The strategy process as a result of learning,questioning, and performing in a city organization

Abstract

This article analyzes a strategy-drafting process, using it to illustrate what can happen in a strategy process that affects a city organization but is invisible in the final strategy document. In the ethnographically inspired method, a city organization and its strategy-formulating work were followed for two years. Observations and interviews were the main data-collection methods. The article builds on a framework from the strategy and public management literature. The article concludes that strategy formulation in public organizations is a means of learning new practices, questioning ongoing development, and enhancing performance.     

Learning how to be efficient property owners and accountable governments: the case of Kyrgyzstan's cities

As a result of government decentralization and property devolution from central to local governments, many city governments in transition countries became the largest real property owners in urban areas. For transitional countries lacking sufficient democratic traditions, efficient asset management represents a dramatic and multifaceted challenge. Kyrgyzstan happened to be among the first transitional countries where cities obtained systematic technical assistance in adapting the most advanced methodology of municipal asset management, which was recently developed under the auspices of the World Bank. Based on experience of work within five pilot cities, the article summarizes factors and methods that help develop a sense of strong ownership and internalization of new asset management vision and approaches among local officials and elected members of city councils. The article presents the experience of how the government of Uzgen, a city of about 40,000 people in South Kyrgyzstan, has changed its attitudes and approach regarding management of municipal property. The article demonstrates how two key processes—improving professional aspects of municipal asset management and developing local democracy though public involvement—have been reinforced by each other. One of the main lessons from Uzgen's experience is that municipal property asset management—because it deals with tangible issues—is a perfect focal point for developing local democracy and communication between a local population and its government. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Turnover among City Managers: The Role of Political and Economic Change

Executive turnover can have profound effects on city policies, programs, and commitments such as contracting or issuing debt. This article identifies how political changes, reflected in the composition of the city council, and economic changes in the community influence city manager turnover. Analysis of manager turnover patterns in 143 large U.S. cities with council-manager governments from 1987 to 1999 allows us to distinguish "push" and "pull" factors that can induce city managers to leave their jobs. The empirical analysis demonstrates that political conflict and economic development can influence the likelihood that a city manager will exit a community, but these effects can be complex. In particular, the influence of community economic development on turnover includes a temporal dimension not revealed in previous research. We conclude by discussing the findings' implications for career patterns in city management.     

Evaluating Capital Management: A New Approach

The objective of this article is to develop a methodology for evaluating capital management performance. We have employed a new methodology, fuzzy rule–based systems (FRBS), that allows evaluators to break down complex systems into manageable components. FRBS can also use a variety of data types by converting data into ordinal input measures that are not overly sensitive to small measurement errors. In developing an overall performance measure, the evaluator under an FRBS creates explicit rules for combining inputs that can reflect the complex contextual judgments commonly made by evaluators. Using survey data on 35 large American cities from the Government Performance Project, we develop an FRBS for city capital management.     

Long–Serving City Managers: Practical Application of the Academic Literature

The authors identified 146 city managers who have served in the same city for the past 20 years and asked them to complete a survey to determine the factors leading to their long service. As a part of the survey, the city managers were invited to express, in their own words, the reasons they had stayed in the same city for such an extended time compared to the average tenure for city managers. In the article that follows, the authors quote from the academic literature statements pertaining to practical issues of concern to city managers and the elected officials for whom they work, giving credence to the applicability of the academic literature to today's city management profession. Following the quotations from the literature, the authors present the heartfelt reflections of these senior city managers on their long careers in public service.     

The Roles of Local Government Managers in Theory and Practice: A Centennial Perspective

The standard narrative to explain the evolution of roles filled by city managers suggests that managers originally served as administrative technicians who carried out the policy directives of city councils, but, over time, they became more involved in policy advice and community leadership. This article documents enduring involvement in policy and the recent expansion of community leadership, analyzing definitions of the manager's roles offered by practitioners and scholars since the beginning of the city manager profession 100 years ago. In addition, measurements of the manager's role performance at various points in time are examined, along with trends in the preparation of managers and the context in which they work. Ignoring the evidence that the policy role is integral to professional management can lead to unfounded questions about the legitimacy of city and county managers and impairs our understanding of the council‐manager form of government and political–administrative relations.     

