Municipal performance: does mayoral quality matter?

Scholars and political practitioners constantly search for tools that improve governmental performance. In developing countries, the adoption of decentralization seeks to achieve this goal. Decentralization is expected to improve governmental efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness by transferring functions from central to subnational governments. This transfer has made local governments responsible for planning, funding, and implementing social programs, such as education. As a result, long-term development has become a function of municipal performance. Municipal action, however, varies considerably across localities, leading us to ask what are the determinants of municipal performance?

Existing explanations for organizational performance refer to political, economic, and demographic factors. Among the political influences, scholars look at government ideology (Swank 2002), partisan support (Doig and Hargrove 1990), legislative oversight (Santiso and Belgrano 2004), type of government (Clingermayer and Wood 1995), citizens' participation (Blair 2000), politicians' motivation (Anderson 2003; Gibson and Lehoucq 2003), and electoral competitiveness (Holbrook and Van Dunk 1993). As socioeconomic determinants, studies refer to budgets, inequality, governmental production, and level of development. Among the demographic explanations, scholars also point to the size and nature of the target group (Durant and Legge 1993; Lineberry 1976). Despite these varied explanations, literature has ignored the potential effects of managerial quality. This study seeks to contribute by examining the influence of managerial quality on municipal performance, in terms of education performance.

This study's thesis is that managerial quality--operationalized with mayoral qualifications--explains municipal performance. Since Lynn (1984), an increasing number of studies have suggested that organizational performance is a function of management quality (Andrews et al. 2006; Boyne 2004; Boyne and Walker 2005; Brewer and Selden 2000; Fernandez 2005; Meier and O'Toole 2002; Nicholson-Crotty and O'Toole 2004; O'Toole and Meier 1999). Although management includes many variables--resources, regulation, representation, workforce diversity, organizational strategy, and managerial leadership--some studies gather support for the managerial quality-performance relationship. In studies of school districts, Fernandez (2005) and Meier and O'Toole (2002), for example, found that managerial quality influences organizational performance.

Although some studies explore the influence of public management on performance (and some emphasize managerial quality), "... the largest single body of evidence [has] focused on school districts in Texas" (Boyne and Walker 2005, 488). Departing from that, this study not only tests the managerial quality hypothesis, but also moves from both the school district to the municipality and from the United States to Colombia. Hence, existing studies of service delivery focus disproportionately on the United States while remaining limited in developing countries (Boyne 2003; Boyne et al. 2005; Forbes and Lynn 2005). (1) Accordingly, this research evaluates the predictive power of theories developed in the United States when transferred to the third world. Specifically, I draw data from the 40 municipalities of one of the Colombian departments (states) over 6 years (2000-05) to present the preliminary results of the effects of managerial quality on municipal performance in a Latin-American setting. Findings indicate that mayoral qualifications--educational background and job-related experience--positively influence municipal performance in terms of education. Yet their positive impact decreases under external constraints, such as the presence of illegal armed groups. This research contributes to the field of comparative public administration by extending the applicability of the managerial quality thesis. It also contributes to the literature on development by identifying the determinants of municipal performance in a third world setting.

The next section presents the link between managerial quality and organizational performance. The third section explains the theoretical notion of using mayoral qualifications as an indicator of managerial quality and also elaborates on alternative explanations for organizational performance. The final section describes the research design and discusses the results.

PUBLIC MANAGERIAL QUALITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Scholars and practitioners in the public sector widely accept the principle that what makes the difference between the success and failure of a program is public management (Boyne 2003; Lynn 1984, 1987; Meier and O'Toole 2002; O'Toole and Meier 1999). Ordinarily understood, management theory, as Frederickson and Smith (2003, 97) posit, "... ha[s] to do with the study and description of directing ongoing routine activities in purposeful organizations." "Properly understood," as Lynn (2003, 2) states, "... public management is structure, craft, and institution: 'management,' 'manager,' and 'responsible practice'." That is, public management operates under a legal structure of governance that delegates, constrains, and oversees managers' use of authority.