Description
Case Study for the Managerial Work of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis:- Managerial Work of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis
Case Study for the Managerial Work of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis
ABSTRACT Among the measures taken to reform local government in Italy, one of the most significant is the introduction of the post of city manager. In this paper we outline the personal and professional traits of city managers in today's Italy. The study provides a snapshot of a situation marked by increasing dynamism, but still with a certain degree of conservatism. A picture emerges of a manager with multiple roles, spending most time within the organisation and whose work seems typically orientated towards internal stakeholders rather than external constituencies. However, the changing role of municipalities in the Italian context poses new challenges and these will probably in?uence the evolution of the content of the managers' work. KEY WORDS: City manager, managerial work, Italy, local government reforms, community governance
Introduction Local governments in Continental Europe traditionally adopted the working principles of the so-called 'ideal type' bureaucracy as the organisational model for their administrative machines (Weber, 1921). However, various dysfunctions and inefciencies of this organisational model have surfaced over the past twenty years and reform processes have been introduced in Europe and also in the USA (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). These processes provided the backdrop for both the Reinventing Govern- ment wave and the New Public Management (NPM) approach: labels used to identify the introduction of a series of actions and principles focused on achieving concrete results (in terms of service quality and functional efciency) in the public sector (Hood, 1991; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992).
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In Italy, too, local governments have undergone a profound reform process that took the name of aziendalizzazione (managerialism). This has encompassed the formulation of many legal provisions aimed at introducing managerial principles and thinking into the inner workings of munici- palities, and at increasing cities' financial autonomy and accountability (see Borgonovi, 2004; Steccolini, 2004). One of the many levers and measures for renewing government at local level has been the introduction of a new post in the organisational chart of the municipality: the post of city manager. City managers were conceived both as heads of the administration and as a crucial link between elected ofcials and city department heads (dirigenti) (Klausen & Magnier, 1998). In this perspective, the aim of this paper is to illustrate the nature of the work of modern Italian city managers. 1 For this purpose, we present the main findings of an exploratory survey that was administered among top executives (i.e. city managers) in 110 Italian provincial capital cities. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section brie?y illustrates how local government reforms were implemented in Italy, outlining the legal framework and the administrative culture within which the introduction of the role of city manager has taken place. The second section presents the theoretical background. Then, based on the main issues emerging from the literature, in the third section we highlight the empirical findings of the study, pointing out the main features of the managerial work of Italian city managers. Issues emerging from the study are discussed in the fourth and final section, and we highlight some of the common challenges faced by local governments which will probably impact the content of the work of city managers. Local Government Reforms in Italy The Italian public sector is divided into four levels of government: central government; twenty regions (Regioni) - the intermediate subnational govern- ments with strong legislative power; provinces (Province); and municipalities (Comuni). Provinces and municipalities (consisting of more than 8000 Comuni and about 110 Province) make up Italy's two-layer local government system. Each municipality has a mayor, an executive Cabinet, a city council and an administrative body. The mayor is the head of the executive branch, is elected directly by the citizens (as are the city councillors) and appoints the members of the Cabinet, who are not necessarily elected by the citizens. Italian local governments can be considered a type of local government system based on the 'strong mayor' format 2 and which is rooted in a Rechtsstaat administrative culture where the legalistic bureaucratic traditions of a 'Napoleonic' heritage are still alive (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002). The history of public administration in Italy can be viewed as the history of the progressive institutionalisation of a hegemonic paradigm based upon administrative law (Capano, 2003: 785): this often prompted high formalism - a consequence of the predominance of juridical culture - and an extreme
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fragmentation of ofces and duties. This peculiarity often represented an obstacle to the implementation of administrative and managerial reforms. However, this culture has been partly reshaped by the recent introduction of some managerial thinking and tools, 'generating an original mix of managerial practices and those based on the traditional legalistic Napoleonic- type culture' (Ongaro, 2002: 76). From the early 1990s, many functions and powers were transferred from national to local governments and some changes in their financial system (i.e. increasing taxation powers at local level) were also introduced. This modernisation trend started with the Local Government Autonomy Law (Act no. 142/90), which imposed a redefinition of local government administrative structures: many other reform laws3 followed in the 1990s, which profoundly impacted on the civil service system (Cristofoli et al., 2007), on the budgeting, accounting and auditing systems (Caperchione, 2003) and on the structure of governance in municipalities and provinces (see Magnier, 2004; Grossi & Mussari, 2008). Despite the overall fragmented nature of these reforms, we can identify autonomy, accountability and managerialism as the main principles that stimulated legislative intervention (Borgonovi, 2004). However, it must be stated that these declared principles were introduced by means of regulations imposed by central government by decree (Panozzo, 2000). Early results seem to indicate a multifaceted picture that combines the paradox of modernisation imposed by law and achieved with delay by pilot schemes that feature the application of some postmanagerial thinking. Within this framework, the Bassanni Act (no. 12/1997) introduced a very important change in the organisation of the administrative leadership of local governments. The Act modified the functions and position of the general secretaries4 (the traditional 'warrantors' of the legality and conformity of administrative acts) and introduced the role of city manager, allowing cities with more than 15,000 residents to appoint a city manager, 'who enacts the aims and objectives set down by the local government's governing body in accordance with the directives approved by the Mayor of the municipality and who supervises managerial activities, striving for optimal levels of efectiveness and efciency' (Act no. 12/1997, Art. 6). The city manager - appointed by the mayor - could be either a separate person to the general secretary or the general secretary himself who, in this case, was allocated an additional task (and additional remuneration) to perform as the chief executive ofcer of the city. The profile of a city manager outlined in the Act was completely diferent from the general secretary's. City managers were required to implement policy programmes on the basis of a detailed budget (piano degli obiettivi). They were to negotiate budget operational objectives with other public managers in charge of the functioning of the administrative branches of the municipality. General secretaries, however, maintained their role as advisors on the legal conformance of local government operations (Valotti, 2000: 182).
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Ten years after the approval of the law, it is interesting to note that the diference between newly appointed city managers (with a more managerial- orientated background) and general secretaries (empowered and trained to work as city managers) is practically negligible (Sancino, 2008). General secretaries, who traditionally have a bureaucratic approach to local government activities, have found themselves working in a completely diferent professional context. The need to acquire new managerial skills, the evolution of professional qualifications of senior civil servants, the greater financial and organisational autonomy granted to local authorities have prompted most secretaries to take on functions with 'managerial' content, moving beyond the ofcial boundaries of their job description (see Gamberucci & Magnier, 1998; Capano & Vassallo, 2003). In concrete terms, whether the role is covered by a newly contracted executive or by a tenured general secretary acting as the city manager, this public chief executive ofcer is currently responsible for duties that are typical of a manager. In fact, the primary responsibility is to lead the top management team of the municipality. In doing so, the city manager draws up a detailed set of goals and resources that are negotiated with the directors of diferent sectors or areas (dirigenti). When tackled proactively, this role expands to include certain tasks typical of the public sector (for instance, working to support governance bodies in charting the aims and crafting the political strategies of the administration), becoming a critical nexus between politics and management, and a key liaison in the process of translating political strategies into projects and 'corporate' plans of action. The Managerial Work of the City Manager: Theoretical Background Management literature has long focused on descriptions that summarise the most common aspects of managers' work, despite the fact that any attempt at generalisation falls short, due to numerous variables like job sector, geographical location and personal traits. The first significant studies on the subject described the activities undertaken by a 'typical' manager as consisting of planning, organizing, stafng, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting (Gulick, 1937; Fayol, 1949), or the diferent roles played by a manager within the context of an organisation (Barnard, 1947). A later study by Mintzberg (1971) shifted the axis of the analysis on to the real content of managerial work, focusing on the brief, fragmented and varied nature of the manager's activities; attention to day-to-day problems rather than future ones; a preference for verbal information; and participation in broad and diferent networks of actors. By way of an overall description, managers find themselves involved in three main roles: . an interpersonal role, where they act as leader, handling the network of internal relationships and serving as figurehead;
The Managerial Work of Italian City Managers . an information processing role, where they act as spokesperson, disseminator and catalyst for information to be processed and distributed throughout the organisation; . a decision-making role, where they act as entrepreneur, capable of making decisions regarding the allocation of resources.