单位化背景下的乡村关系——杨村调查

本文在简单回顾乡村关系制度变迁的基础上，考察了BJ市城乡结合部农村单位化现象，探讨了在单位化背景下乡村关系的表现形态及其意义。文章认为，改革开放以来，中国农村出现了两种倾向，一种是以个体经营为主的分散农户的原子化，而另一种倾向是以集体经营为主的村民单位化。在单位化乡村社区，村民的地缘意识、血缘意识在下降，而单位意识在提升和凸显。在城市化进程中，单位化了的村民担心自己被排斥在单位体制之外，而小心呵护着单位与村民之间的庇护与被庇护关系。本文的基本结论是，在单位化村庄中，乡村关系表现为单位体制下的上下级关系，具有强烈的行政色彩，村民自治的自治空间因此变得极为有限。     

TRANSLATING DEVELOPMENT AID INTO CITY MANAGEMENT: THE BARRIO ACAHUALINCA INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME IN MANAGUA,NICARAGUA

This article seeks to understand how development aid is translated into city management practice in the global South and the implications of this for the power dynamics between municipal governments and international aid agencies. The study examines La Chureca, the rubbish dump and slum of Managua, Nicaragua, and its regeneration programme, the Barrio Acahualinca Integrated Development Programme. In the article, we explore the formulation and initial implementation of the Programme in terms of the construction of an action net in which, by a chain of translations, the Programme was transformed from an aid programme managed by international aid organisations into the management practice of the city of Managua. Despite the silent infiltration of important issues brought to the municipal political agenda by the development aid programme, small acts of defiance and resistance were also enacted by local actors who twisted the Programme to fit local needs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

北京防治非典型肺炎应急预案的行政学评析

为了实现对传染性非典型肺炎的可持续控制,防止今冬明春疫情反复,北京市制定了应急预案.本文从行政学的视角对该预案进行案例性质的评析,以求对其他地区、部门或系统制定和完善类似的危机管理预案,提供学理上的启发和参考.     

Activity-Based Costing in Government: Possibilities and Pitfalls

Activity-based costing (ABC) is at the center of the larger management perspective known as activity-based management, or ABM. Despite its popularity in the literature, relatively little is still known about the details of ABC, especially in government circles. There are many unanswered questions relating to the details of how to go about implementing ABC, its possible uses, and its costs and benefits. Indeed, it is still unclear to many whether it is even appropriate to use ABC in government, given the reality that many governmental programs do not sell their services This article attempts to address these concerns by presenting the conceptual underpinnings and details of ABC, contrasting the system with more traditional cost accounting systems, discussing the fit of ABC in government, and considering in some detail how one small city might benefit from implementing ABC.     

Learning from Experience? Ottawa as a Cautionary Tale of Reforming Urban Government

This article examines the saga of local government restructuring in Canada's capital city. Specifically, it analyzes the interplay between provincial and local agendas for local government reform over many years, which culminated in provincial legislation and a one-year transition process to establish one municipality for the Ottawa city region. In doing so, the article addresses the extent to which the Ottawa transition demonstrates learning from other major urban restructuring efforts and the extent to which the Ottawa case provides new insights for future local government reform efforts. Key conclusions are that the key motivation for provincially initiated reform—cost saving through simplification of the local government structure in Ottawa—does not fully coincide with local needs and interests. Furthermore, the promise of financial savings has proven difficult to realize as a result of the local politics surrounding existing municipal debt and unresolved human resource management costs. Instead, future benefits from the amalgamation may lie in improved capacity to manage physical development, environmental sustainability, and cultural diversity.     

Why is it so hard to help central city schools?

Many states have implemented educational grant systems designed to provide more aid to school districts that are, by some standard, in greater need. Nevertheless, many if not most central city school systems continue to produce poor educational outcomes, as measured, for example, by test scores and dropout rates. Using data from New York State, this article asks why existing aid formulas fail to provide the assistance that central city school districts need to bring their educational outcomes up to reasonable standards. Two principal explanations are explored: the failure of existing aid programs to recognize the high cost of providing education in central cities and the possibility that aid simply makes central cities less efficient without raising educational outcomes. The article presents aid programs that account for costs, but shows that these revised programs will do little to help central cities without at least one politically unpopular provision, namely a large state budget or a high required local property tax rate. The article also estimates the extent to which increased aid to central cities leads to their less efficient operation, thereby undermining the objective of improved educational outcomes for central city students. The article concludes by listing the steps that a state can take to help central city schools and by discussing the yet unresolved problems that arise in helping these districts.     

The politics of landscape as ways of life in the ‘divided’ city: reflections from Mostar,Bosnia–Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

‘Divided’ cities – places of extreme exclusion and polarization – are sites where the paradox of both fragmentary and cosmopolitan capacity of the city comes to the fore. This article asks: What practices-in-landscape consolidate, construct and deconstruct the impression of a divided city? Drawing insights from the post-conflict Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main argument I put forward is that urban infrastructures are a crucial medium through which social divisions and cohesions are performed and rearticulated on the ground. The article attends to the everyday of youth in Mostar turning to the politics of landscape as ways of life in the city.     

