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L o ca l G o v e r n m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a n d P e rfo rm a n c e : A R e v ie w o f E v id e n c e

Richard M. W alker*, Rhys Andrews* *City University of Hong Kong; ^Cardiff University

ABSTRACT

Local g o v e rn m e n ts play a critical role in d e live rin g services to th e public. O ve r rece nt

decades scholars have b egun to e m p irica lly e xa m in e th e relatio n sh ip b e tw e e n th e m a n

a g e m e n t and p e rfo rm a n c e o f local g o ve rn m e n ts, locating th is in e co n o m ic, contingency,

and resource-based th e o re tica l fra m e w o rks. In th is study, w e u n d e rta ke a co m p re h e n sive a ssessm en t o f w h a t is c u rre n tly k n o w n a b o u t th e m a n a g e m e n t-p e rfo rm a n c e h yp o th e sis in

local g o v e rn m e n ts by integ ra ting th e e m p irica l research th a t has b ee n p u b lish e d o ver th e

past 4 0 years. We u n co ve r 8 6 e m p irica l articles th a t rigorously te s t th e m a n a g e m e n t-p e r

fo rm a n c e h ypo the sis and a p p ly th e s u p p o rt score re vie w te c h n iq u e to th e fin d in g s o f th ese

studies. O u r analysis suggests th a t scholars have y e t to explore all o f th e a pp roaches to local

g o v e rn m e n t m a n a g e m e n t w ith th e sam e vigor. The m a jo rity o f a tte n tio n has b ee n fo cuse d

o n th e co nce pts o f organization size, strategy co n te n t, planning, staff quality, p e rso n n e l sta

bility, representative bureaucracy, and n etw o rkin g. The e vid e n ce p o in ts to w a rd stron g posi tive p e rfo rm a n c e effects resu ltin g fro m staff quality, p e rso n n e l stability, and p lanning, and

m o d e ra te s u p p o rt fo r th e b e n e fits o f n etw o rkin g, rep re sen ta tive bureaucracy, and strategy co nte nt. Subanalyses reveal d iffe re n t relatio n ships across d im e n s io n s o f p e rfo rm a n c e and organizational levels w ith in local g o ve rn m e n ts, and th a t th e British and A m e rican scholars

th a t have d o m in a te d th e se stu die s have largely d ra w n u p o n d ive rg e n t th e o re tica l perspe c

tives. D irections fo r fu tu re research are also co nsidered.

Local governments are responsible for the management and delivery of key public ser vices in countries worldwide. From picking up the garbage and cleaning the streets, to the provision of schooling and care for the elderly and vulnerable, these organizations invariably lead the development and implementation of innovative solutions to new and pressing social problems. Local governments, in addition to being at the forefront of delivering and providing the public services on which citizens rely, are often also the most public face of the state. The “street-level bureaucrats” who deliver local public services play a vital role in shaping what it means to be a citizen through their inter actions with clients and service users (Vinzant and Crothers 1998). The management and performance of local governments is thus an issue of both timely and enduring importance to researchers, policy-makers, and citizens alike (see Sharpe 1970).

Address correspondence to the author at rmwaiker@cityu.edu.hk.

d o i:1 0 .1 0 9 3 /jo p a rt/m u t0 3 8 Advance Access p u b lica tio n O cto ber 31, 2013 © The A u th o r 2013. P ublished by O xford U niversity Press o n b e h a lf o f th e Journal o f P ublic A d m in is tra tio n Research and Theory, Inc. All rights reserved. For perm issions, please e -m a il: jo u rn a ls.p e rm issio n s@ o u p .co m .

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Many of the most influential theories about public sector management have been tried and tested within a local government setting. Economic theories of efficient service production, contingency theories about organizational design, and resource- based arguments concerning the capacity and capabilities required for success have all been applied to the study of local governments (Baumol and Willig 1986; Burgess 1975; Davies 1969; Greenwood, Hinings, and Ranson 1975a, 1975b; Hansen and Kjellberg 1976; Honadle 1981). In fact, quantitative empirical research on the m an agement and performance of local governments has a long pedigree. Studies of the productivity of municipal governments in the United States emerged in the early 20th century in response to the most pressing policy problems of the day and has become a hallmark of the Progressive Era of social reform in the country thereafter (Williams 2003). During the 1970s and 1980s, scholars in the United States and the United Kingdom made seminal contributions to the empirical study of the efficiency of local governments (e.g., Newton 1982; Ostrom 1972). These studies focused on the size and structures of local governments and were often a reaction to attempts to reorganize local public service provision in pursuit of cost-savings (Boyne 1998). More recently, the rise of the New Public Management (NPM), with its emphasis on making the public sector more market and businesslike, has coincided with a large-scale research effort focused on the determinants of public service improvement; that is, the strate gies and management practices that might improve the performance of public sector organizations (Ashworth, Boyne, and Entwistle 2010; Walker et al. 2010). Much of this recent research has been conducted in local government settings and has drawn on large-scale empirical analyses of data sets comprising quantitative measures of management and performance. However, to date, the results of all these wide-ranging empirical studies have not been integrated to establish the extent to which the manage ment of local governments actually makes a difference to their performance.

The present study makes two contributions to the literature on local government management. First, it undertakes a comprehensive assessment of what is currently known about the effects of management on the performance of local governments by integrating the theories and evidence from the empirical research that has been published during the past 40 years in the leading public administration journals. This systematic review has the potential to offer clear and valuable lessons informing the development of public administration research and theory in the field of local govern ment, and the wider field of public sector management and performance more gener ally. Second, a critical assessment of the methods and findings of the extant studies will help to identify a research agenda that builds on the strengths of the current evidence base while addressing areas that require further attention.

