The Motivations for the Adoption of Management Innovation by Local Governments and its Performance Effects

Rhys ANDREWS*, Benedetta BELLÒ, James DOWNE, Steve MARTIN, Richard M. WALKER

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article analyses the economic, political, and institutional antecedents and performance effects of the adoption of shared Senior Management Teams (SMTs)—a management innovation (MI) that occurs when a team of senior managers oversees two or more public organizations. Findings from statistical analysis of 201 English local governments and interviews with organizational leaders reveal that shared SMTs are adopted to develop organizational capacity in resource-challenged, politically risk-averse governments, and in response to coercive and mimetic institutional pressures. Importantly, sharing SMTs may reduce rather than enhance efficiency and effectiveness due to redundancy costs and the political transaction costs associated with diverting resources away from a high-performing partner to support their lower-performing counterpart.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)625-637
Number of pages13
JournalPublic Administration Review
Volume81
Issue number4
Early online date4 Mar 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Professor Andrews would like to thank Jose-Manuel Alonso for his methodological advice and suggestions.

Funding

This paper is part of a project (called TROPICO) that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant Agreement No. 726840.

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