MANAGING IN NETWORK SETTINGS

The focus of this article is on managing networks. A network knowledge base is developed from the authors' studies of city government involvement in economic development, management within rural enterprises and the evaluation of a rural strategic planning project. Other public management network analyses are also incorporated. Management in network settings is not based on central authority and cannot be guided by a single organizational goal as is the case in the classical management approach. Management involves managing flexible structures toward collective efficiency. The ability to manage is related to the internal condition of the manager's primary organization. It involves technical, legal, political and cost dimensions. It requires different capacities, skills and knowledge from that of single organization management. The next steps in the research would include the development of the skills needed, an analysis of the role of organizational power and the operational variables of networks, the issue of network cohesion, and the question of loss of control or difficulty in assessing network accountability.     

Governance Forms in Urban Public-Private Partnerships

The article starts a conversation in the literature about the governance structures of certain kinds of collaboratives in public management: public-private partnerships. The findings come from the study of implemented partnerships for regeneration and management of city centres in the U.S. (Business Improvement Districts) and U.K. (Town Centre Management), and the introduction of urban regime theory. A three-ideal typology is built up, concerning the roles played by structures/design of the partnership, legal frameworks, incentives, evolution, competition, governance structures, and the ways all of these evolve. The conclusion is that public-private partnerships are constantly evolving and may assume “variable geometries” in response to the form of governance dominating their internal arrangements. Partnerships may be of various kinds: symbolic partnerships, in which hierarchical governance predominates; instrumental partnerships, which obey market rules; organic partnerships, where the predominant form of governance is network-based. The kind of PPP employed affects how the relationship between public and private organisations is managed.     

Grassroots practices of citizenship and politicization in the urban: the case of right to the city initiatives in Barcelona

This article aims to produce an analysis of the politicization of the citizens after Spain’s Indignados movement from a citizenship framework. The article suggests that claiming the right to the city involves more than issues of access to urban amenities: it is also about claiming the right to participate in the formation and transformation of the city and the right to appropriate the city center. This positions these rights within the larger issue of citizenship by defining it as a collective practice rather than a state-sanctioned status. Our analysis is based on the empirical evidence derived from the semi-structured interviews, politicians’ speeches, information based on media resources and official websites, and participant observation during three months of fieldwork in Barcelona in 2016.     

From plan to network: Urban elites and the post-communist organisational state in Russia

Abstract. This article uses the results from formal network analysis to test hypotheses about the character of Russia's post-communist transition, taking decision-making elites at the sub-national level as the unit of analysis. From the transition literature, the hypothesis generated is that city politics retains elements of its pre-democratic structure; from the urban regime theory, the hypothesis generated is that the elites' structure will show elements of convergence to a Western type, with the prominence of actors from the private sector. The data is drawn from a survey of elites in one city, Novosibirsk, undertaken in 1997. The results show that the membership and structure of the network has some similar characteristics to a Western city. Rather than being purely dominated by bureaucratic elites, the private sector plays a role. The private sector actors are grouped with the public sector actors, though they are not, however, equal partners to the networks as its members do not appear among the most networked in the city. We conclude that the legacy of the past may not be as much a constraint as the transition literature supposes.     

Long-Term Capital Management and the sociology of arbitrage

Arbitrage is a key process in the practice of financial markets and in their theoretical depiction: it allows markets to be posited as efficient without all investors being assumed to be rational. This article explores the sociology of arbitrage by means of an examination of the arbitrageurs, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). LTCM's 1998 crisis is analysed using both qualitative, interview-based data and quantitative examination of price movements. It is suggested that the roots of the crisis lay in an unstable pattern of imitation that had developed in the markets within which LTCM operated. As the resulting 'superportfolio' began to unravel, arbitrageurs other than LTCM fled the market, even as arbitrage opportunities became more attractive, causing huge price movements against LTCM. Three features of the sociology of arbitrage are discussed: its conduct by people often personally known to each other; the possibility and consequences of imitation; and the limits on the capacity of arbitrage to close price discrepancies. It is suggested that by 1998 imitative arbitrage formed a 'global microstructure' in the sense of Knorr Cetina and Bruegger.     

Public Capital Investment and Economic Growth in Forth Worth: The Implications for Public Budgeting and Infrastructure Management

There is a common assumption that local government investment in infrastructure stimulates private development. This article examines relationships in one southwestern city between public capital spending and city infrastructure assets and private economic activity as measured by building permit activity, permit values, and assessed property valuations. Two research questions are examined: (1) Is public investment in new capital associated with private capital formation? and (2) Is public investment associated with improvements in the property tax base? The findings hold implications for infrastructure planning, budgeting, and management. First, public and private capital spending patterns varied in tandem across several cycles, and tracking such cycles may help public managers predict short- and mid-term infrastructure needs. Second, utility capital spending is critically related to private capital formation, and may offer higher fiscal returns than other public infrastructure. Third, infrastructure capital had a strong significant effect on the assessed value of urban property, and will therefore influence the property tax base.