators such as social service provision and the completion of municipal development plans. While mayors are both the executive and political leaders of municipal governments, they appoint chief planning officers and vest them with a broad range of responsibilities in policy formulation and implementation. This study uses mayoral reported managerial characteristics of chief planning officers to assess their influence on municipal performance while controlling for a variety of administrative capacity measures. This research aims to contribute to the literature of local government performance by incorporating a seldom explored perspective on the role of unelected top managers.

Author

• Ricardo Andres Bello-Gomez, Texas Tech University