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Other studies focused on how managers allocated their time, largely substantiating the job characteristics listed above. The resulting profile portrayed managers running meetings and undertaking activities pertaining to all departments, and having little time to make decisions as a matter of routine (Brewer & Tomlinson, 1964; Burns, 1957). The realisation that the tasks undertaken by managers are brief and fragmented has prompted some authors to calculate the efects of interruptions on the work of managers and on their overall performance (Seshadri & Shapira, 2001). In addressing the specific question of the work content of city managers in various countries, some other issues have emerged. Several authors have underlined the dissimilarities in context between the public and private sectors. In particular, the challenge of working under the pressure and protest of public opinion, the need to achieve collective objectives that do not necessarily coincide with those of the users, a work environment abounding in diferent stakeholders and networks, and the presence of various assessment criteria (i.e. administrative conformity, cost-efective- ness, political consensus) have been considered distinctive aspects of public managerial work (see Whorton & Worthley, 1981; Ranson & Stewart, 1994; Borgonovi, 2005; Feldman, 2005). While conceivable in theory and by casual empiricism, the private-public distinction argument has been confirmed only partially by empirical analysis (Dargie, 1998; Kearney et al., 2000). Dargie (1998) discovered analogies as well as diferences between the public sector chief executive's job and traditional management models, through the in-depth analysis of a week in the life of several local government chief executives in the UK. For example, the city manager's job shares the brevity, variety and fragmentation of traditional managerial work (Mintzberg, 1971) but there is a surprising diference in that city managers have more contact within the organisation than outside it and they devote less time to thinking or making strategic decisions than private managers (Dargie, 1998). Another issue emerging from the literature concerns the type of activities city managers typically carry out. One of the first classifications of the specific duties undertaken by a public sector manager was drawn up by Allan (1981), who grouped the tasks of public management into six main areas: human resource management; mediation, negotiation and relation- ship management; the management and dissemination of information; the ability to analyse laws, work processes and programmes; the ability to promote change; the ability to control and align processes toward the attainment of preset goals.
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These activities were later grouped into three main areas, specifically with regard to city managers per se: management activities, policy activities, political activities (Newell & Ammons, 1987). Management activities principally involve human resources management, general management and drawing up budgets, while policy activities mainly refer to supporting the political organ in choosing and developing public policy, as well as selecting the various options for the implementation of said policy. Political activities relate to maintaining ties with other levels of the institution, participating in public hearings, and activities involving relationships with external stakeholders in general. From this viewpoint, Newell and Ammons (1987) asked city managers which of these three roles was most crucial in order to be successful at their jobs. Data show that the policy role becomes substantially more important over time, while the political role becomes less so. However, this interpretation is not consistent with that of other authors who highlight a trend in the opposite direction (e.g. Nalbandian, 1999). Using Putnam's (1975) taxonomy, Klausen and Magnier (1998: 274) investigated perceptions of the CEO's various roles in 15 Western countries, based on the emphasis they themselves put on the various issues in their daily work. According to their findings, Southern European CEOs identify more with the role of the classical bureaucrat, whereas Scandinavian CEOs, notably the Danes, identify with the role of the political bureaucrat. An additional diferentiation in the work content of city managers highlighted in the literature relates more to the skills needed to carry out the functions of a city manager, rather than to the type of activities theseprofessionals perform. What emerges is a portrait of city managers capable of performing diferent roles and activities spanning an educational role (typical of managers who can provide information and suggestions to political bodies and the community), a listener's role (typical of an outward-looking city manager who attempts to understand problems and carries out various kinds of surveys or meetings with citizens), a facilitator's role (typical of a city manager focusing on problem solving and con?ict resolution), a subordinate role (typical of a city manager who reports to the mayor and the city council and respects their prerogatives), a leadership role (typical of a city manager who efectively manages the organisation, motivating employees) (Wheeland, 2000). Lastly, from the standpoint of the evolution of the role in terms of work content, once again a significant portion of the literature stresses the growing need for city managers to develop skills for communicating and relating to citizens and stakeholders, establishing and managing partner- ships, acting as community builders and becoming key points of reference for citizens (Nalbandian, 1999). Analysing the Work Content of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis In the previous section, we identified certain diferentiating aspects of the job content of city managers. On the basis of this framework, we conducted
The Managerial Work of Italian City Managers a survey aiming to describe the work content of Italian city managers. The following sections describe the results of our study. Concepts, Units of Analysis and Method of Data Collection
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The following logical sequence is used to define the work content of an Italian city manager. First, we illustrate the personal characteristics of city managers, so as to provide an overview of the sort of individuals who belong to the community of city managers. We outline the data relating to the aspects of a city manager's job, with specific reference to what was highlighted in previous empirical studies as important features of their work content. We investigate two major areas in particular: . in accordance with Dargie (1998), Mintzberg (1971, 1973), Newell and Ammons (1987), we portray the managerial work of Italian city managers based on the time they allocate to diferent activities during one week of their working life. We outline the data relating to the diferent aspects of a city manager's job, with specific reference to decision making, relationships and work content. . in accordance with Svara (1999), we investigate the degree of involvement of Italian city managers and their political counterparts (i.e. the mayor and the council) in implementing managerial and political tasks. The data analysed in this paper were collected between May 2006 and March 2007 by means of a structured questionnaire addressed to Italian city managers in provincial capitals. In particular, we surveyed contracted city managers, tenured general secretaries with the responsibilities of a city manager and, finally, general secretaries in cities where the role of city manager has not been established and who therefore represent the highest position in their municipalities. We chose to conduct our research in all provincial capital cities, due to the significance of the resulting sample, but also as we assumed that in provincial capitals the managerial content of the work is substantive. Additional considerations were ease of access to data, in order to strike a balance between the time needed and the cost of the survey, and the depth and accuracy of the analysis. The data were collected on the basis of 16 face- to-face interviews and 40 telephone interviews. Twenty-two questionnaires were received via fax or email, and the rate of participation in the study was 75 per cent. Findings: Personal Characteristics5 According to the data collected for this study (Table 1), the average age of city managers of provincial capital cities is 57. Ninety-two per cent are men. In terms of qualifications, the most common is a university degree in law,
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Table 1. Personal and professional characteristics of the city managers interviewed Characteristics Age and gender Qualification Type of university degree Previous position Seniority in the public sector Geographical mobility Mobility (years in the same public administration) Type of contract Average salary (gross) Motivation for working in public sector Results (percentage of respondents) 57, male (92) University degree (93) Law (56) In the public sector (95); Other public body (75) 29 years At least regional (62) Five years Open-term (60) e117,000 per annum Interest in work content (37)
held by 56 per cent of the interviewees; the remaining 44 per cent had a degree in business administration (14 per cent), political science (15 per cent) or another degree (8 per cent). Seven per cent of interviewees had two degrees. Italian city managers have been working in the public sector for an average of 29 years and have changed city administration six times before arriving at their present position. The city managers we interviewed changed city administration every five years, on average, before being given their present role. Almost twothirds (62 per cent) of interviewees had worked in diferent Italian Regions in their career. Only five per cent of city managers come directly from the private sector, despite the fact that 40 per cent claimed to have work experience in the private sector, albeit in diferent jobs (17 per cent managers, 27 per cent employees, 56 per cent self-employed). Only 21 per cent of city managers with a public sector background come from a career within the administration where they now act as city manager. Forty per cent of interviewees currently work with a fixed-term contract and 60 per cent have an open-term contract. The average gross annual salary is e117,000. Finally, a large number of the professionals we interviewed cited an interest in the specific tasks involved in the job or general interest in working for the good of the general public as reasons for choosing a job in the public sector. Nearly one-third of the city managers in our study stated that they had filled political positions in the past. Findings: Work Content Examining the content and characteristics of the work of city managers of provincial capitals, we noted a certain degree of intensity in their working life. Seventy-one per cent of city managers claimed to work over 50 hours a week, and one-third of these worked over 60 hours. Nearly all the interviewees stated that their work commitment spilled over into their
