The managerial skills of the top management team and the performance of municipal organisations

This paper examines the extent to which the managerial skills possessed by top management teams affect the performance of municipal organisations in Israel. We evaluated both perceived (education, employment, and culture, recreation and sport services) and objective (collecting efficiency ratio and surplus (deficit) ratio) performance measures. In general, the results show that the managerial skills possessed by the top management team explain variance in organisational performance. Interestingly, structural context plays an important role, especially for performance measures that are potentially less changeable in the short term (collecting efficiency ratio). Managerial skills are a good predictor of performance measures (surplus (deficit) ratio) that can be changed in the short term rather easily, and explain variance in municipal services, especially when the top management team views them as important and highly valued by residents.