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private lives and more than 50 per cent stated that they very often worked at home on public administration tasks. Lack of time and fragmentation are two characteristics of business management (Mintzberg, 1971) that are also true of the public sector. Only 13 per cent of the city managers interviewed said they had ample time to re?ect on decisions, and the same percent age stated they could only find room for re?ection and analysis outside their administrative ofces. From this perspective, having little time to re?ect may partly explain the marked propensity for city managers to work at home on public administration tasks. Another factor which is similar to traditional management models has to do with the information base needed to make decisions. Regardless of the fact that written information has played a key role in safeguarding the principles of accessibility, legality and transparency in public administra- tion, and still does so to some extent, only 27 per cent of interviewees said they gave much more weight to written information than to verbal information. This confirms that there is also increasing 'de-bureaucratisa- tion' of managerial work in the public sector. Observing the characteristics of the work of Italian city managers, we note that the relational content of these professionals is extremely high. On average, 26 per cent of their time is dedicated to work done individually in their own ofces, while 74 per cent of their available time is spent in scheduled (39 per cent) and unscheduled (22 per cent) meetings and work- related phone calls (13 per cent). In addition, most professional relation- ships are established with players 'inside the administration': 75 per cent of a city manager's 'relational time' is dedicated to administrators (mayor, Cabinet and city council) (32 per cent) and administrative bodies (department heads and employees) (43 per cent). The remainder is spent with external stakeholders and allocated in almost equal parts to meetings with citizens and meetings with politicians or executives from other public administrations. The data show that city managers of provincial capital cities interact for onethird of their time with political representatives. Similarly to Alba and Navarro (2006: 301), who found that European mayors tend to spend on average at least seven hours per week in formal meetings with administrative staf, our findings highlighted that 62 per cent of the time devoted by Italian city managers to elected ofcials is spent with the mayor; the remaining time is devoted to members of the Cabinet (22 per cent) and with city councillors (16 per cent). These results seem to corroborate the central role of the mayor in Italian local governments, as the policy entrepreneur, the figurehead for organisational concerns, the broker of networks and, in general, the main in?uential person in the working activity of chief executive ofcers in Italian local government (Klausen & Magnier, 1998: 267). At the same time, the data stress the relatively minor role played by city councillors within the organisation, a finding that agrees with those of other studies that have
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pointed out the perceived growing impoverishment of city councils in terms of real capacity to exercise an efective steering role (Magnier, 2004; Denters, 2006). With regard to the time spent with employees (43 per cent), Italian city managers dedicate most of this time (83 per cent) to department heads (dirigenti). Italian city managers say they have too little time to interact directly with employees. The fundamental role of these top managers thus consists of disseminating information and guidelines to the lower levels of the organisation. Similarly to other studies (Dargie, 1998: 166), the present study found that Italian city managers claim daily involvement in at least twenty diferent tasks: therefore, skills such as delegating, selecting priorities, solving problems, motivating the team and creating a 'corporate identity' are clearly becoming 'core skills' for city managers. Italian law imposes a strict separation between politicians and manage- ment. In particular, the Italian legal framework requires politicians to set objectives and exercise a monitoring role, while management has full autonomy - obviously in accordance with the law - as to how they reach the objectives. To test the degree of separation stated by the law, city managers were asked about their involvement in three purely political/institutional activities (such as maintaining relationships with other levels of the institution), while politicians were asked about their involvement in three purely managerial activities (such as organising senior civil servants). The interviewees described a relationship with the political body marked by comprehensive collaboration/partnership as regards all the activities men- tioned above. Based on their statements, Table 2 shows a medium-high degree of involvement of city managers in purely political/institutional functions, while politicians seem to participate in managerial matters with a lower level of intensity (Table 3). As to the involvement of elected ofcials in managerial matters, it should be pointed out that only the members of the Cabinet (especially the mayor) reported having an involvement in the first two activities surveyed (Table 3), while both city councillors and the members of the Cabinet seem to play a central role in the budgeting process. In sum, the attempt of Italian legislators to pursue an efective separation of powers between politicians and management appears to be showing progress.
Table 2. The degree of involvement of city managers in political activities High involvement of city managers (percentage of city managers' answers) 39 50 74 Low or no involvement of city managers (percentage of city managers' answers) 61 50 26
Activities Resolving citizen complaints (P) Institutional networking (P) Developing strategies of future development of city (P) (P) political activity.
n 76 76 74
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Moving ahead with the analysis of the activities occupying the time of city managers, our study analysed the time allocated by Italian city managers to policy activities, political activities and management activities, comparing these findings with the results reported in Newell and Ammons (1987) and French (2005) (Table 4). Delving more deeply into the city manager's work content, again using findings from face-to-face interviews, four diverse main activities are apparent. Each relates to an inclination to focus one's time on diferent activities and tasks. The following specific orientations can be discerned: . monitoring: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to activities needed to take stock of the situation; . strategic governing: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to activities involved in making important decisions; . action on demand: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to requests from administrators and executives; . external projection: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to public relations or participating in public events. We found that taking charge of strategic decisions and handling relation- ships with the public (external projection) are priorities for a minority of city
Table 3. The degree of involvement of politicians in management activities High involvement of elected representatives (percentage of politicians' answers) 8 8 41 Low or no involvement of elected representatives (percentage of politicians' answers) 92 92 59
Activities Handling complaints and con?icts among employees (M) Organising senior civil servants (M) Budget process (M) (M) managerial activity.
n 76 76 76
Table 4. The time allocated to performing policy, political and management activities: a comparison between Italian and US city managers Time allocated to perform the activities mentioned below (per cent) Policy activities Political activities Management activities Total n
a b
Italian city managers (2007) 33 13 54 100 77
US city managersa 32 17 51 100 142
US city managersb 30 13 57 100 271
Newell and Ammons (1987: 249). French (2005: 504).
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managers (only 18 per cent and 14 per cent of the sample, respectively). A clear majority has a monitoring orientation (40 per cent) and a significant portion of city managers (28 per cent) have agendas dictated primarily by requests from administrators or municipal executives (action on demand). An unequivocal determinant explaining why city managers adopt a given orientation cannot be pinpointed. Nonetheless, it is useful to observe how the 'monitoring' orientation is the most common among those who have previous experience in the private sector and those who have experienced a lower degree of job mobility or who work in the larger cities (over 100,000 residents) of northern and southern Italy. We must point out, however, that none of the aspects taken individually as independent variables provides an adequate explanation for the diferent ways of defining an agenda by city managers: chi-squared tests show no significant correlations among city managers' personal traits and their prevalent orientation in their managerial work. This corroborates the premises of the contingency stream in the study of managerial work (Mintzberg, 1973; Allan, 1981). Table 5 sums up the results of our research. The Work of Italian City Managers and the Future of City Management in Italy: Common Challenges? Innovation and the acquisition of managerial skills in local government provided the framework for debating the evolution of Italian municipalities throughout the 1990s. Today, this movement seems to have come to a standstill. In this context, the key players include city managers who are at the helm of local public administration and must navigate a complex transition entailing the redefining of their role and functions as well as methods for financing and managing human resources. The aim of this study was to answer certain questions: Who are the city managers of Italian provincial capitals? What is the content of their work?
Table 5. The work content of Italian city managers Characteristics Work intensity (per cent of answers) Time available for thinking (per cent of answers) Type of information for decision making (per cent of answers) Type of work (per cent of work time) Interlocutors (per cent of relational time) Involvement of politicians in managerial problems Involvement of city managers in political/ institutional problems Type of managerial activities (per cent of answers) Results More than 50 hours (71) Minimal (83) Not only written information (73) Relational (74) Internal (75) Low Medium/high Monitoring (40); Action on demand (28)
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The overall picture is of a group of professionals with signs of considerable conservatism as well as dynamism. Age, gender and back- ground seem to represent elements of conservatism and stagnation in managers in the public sector. Though none of the city managers interviewed expressed a purely bureaucratic interpretation of the role, what can be defined as the 'trap of bureaucratic managerialism' (i.e. the introduction of management practices that are adopted with a bureaucratic attitude) is always a possibility. On the whole, there appeared to be a wide spread of attitudes amongst managers who were in transition from taking up the managerial roles described above to understanding the needs that this function must satisfy. However, these factors should not overshadow more dynamic traits, such as: . professional mobility, corroborated by the fact that city managers have changed city administration on average six times before taking up their present position; . geographical mobility, seen in the fact that 62 per cent of the interviewees have moved to diferent job locations for their career, working in diferent Italian Regions; . a minority of single-city careerists (21 per cent), which could be due to the in?uence of administrative regulations relating to their career. 6 In general, the city managers in our study are professionals who carry out their activity in complex contexts where they have little time to make decisions, as is the case with business managers. What is more, they are part of a system of relationships and activities that embody the attributes of fragmentation and brevity, which Mintzberg (1971, 1973) ascribes to managerial work. Like other studies (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002: 102), this analysis of networking patterns also highlights how the mayor and department heads are the most important points of reference for Italian city managers, underscoring the city manager's role as a link between the political and administrative sectors. Furthermore, the picture emerging from the Italian case pinpoints some important analogies with the work of city managers in other countries (Dargie, 1998; Nalbandian, 1999; Svara, 1999). In particular, it is surprising how the time allocated by Italian city managers to policy, political and management activities is very similar to the time devoted to the same activities by US city managers (Newell & Ammons, 1987; French, 2005). Furthermore, the high degree of involvement of Italian city managers in political activities is consistent with the literature that emphasises a partnership model between politics and administration in managing local governments (Wheeland, 2000). In this regard, emphasis should be placed on the importance of the central relationship between the mayor and the city manager. Theoretically, this relationship could be considered as rooted in an
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Italian administrative culture close to the formal model developed by Peters (1987) in describing the relationship between administrators and politicians. Our research shows that it could be better described as a pendulum swinging between three out of four ideal types (autonomous administrator, responsive administrator, overlapping roles) that Moritzen and Svara (2002: 35-36) outline, depending on the diferent situations and the personality of the mayor. The analysis of the activities of Italian city managers also provided a profile of professionals involved principally in the administration's internal dynamics, dedicating most of their time to meetings and phone calls with politicians, administrative executives or employees. This gives substance to the view of a professional vocation focused primarily on the internal dynamics of the organisation in question. It also suggests that Italian city managers have probably considered controlling internal dynamics to be a more 'concrete' source of legitimisation for their role. However, if the original main motivation for the introduction of the role of city manager was really a quest for a more managerial approach to the internal organisation of municipalities, it should be emphasised that new challenges are now appearing in governing municipalities, especially in the Italian context. For example, the process of municipal corporatisation requires the development of new skills and orientations by city managers, because they have to steer and control their municipal corporatisation, as well as organizing the outsourcing of activities (Grossi & Reichard, 2008: 598). Furthermore, the growing lack of financial resources presses city managers to try out new organisational solutions. At the same time, globalisation and the growing crisis of local party politics push city managers towards more political leadership in community building and in the involvement of citizens and stakeholders in order to co-develop shared scenarios tailored to the peculiarities of each territory. The paradox is that if Italian city managers are still in a moment of transition in their projected transformation from bureaucrats into public managers, the definition of public management and city management in particular is continuously co- evolving with the new (and old) needs of society. In this perspective, it is reasonable to assume that the demand for more democratic accountability, the growing need to attract private financial resources in establishing public-private partnerships, the necessity to adapt the corporate governance mechanisms of local authorities to the new holding configuration, the higher demand by citizens in terms of quality in service delivery, the more attention to aspects such as the level of compliance with the citizen's charters and codes of ethics, and the generalsearch for higher standards of life, inter alia, are all aspects that will increasingly impact on city management in all countries. In this scenario, the efciency of the organisation becomes only a precondition, whilst high standards of life in an inclusive model of community governance will become the real goal for local government
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administration. In this context, the prevalent internal orientation of the work of the city manager does suggest a gap between an emphasis on local governance (e.g. Peters & Pierre, 1998; Bovaird et al., 2003) and the managerial behaviour of Italian city managers. On this topic, the evolution towards more community-orientated managerial work by Italian city managers could perhaps be fostered by a new alliance involving politicians, top management and citizens, based on high democratic accountability and reciprocal values (Svara, 2001: 179), as well as on the challenge (applying to city managers in all countries) to have part of the manager's pay rate depend on the level reached by indicators (Bovaird & Loe?er, 2003) measuring the quality of life in the city he or she manages. Notes
1 The term city managers refers to the chief executive ofcers (segretari generali and/or direttori generali) appointed by local governments in Italy. The Italian city manager is completely diferent from a US city manager: the Italian one has no executive power, which is in the hands of the mayor (Magnier, 2004). In particular, we must specify that the city manager in a 'council manager' form of government has a broader role than in the Italian case and is granted executive authority in the city charter (Howard & Sweeting, 2007). Furthermore, CEOs in the USA often work in non-partisan environments (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002). 2 Considering the institutions, the national cultures and the way political leadership is exercised, Mouritzen & Svara (2002: 55-56) distinguish between four forms of local government: the strong mayor form; the committee-leader form; the collective form; the council-manager form. 3 The contents of these reforms are now part of the current code of local government, called the 'Testo unico degli enti locali' (legislative decree 267/2000). 4 In Italy every local government must have a general secretary. The role of 'Segretario' changed to being a representative of the Internal Ministry from the fascist period onward, and this person was a preventive controller dedicated exclusively to guaranteeing the legitimacy of the institution. In particular, the Bassanini Act enlarged the role from a 'quiet supervisor' to a more active organisational leader. Now, the general secretary has a specific career path and is on a register of general secretaries appointed by the mayors (see Gamberucci & Magnier, 1998). 5 The data relating to the personal characteristics of city managers is intended as an average, as general secretaries and city managers have diferent types of contract and diferent career paths, as mentioned above. 6 A study conducted in the USA on 113 cities with over 100 000 residents found single-city careerists in 38 per cent of the public administrations (Watson & Hassett, 2004: 197).
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Mintzberg, H. (1973) The Nature of Managerial Work (New York: Harper and Row). Mouritzen, P.E. & Svara, J.H. (2002) Leadership at the Apex. Politicians and Administrators in Western Local Governments (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press). Nalbandian, J. (1999) Facilitating community, enabling democracy: new roles for local government managers, Public Administration Review, 59(3), pp.187-197. Newell, C. & Ammons, D.N. (1987) Role emphases of city managers and other municipal executives, Public Administration Review, 47(3), pp.246-253. Ongaro, E. (2002) Le caratteristiche del sistema politico-amministrativo italiano, in: C. Pollitt & G. Bouckaert (Eds) La riforma del management pubblico, pp.74-77 (Milano: Universita` Bocconi). Osborne, D. & Gaebler, T. (1992) Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley). Panozzo, F. (2000) Management by decree. Paradoxes in the reform of the Italian public sector, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 16(4), pp.357-373. Peters, B.G. (1987) Politicians and bureaucrats in the politics of policy-making, in: J.E. Lane (Ed.) Bureaucracy and Public Choice, pp.256-282 (London: Sage Publications). Peters, G.B. & Pierre, J. (1998) Governance without government? Rethinking public administration, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 8(2), pp.223-243. Pollitt, C. & Bouckaert, G. (2004) Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Putnam, R.D. (1975) The political attitude of senior civil servants in Britain, Germany and Italy, in: M. Dogan (Ed.) The Mandarins of Western Europe. The Political Role of Top Civil Servants, pp.87-128 (New York: Halsted Press Book). Ranson, S. & Stewart, J. (1994) Managing in the Public Domain: Enabling the Learning Society (Basingstoke: Macmillan). Sancino, A. (2008) Le caratteristiche del lavoro del city manager: una ricerca esplorativa, Azienda Pubblica, 21(2-3), pp.235-237. Seshadri, S. & Shapira, Z. (2001) Managerial allocation of time and efort: the efects of interruptions, Management Science, 47(5), pp.647-662. Steccolini, I. (2004) Is the annual report an accountability medium? An empirical investigation into Italian local governments, Financial Accountability & Management, 20(3), pp.327-350. Svara, J.H. (1999) The shifting boundary between elected ofcials and city managers in large council-manager cities, Public Administration Review, 59(1), pp.44-53. Svara, J.H. (2001) The myth of the dichotomy: complementarity of politics and administration in the past and future of public administration, Public Administration Review, 61(2), pp.176- 183. Valotti, G. (2000) La riforma delle autonomie locali: dal sistema all'azienda (Milano: Egea). Watson, D.J. & Hassett, W.L. (2004) Career paths of city managers in America's largest council-manager cities, Public Administration Review, 64(2), pp.192-199. Weber, M. (1921) Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tu¨bingen: Mohr). Wheeland, C.M. (2000) City management in the 1990s, Administration & Society, 32(3), pp.255281. Whorton, J.W. & Worthley, J.A. (1981) A perspective on the challenge of public management: environmental paradox and organizational culture, The Academy of Management Review, 6(3), pp.357-361.
doc_284122341.docx
Case Study for the Managerial Work of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis:- Managerial Work of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis
Case Study for the Managerial Work of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis
ABSTRACT Among the measures taken to reform local government in Italy, one of the most significant is the introduction of the post of city manager. In this paper we outline the personal and professional traits of city managers in today's Italy. The study provides a snapshot of a situation marked by increasing dynamism, but still with a certain degree of conservatism. A picture emerges of a manager with multiple roles, spending most time within the organisation and whose work seems typically orientated towards internal stakeholders rather than external constituencies. However, the changing role of municipalities in the Italian context poses new challenges and these will probably in?uence the evolution of the content of the managers' work. KEY WORDS: City manager, managerial work, Italy, local government reforms, community governance
Introduction Local governments in Continental Europe traditionally adopted the working principles of the so-called 'ideal type' bureaucracy as the organisational model for their administrative machines (Weber, 1921). However, various dysfunctions and inefciencies of this organisational model have surfaced over the past twenty years and reform processes have been introduced in Europe and also in the USA (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). These processes provided the backdrop for both the Reinventing Govern- ment wave and the New Public Management (NPM) approach: labels used to identify the introduction of a series of actions and principles focused on achieving concrete results (in terms of service quality and functional efciency) in the public sector (Hood, 1991; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992).
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In Italy, too, local governments have undergone a profound reform process that took the name of aziendalizzazione (managerialism). This has encompassed the formulation of many legal provisions aimed at introducing managerial principles and thinking into the inner workings of munici- palities, and at increasing cities' financial autonomy and accountability (see Borgonovi, 2004; Steccolini, 2004). One of the many levers and measures for renewing government at local level has been the introduction of a new post in the organisational chart of the municipality: the post of city manager. City managers were conceived both as heads of the administration and as a crucial link between elected ofcials and city department heads (dirigenti) (Klausen & Magnier, 1998). In this perspective, the aim of this paper is to illustrate the nature of the work of modern Italian city managers. 1 For this purpose, we present the main findings of an exploratory survey that was administered among top executives (i.e. city managers) in 110 Italian provincial capital cities. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section brie?y illustrates how local government reforms were implemented in Italy, outlining the legal framework and the administrative culture within which the introduction of the role of city manager has taken place. The second section presents the theoretical background. Then, based on the main issues emerging from the literature, in the third section we highlight the empirical findings of the study, pointing out the main features of the managerial work of Italian city managers. Issues emerging from the study are discussed in the fourth and final section, and we highlight some of the common challenges faced by local governments which will probably impact the content of the work of city managers. Local Government Reforms in Italy The Italian public sector is divided into four levels of government: central government; twenty regions (Regioni) - the intermediate subnational govern- ments with strong legislative power; provinces (Province); and municipalities (Comuni). Provinces and municipalities (consisting of more than 8000 Comuni and about 110 Province) make up Italy's two-layer local government system. Each municipality has a mayor, an executive Cabinet, a city council and an administrative body. The mayor is the head of the executive branch, is elected directly by the citizens (as are the city councillors) and appoints the members of the Cabinet, who are not necessarily elected by the citizens. Italian local governments can be considered a type of local government system based on the 'strong mayor' format 2 and which is rooted in a Rechtsstaat administrative culture where the legalistic bureaucratic traditions of a 'Napoleonic' heritage are still alive (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002). The history of public administration in Italy can be viewed as the history of the progressive institutionalisation of a hegemonic paradigm based upon administrative law (Capano, 2003: 785): this often prompted high formalism - a consequence of the predominance of juridical culture - and an extreme
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fragmentation of ofces and duties. This peculiarity often represented an obstacle to the implementation of administrative and managerial reforms. However, this culture has been partly reshaped by the recent introduction of some managerial thinking and tools, 'generating an original mix of managerial practices and those based on the traditional legalistic Napoleonic- type culture' (Ongaro, 2002: 76). From the early 1990s, many functions and powers were transferred from national to local governments and some changes in their financial system (i.e. increasing taxation powers at local level) were also introduced. This modernisation trend started with the Local Government Autonomy Law (Act no. 142/90), which imposed a redefinition of local government administrative structures: many other reform laws3 followed in the 1990s, which profoundly impacted on the civil service system (Cristofoli et al., 2007), on the budgeting, accounting and auditing systems (Caperchione, 2003) and on the structure of governance in municipalities and provinces (see Magnier, 2004; Grossi & Mussari, 2008). Despite the overall fragmented nature of these reforms, we can identify autonomy, accountability and managerialism as the main principles that stimulated legislative intervention (Borgonovi, 2004). However, it must be stated that these declared principles were introduced by means of regulations imposed by central government by decree (Panozzo, 2000). Early results seem to indicate a multifaceted picture that combines the paradox of modernisation imposed by law and achieved with delay by pilot schemes that feature the application of some postmanagerial thinking. Within this framework, the Bassanni Act (no. 12/1997) introduced a very important change in the organisation of the administrative leadership of local governments. The Act modified the functions and position of the general secretaries4 (the traditional 'warrantors' of the legality and conformity of administrative acts) and introduced the role of city manager, allowing cities with more than 15,000 residents to appoint a city manager, 'who enacts the aims and objectives set down by the local government's governing body in accordance with the directives approved by the Mayor of the municipality and who supervises managerial activities, striving for optimal levels of efectiveness and efciency' (Act no. 12/1997, Art. 6). The city manager - appointed by the mayor - could be either a separate person to the general secretary or the general secretary himself who, in this case, was allocated an additional task (and additional remuneration) to perform as the chief executive ofcer of the city. The profile of a city manager outlined in the Act was completely diferent from the general secretary's. City managers were required to implement policy programmes on the basis of a detailed budget (piano degli obiettivi). They were to negotiate budget operational objectives with other public managers in charge of the functioning of the administrative branches of the municipality. General secretaries, however, maintained their role as advisors on the legal conformance of local government operations (Valotti, 2000: 182).
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Ten years after the approval of the law, it is interesting to note that the diference between newly appointed city managers (with a more managerial- orientated background) and general secretaries (empowered and trained to work as city managers) is practically negligible (Sancino, 2008). General secretaries, who traditionally have a bureaucratic approach to local government activities, have found themselves working in a completely diferent professional context. The need to acquire new managerial skills, the evolution of professional qualifications of senior civil servants, the greater financial and organisational autonomy granted to local authorities have prompted most secretaries to take on functions with 'managerial' content, moving beyond the ofcial boundaries of their job description (see Gamberucci & Magnier, 1998; Capano & Vassallo, 2003). In concrete terms, whether the role is covered by a newly contracted executive or by a tenured general secretary acting as the city manager, this public chief executive ofcer is currently responsible for duties that are typical of a manager. In fact, the primary responsibility is to lead the top management team of the municipality. In doing so, the city manager draws up a detailed set of goals and resources that are negotiated with the directors of diferent sectors or areas (dirigenti). When tackled proactively, this role expands to include certain tasks typical of the public sector (for instance, working to support governance bodies in charting the aims and crafting the political strategies of the administration), becoming a critical nexus between politics and management, and a key liaison in the process of translating political strategies into projects and 'corporate' plans of action. The Managerial Work of the City Manager: Theoretical Background Management literature has long focused on descriptions that summarise the most common aspects of managers' work, despite the fact that any attempt at generalisation falls short, due to numerous variables like job sector, geographical location and personal traits. The first significant studies on the subject described the activities undertaken by a 'typical' manager as consisting of planning, organizing, stafng, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting (Gulick, 1937; Fayol, 1949), or the diferent roles played by a manager within the context of an organisation (Barnard, 1947). A later study by Mintzberg (1971) shifted the axis of the analysis on to the real content of managerial work, focusing on the brief, fragmented and varied nature of the manager's activities; attention to day-to-day problems rather than future ones; a preference for verbal information; and participation in broad and diferent networks of actors. By way of an overall description, managers find themselves involved in three main roles: . an interpersonal role, where they act as leader, handling the network of internal relationships and serving as figurehead;
The Managerial Work of Italian City Managers . an information processing role, where they act as spokesperson, disseminator and catalyst for information to be processed and distributed throughout the organisation; . a decision-making role, where they act as entrepreneur, capable of making decisions regarding the allocation of resources.
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Other studies focused on how managers allocated their time, largely substantiating the job characteristics listed above. The resulting profile portrayed managers running meetings and undertaking activities pertaining to all departments, and having little time to make decisions as a matter of routine (Brewer & Tomlinson, 1964; Burns, 1957). The realisation that the tasks undertaken by managers are brief and fragmented has prompted some authors to calculate the efects of interruptions on the work of managers and on their overall performance (Seshadri & Shapira, 2001). In addressing the specific question of the work content of city managers in various countries, some other issues have emerged. Several authors have underlined the dissimilarities in context between the public and private sectors. In particular, the challenge of working under the pressure and protest of public opinion, the need to achieve collective objectives that do not necessarily coincide with those of the users, a work environment abounding in diferent stakeholders and networks, and the presence of various assessment criteria (i.e. administrative conformity, cost-efective- ness, political consensus) have been considered distinctive aspects of public managerial work (see Whorton & Worthley, 1981; Ranson & Stewart, 1994; Borgonovi, 2005; Feldman, 2005). While conceivable in theory and by casual empiricism, the private-public distinction argument has been confirmed only partially by empirical analysis (Dargie, 1998; Kearney et al., 2000). Dargie (1998) discovered analogies as well as diferences between the public sector chief executive's job and traditional management models, through the in-depth analysis of a week in the life of several local government chief executives in the UK. For example, the city manager's job shares the brevity, variety and fragmentation of traditional managerial work (Mintzberg, 1971) but there is a surprising diference in that city managers have more contact within the organisation than outside it and they devote less time to thinking or making strategic decisions than private managers (Dargie, 1998). Another issue emerging from the literature concerns the type of activities city managers typically carry out. One of the first classifications of the specific duties undertaken by a public sector manager was drawn up by Allan (1981), who grouped the tasks of public management into six main areas: human resource management; mediation, negotiation and relation- ship management; the management and dissemination of information; the ability to analyse laws, work processes and programmes; the ability to promote change; the ability to control and align processes toward the attainment of preset goals.
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These activities were later grouped into three main areas, specifically with regard to city managers per se: management activities, policy activities, political activities (Newell & Ammons, 1987). Management activities principally involve human resources management, general management and drawing up budgets, while policy activities mainly refer to supporting the political organ in choosing and developing public policy, as well as selecting the various options for the implementation of said policy. Political activities relate to maintaining ties with other levels of the institution, participating in public hearings, and activities involving relationships with external stakeholders in general. From this viewpoint, Newell and Ammons (1987) asked city managers which of these three roles was most crucial in order to be successful at their jobs. Data show that the policy role becomes substantially more important over time, while the political role becomes less so. However, this interpretation is not consistent with that of other authors who highlight a trend in the opposite direction (e.g. Nalbandian, 1999). Using Putnam's (1975) taxonomy, Klausen and Magnier (1998: 274) investigated perceptions of the CEO's various roles in 15 Western countries, based on the emphasis they themselves put on the various issues in their daily work. According to their findings, Southern European CEOs identify more with the role of the classical bureaucrat, whereas Scandinavian CEOs, notably the Danes, identify with the role of the political bureaucrat. An additional diferentiation in the work content of city managers highlighted in the literature relates more to the skills needed to carry out the functions of a city manager, rather than to the type of activities theseprofessionals perform. What emerges is a portrait of city managers capable of performing diferent roles and activities spanning an educational role (typical of managers who can provide information and suggestions to political bodies and the community), a listener's role (typical of an outward-looking city manager who attempts to understand problems and carries out various kinds of surveys or meetings with citizens), a facilitator's role (typical of a city manager focusing on problem solving and con?ict resolution), a subordinate role (typical of a city manager who reports to the mayor and the city council and respects their prerogatives), a leadership role (typical of a city manager who efectively manages the organisation, motivating employees) (Wheeland, 2000). Lastly, from the standpoint of the evolution of the role in terms of work content, once again a significant portion of the literature stresses the growing need for city managers to develop skills for communicating and relating to citizens and stakeholders, establishing and managing partner- ships, acting as community builders and becoming key points of reference for citizens (Nalbandian, 1999). Analysing the Work Content of Italian City Managers: An Empirical Analysis In the previous section, we identified certain diferentiating aspects of the job content of city managers. On the basis of this framework, we conducted
The Managerial Work of Italian City Managers a survey aiming to describe the work content of Italian city managers. The following sections describe the results of our study. Concepts, Units of Analysis and Method of Data Collection
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The following logical sequence is used to define the work content of an Italian city manager. First, we illustrate the personal characteristics of city managers, so as to provide an overview of the sort of individuals who belong to the community of city managers. We outline the data relating to the aspects of a city manager's job, with specific reference to what was highlighted in previous empirical studies as important features of their work content. We investigate two major areas in particular: . in accordance with Dargie (1998), Mintzberg (1971, 1973), Newell and Ammons (1987), we portray the managerial work of Italian city managers based on the time they allocate to diferent activities during one week of their working life. We outline the data relating to the diferent aspects of a city manager's job, with specific reference to decision making, relationships and work content. . in accordance with Svara (1999), we investigate the degree of involvement of Italian city managers and their political counterparts (i.e. the mayor and the council) in implementing managerial and political tasks. The data analysed in this paper were collected between May 2006 and March 2007 by means of a structured questionnaire addressed to Italian city managers in provincial capitals. In particular, we surveyed contracted city managers, tenured general secretaries with the responsibilities of a city manager and, finally, general secretaries in cities where the role of city manager has not been established and who therefore represent the highest position in their municipalities. We chose to conduct our research in all provincial capital cities, due to the significance of the resulting sample, but also as we assumed that in provincial capitals the managerial content of the work is substantive. Additional considerations were ease of access to data, in order to strike a balance between the time needed and the cost of the survey, and the depth and accuracy of the analysis. The data were collected on the basis of 16 face- to-face interviews and 40 telephone interviews. Twenty-two questionnaires were received via fax or email, and the rate of participation in the study was 75 per cent. Findings: Personal Characteristics5 According to the data collected for this study (Table 1), the average age of city managers of provincial capital cities is 57. Ninety-two per cent are men. In terms of qualifications, the most common is a university degree in law,
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Table 1. Personal and professional characteristics of the city managers interviewed Characteristics Age and gender Qualification Type of university degree Previous position Seniority in the public sector Geographical mobility Mobility (years in the same public administration) Type of contract Average salary (gross) Motivation for working in public sector Results (percentage of respondents) 57, male (92) University degree (93) Law (56) In the public sector (95); Other public body (75) 29 years At least regional (62) Five years Open-term (60) e117,000 per annum Interest in work content (37)
held by 56 per cent of the interviewees; the remaining 44 per cent had a degree in business administration (14 per cent), political science (15 per cent) or another degree (8 per cent). Seven per cent of interviewees had two degrees. Italian city managers have been working in the public sector for an average of 29 years and have changed city administration six times before arriving at their present position. The city managers we interviewed changed city administration every five years, on average, before being given their present role. Almost twothirds (62 per cent) of interviewees had worked in diferent Italian Regions in their career. Only five per cent of city managers come directly from the private sector, despite the fact that 40 per cent claimed to have work experience in the private sector, albeit in diferent jobs (17 per cent managers, 27 per cent employees, 56 per cent self-employed). Only 21 per cent of city managers with a public sector background come from a career within the administration where they now act as city manager. Forty per cent of interviewees currently work with a fixed-term contract and 60 per cent have an open-term contract. The average gross annual salary is e117,000. Finally, a large number of the professionals we interviewed cited an interest in the specific tasks involved in the job or general interest in working for the good of the general public as reasons for choosing a job in the public sector. Nearly one-third of the city managers in our study stated that they had filled political positions in the past. Findings: Work Content Examining the content and characteristics of the work of city managers of provincial capitals, we noted a certain degree of intensity in their working life. Seventy-one per cent of city managers claimed to work over 50 hours a week, and one-third of these worked over 60 hours. Nearly all the interviewees stated that their work commitment spilled over into their
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private lives and more than 50 per cent stated that they very often worked at home on public administration tasks. Lack of time and fragmentation are two characteristics of business management (Mintzberg, 1971) that are also true of the public sector. Only 13 per cent of the city managers interviewed said they had ample time to re?ect on decisions, and the same percent age stated they could only find room for re?ection and analysis outside their administrative ofces. From this perspective, having little time to re?ect may partly explain the marked propensity for city managers to work at home on public administration tasks. Another factor which is similar to traditional management models has to do with the information base needed to make decisions. Regardless of the fact that written information has played a key role in safeguarding the principles of accessibility, legality and transparency in public administra- tion, and still does so to some extent, only 27 per cent of interviewees said they gave much more weight to written information than to verbal information. This confirms that there is also increasing 'de-bureaucratisa- tion' of managerial work in the public sector. Observing the characteristics of the work of Italian city managers, we note that the relational content of these professionals is extremely high. On average, 26 per cent of their time is dedicated to work done individually in their own ofces, while 74 per cent of their available time is spent in scheduled (39 per cent) and unscheduled (22 per cent) meetings and work- related phone calls (13 per cent). In addition, most professional relation- ships are established with players 'inside the administration': 75 per cent of a city manager's 'relational time' is dedicated to administrators (mayor, Cabinet and city council) (32 per cent) and administrative bodies (department heads and employees) (43 per cent). The remainder is spent with external stakeholders and allocated in almost equal parts to meetings with citizens and meetings with politicians or executives from other public administrations. The data show that city managers of provincial capital cities interact for onethird of their time with political representatives. Similarly to Alba and Navarro (2006: 301), who found that European mayors tend to spend on average at least seven hours per week in formal meetings with administrative staf, our findings highlighted that 62 per cent of the time devoted by Italian city managers to elected ofcials is spent with the mayor; the remaining time is devoted to members of the Cabinet (22 per cent) and with city councillors (16 per cent). These results seem to corroborate the central role of the mayor in Italian local governments, as the policy entrepreneur, the figurehead for organisational concerns, the broker of networks and, in general, the main in?uential person in the working activity of chief executive ofcers in Italian local government (Klausen & Magnier, 1998: 267). At the same time, the data stress the relatively minor role played by city councillors within the organisation, a finding that agrees with those of other studies that have
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pointed out the perceived growing impoverishment of city councils in terms of real capacity to exercise an efective steering role (Magnier, 2004; Denters, 2006). With regard to the time spent with employees (43 per cent), Italian city managers dedicate most of this time (83 per cent) to department heads (dirigenti). Italian city managers say they have too little time to interact directly with employees. The fundamental role of these top managers thus consists of disseminating information and guidelines to the lower levels of the organisation. Similarly to other studies (Dargie, 1998: 166), the present study found that Italian city managers claim daily involvement in at least twenty diferent tasks: therefore, skills such as delegating, selecting priorities, solving problems, motivating the team and creating a 'corporate identity' are clearly becoming 'core skills' for city managers. Italian law imposes a strict separation between politicians and manage- ment. In particular, the Italian legal framework requires politicians to set objectives and exercise a monitoring role, while management has full autonomy - obviously in accordance with the law - as to how they reach the objectives. To test the degree of separation stated by the law, city managers were asked about their involvement in three purely political/institutional activities (such as maintaining relationships with other levels of the institution), while politicians were asked about their involvement in three purely managerial activities (such as organising senior civil servants). The interviewees described a relationship with the political body marked by comprehensive collaboration/partnership as regards all the activities men- tioned above. Based on their statements, Table 2 shows a medium-high degree of involvement of city managers in purely political/institutional functions, while politicians seem to participate in managerial matters with a lower level of intensity (Table 3). As to the involvement of elected ofcials in managerial matters, it should be pointed out that only the members of the Cabinet (especially the mayor) reported having an involvement in the first two activities surveyed (Table 3), while both city councillors and the members of the Cabinet seem to play a central role in the budgeting process. In sum, the attempt of Italian legislators to pursue an efective separation of powers between politicians and management appears to be showing progress.
Table 2. The degree of involvement of city managers in political activities High involvement of city managers (percentage of city managers' answers) 39 50 74 Low or no involvement of city managers (percentage of city managers' answers) 61 50 26
Activities Resolving citizen complaints (P) Institutional networking (P) Developing strategies of future development of city (P) (P) political activity.
n 76 76 74
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Moving ahead with the analysis of the activities occupying the time of city managers, our study analysed the time allocated by Italian city managers to policy activities, political activities and management activities, comparing these findings with the results reported in Newell and Ammons (1987) and French (2005) (Table 4). Delving more deeply into the city manager's work content, again using findings from face-to-face interviews, four diverse main activities are apparent. Each relates to an inclination to focus one's time on diferent activities and tasks. The following specific orientations can be discerned: . monitoring: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to activities needed to take stock of the situation; . strategic governing: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to activities involved in making important decisions; . action on demand: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to requests from administrators and executives; . external projection: orientation of managers who dedicate most of their time to public relations or participating in public events. We found that taking charge of strategic decisions and handling relation- ships with the public (external projection) are priorities for a minority of city
Table 3. The degree of involvement of politicians in management activities High involvement of elected representatives (percentage of politicians' answers) 8 8 41 Low or no involvement of elected representatives (percentage of politicians' answers) 92 92 59
Activities Handling complaints and con?icts among employees (M) Organising senior civil servants (M) Budget process (M) (M) managerial activity.
n 76 76 76
Table 4. The time allocated to performing policy, political and management activities: a comparison between Italian and US city managers Time allocated to perform the activities mentioned below (per cent) Policy activities Political activities Management activities Total n
a b
Italian city managers (2007) 33 13 54 100 77
US city managersa 32 17 51 100 142
US city managersb 30 13 57 100 271
Newell and Ammons (1987: 249). French (2005: 504).
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managers (only 18 per cent and 14 per cent of the sample, respectively). A clear majority has a monitoring orientation (40 per cent) and a significant portion of city managers (28 per cent) have agendas dictated primarily by requests from administrators or municipal executives (action on demand). An unequivocal determinant explaining why city managers adopt a given orientation cannot be pinpointed. Nonetheless, it is useful to observe how the 'monitoring' orientation is the most common among those who have previous experience in the private sector and those who have experienced a lower degree of job mobility or who work in the larger cities (over 100,000 residents) of northern and southern Italy. We must point out, however, that none of the aspects taken individually as independent variables provides an adequate explanation for the diferent ways of defining an agenda by city managers: chi-squared tests show no significant correlations among city managers' personal traits and their prevalent orientation in their managerial work. This corroborates the premises of the contingency stream in the study of managerial work (Mintzberg, 1973; Allan, 1981). Table 5 sums up the results of our research. The Work of Italian City Managers and the Future of City Management in Italy: Common Challenges? Innovation and the acquisition of managerial skills in local government provided the framework for debating the evolution of Italian municipalities throughout the 1990s. Today, this movement seems to have come to a standstill. In this context, the key players include city managers who are at the helm of local public administration and must navigate a complex transition entailing the redefining of their role and functions as well as methods for financing and managing human resources. The aim of this study was to answer certain questions: Who are the city managers of Italian provincial capitals? What is the content of their work?
Table 5. The work content of Italian city managers Characteristics Work intensity (per cent of answers) Time available for thinking (per cent of answers) Type of information for decision making (per cent of answers) Type of work (per cent of work time) Interlocutors (per cent of relational time) Involvement of politicians in managerial problems Involvement of city managers in political/ institutional problems Type of managerial activities (per cent of answers) Results More than 50 hours (71) Minimal (83) Not only written information (73) Relational (74) Internal (75) Low Medium/high Monitoring (40); Action on demand (28)
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The overall picture is of a group of professionals with signs of considerable conservatism as well as dynamism. Age, gender and back- ground seem to represent elements of conservatism and stagnation in managers in the public sector. Though none of the city managers interviewed expressed a purely bureaucratic interpretation of the role, what can be defined as the 'trap of bureaucratic managerialism' (i.e. the introduction of management practices that are adopted with a bureaucratic attitude) is always a possibility. On the whole, there appeared to be a wide spread of attitudes amongst managers who were in transition from taking up the managerial roles described above to understanding the needs that this function must satisfy. However, these factors should not overshadow more dynamic traits, such as: . professional mobility, corroborated by the fact that city managers have changed city administration on average six times before taking up their present position; . geographical mobility, seen in the fact that 62 per cent of the interviewees have moved to diferent job locations for their career, working in diferent Italian Regions; . a minority of single-city careerists (21 per cent), which could be due to the in?uence of administrative regulations relating to their career. 6 In general, the city managers in our study are professionals who carry out their activity in complex contexts where they have little time to make decisions, as is the case with business managers. What is more, they are part of a system of relationships and activities that embody the attributes of fragmentation and brevity, which Mintzberg (1971, 1973) ascribes to managerial work. Like other studies (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002: 102), this analysis of networking patterns also highlights how the mayor and department heads are the most important points of reference for Italian city managers, underscoring the city manager's role as a link between the political and administrative sectors. Furthermore, the picture emerging from the Italian case pinpoints some important analogies with the work of city managers in other countries (Dargie, 1998; Nalbandian, 1999; Svara, 1999). In particular, it is surprising how the time allocated by Italian city managers to policy, political and management activities is very similar to the time devoted to the same activities by US city managers (Newell & Ammons, 1987; French, 2005). Furthermore, the high degree of involvement of Italian city managers in political activities is consistent with the literature that emphasises a partnership model between politics and administration in managing local governments (Wheeland, 2000). In this regard, emphasis should be placed on the importance of the central relationship between the mayor and the city manager. Theoretically, this relationship could be considered as rooted in an
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Italian administrative culture close to the formal model developed by Peters (1987) in describing the relationship between administrators and politicians. Our research shows that it could be better described as a pendulum swinging between three out of four ideal types (autonomous administrator, responsive administrator, overlapping roles) that Moritzen and Svara (2002: 35-36) outline, depending on the diferent situations and the personality of the mayor. The analysis of the activities of Italian city managers also provided a profile of professionals involved principally in the administration's internal dynamics, dedicating most of their time to meetings and phone calls with politicians, administrative executives or employees. This gives substance to the view of a professional vocation focused primarily on the internal dynamics of the organisation in question. It also suggests that Italian city managers have probably considered controlling internal dynamics to be a more 'concrete' source of legitimisation for their role. However, if the original main motivation for the introduction of the role of city manager was really a quest for a more managerial approach to the internal organisation of municipalities, it should be emphasised that new challenges are now appearing in governing municipalities, especially in the Italian context. For example, the process of municipal corporatisation requires the development of new skills and orientations by city managers, because they have to steer and control their municipal corporatisation, as well as organizing the outsourcing of activities (Grossi & Reichard, 2008: 598). Furthermore, the growing lack of financial resources presses city managers to try out new organisational solutions. At the same time, globalisation and the growing crisis of local party politics push city managers towards more political leadership in community building and in the involvement of citizens and stakeholders in order to co-develop shared scenarios tailored to the peculiarities of each territory. The paradox is that if Italian city managers are still in a moment of transition in their projected transformation from bureaucrats into public managers, the definition of public management and city management in particular is continuously co- evolving with the new (and old) needs of society. In this perspective, it is reasonable to assume that the demand for more democratic accountability, the growing need to attract private financial resources in establishing public-private partnerships, the necessity to adapt the corporate governance mechanisms of local authorities to the new holding configuration, the higher demand by citizens in terms of quality in service delivery, the more attention to aspects such as the level of compliance with the citizen's charters and codes of ethics, and the generalsearch for higher standards of life, inter alia, are all aspects that will increasingly impact on city management in all countries. In this scenario, the efciency of the organisation becomes only a precondition, whilst high standards of life in an inclusive model of community governance will become the real goal for local government
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administration. In this context, the prevalent internal orientation of the work of the city manager does suggest a gap between an emphasis on local governance (e.g. Peters & Pierre, 1998; Bovaird et al., 2003) and the managerial behaviour of Italian city managers. On this topic, the evolution towards more community-orientated managerial work by Italian city managers could perhaps be fostered by a new alliance involving politicians, top management and citizens, based on high democratic accountability and reciprocal values (Svara, 2001: 179), as well as on the challenge (applying to city managers in all countries) to have part of the manager's pay rate depend on the level reached by indicators (Bovaird & Loe?er, 2003) measuring the quality of life in the city he or she manages. Notes
1 The term city managers refers to the chief executive ofcers (segretari generali and/or direttori generali) appointed by local governments in Italy. The Italian city manager is completely diferent from a US city manager: the Italian one has no executive power, which is in the hands of the mayor (Magnier, 2004). In particular, we must specify that the city manager in a 'council manager' form of government has a broader role than in the Italian case and is granted executive authority in the city charter (Howard & Sweeting, 2007). Furthermore, CEOs in the USA often work in non-partisan environments (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002). 2 Considering the institutions, the national cultures and the way political leadership is exercised, Mouritzen & Svara (2002: 55-56) distinguish between four forms of local government: the strong mayor form; the committee-leader form; the collective form; the council-manager form. 3 The contents of these reforms are now part of the current code of local government, called the 'Testo unico degli enti locali' (legislative decree 267/2000). 4 In Italy every local government must have a general secretary. The role of 'Segretario' changed to being a representative of the Internal Ministry from the fascist period onward, and this person was a preventive controller dedicated exclusively to guaranteeing the legitimacy of the institution. In particular, the Bassanini Act enlarged the role from a 'quiet supervisor' to a more active organisational leader. Now, the general secretary has a specific career path and is on a register of general secretaries appointed by the mayors (see Gamberucci & Magnier, 1998). 5 The data relating to the personal characteristics of city managers is intended as an average, as general secretaries and city managers have diferent types of contract and diferent career paths, as mentioned above. 6 A study conducted in the USA on 113 cities with over 100 000 residents found single-city careerists in 38 per cent of the public administrations (Watson & Hassett, 2004: 197).
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