The balance of this article is organized as follows. First, theoretical perspectives on local government management and performance are examined to develop broad expectations about the effects of different management approaches on performance. Next, we consider the methodological requirements for the effective evaluation of management and performance in local government. Thereafter, we briefly describe the nature of the studies we review. Following this, the support score method is applied to the evidence and we describe the findings of the meta-analysis. The findings point toward an inconsistent coverage of key management concepts, a focus on a relatively limited number of performance dimensions and geographical imbalances in the study

Walker and Andrews Local G o v e rn m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a n d P e rfo rm a n c e 103

of management topics. Where the evidence is strongest it points towards an asso ciation between performance and planning, staff quality, and personnel stability, but weaker relationships with representative bureaucracy, strategy content and network ing. The article concludes by discussing the limitations of the available evidence and offering suggestions for future study.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Many of the seminal studies on public administration have focused on the ways in which local governments, and those who run them, might improve their management and performance (e.g., Agranoff and McGuire 2003; Moore, 1995; Pressman and Wildavsky 1973). Even so, these studies have rarely drawn on a single overarching the ory of management or an agreed set of key tenets for local government management. In fact, research on management and performance in local governments has exhibited considerable conceptual and theoretical heterogeneity. Thus, rather than seeking to develop a distinctive overarching metatheory of local government management on which to base our review o f the management and performance evidence, we synthe size the broad perspectives on managing local governments for high performance that have shaped the empirical studies we review. In this respect, our approach follows that used in previous reviews of empirical studies of organizational performance in the public sector (e.g., Boyne 2003; Walker et al. 2010). We begin by exploring the nature of local government performance. Then, we review three key theoretical per spectives on the likely effects of key management approaches on the performance of local governments.

Local Government Performance

The dependent variable of performance, in studies of management and local govern ment, is contested and open to debate (Boyne et al. 2006; Walker et al. 2010). The lack ot consensus arises from the range of dimensions of performance available to scholars and public managers to track the attainments of their organizations and the number of stakeholders who take an interest in these achievements. In an attempt to deal with some of this complexity a number of models that inform the conceptualization of organizational performance in the public sector have been developed (e.g., Boyne 2002a; Boyne 2003; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2005). The 3Es model focuses on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness ot public services. Economy is the cost of procuring specific service inputs (facilities, staff, equipment) for a given quality. Public administration scholars tend to shy away from the use of economy due to the political way in which levels of expenditure are determined (Walker et al. 2010). Efficiency is technical—cost per unit o f output—and allocative—responsiveness of services to public preferences which leads to measures of user satisfaction (Jackson 1982). Effectiveness is the actual achievement of formal service objectives. The inputs-outputs-outcomes (IOO) model examines the sequence of inputs, outputs, and outcomes. Inputs are comparable with economy. Outputs

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include a number of categories such as quantity and quality (e.g., speed). The ratio of outputs to inputs offers a definition of technical efficiency. The outcomes include effectiveness from the 3Es model, but also impact and equity. The model also includes the concept of “value for money,” or the ratio of outcomes to inputs.

However, these models draw from the literature on the management of firms and omit to include other aspects of performance. For example, responsiveness is more than to immediate users in the public sector and extends to citizens and people repre senting users (such as the parents of school children or the relations of those receiving support from social welfare services). Walker et al. (2010) suggest that the focus on service delivery is to the exclusion of broader questions about the governance of pub lic services and should necessitate the examination of question of accountability, civil and human rights, and key questions of probity and corruption alongside democratic outcomes and participation in the democratic process. These additional dimensions of performance are critical for scholars to understand and assess the performance of a system of local government. Having said this, a focus on service delivery is particu larly important in local government vis-a-vis other levels of government, because local government represents the public face of the state and is where citizens’ experience of government is derived on a day-to-day basis.

Extension of the 3Es and IOO models offers a range of performance measures across the service delivery, governance and democratic aspects of public services. However, whether something is viewed as a good or bad measure of performance, or good or poor performance attainment, is “in the eye of the beholder” according to Andrews et al. (2006, 29). There are many vantage points from which to judge the performance of a public agency and multiple sources of information to draw on in making this decision (Walker et al. 2010). Judgments about performance attainment are made by stakeholders, who can be internal (e.g., staff) or external (e.g., service users, citizens, regulators) and use data that are perceptual (from surveys), archival from secondary sources (audited performance indicators) or a combination of the two. A comprehensive study of the effects of management on the performances of local governments would need to draw on a range of performance dimensions from internal and external actors using a variety of data.

L o c a l G o v e r n m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a n d P e r f o r m a n c e

The literature on the management of local governments over the past forty years has reflected the evolution of policy debates over the roles and responsibilities played by local public services, along with broader management trends. These policy debates have often been shaped by a contest between economic theories of government that focus on the pursuit of economies of size and scope and political theories that regard close ness and responsiveness to the citizenry as the raison d’etre of local units of govern ment (Sharpe 1970). Since the 1960s, these “classic” perspectives on local government have been supplemented by arguments from public choice theory, which emphasize the role that competitive pressure could play in prompting the better management of local governments, especially through contracting out and other marketized processes. This has resulted in studies on competition and contracting behavior that over time became associated with the NPM (Boyne 1998). Meanwhile, the emergence of management

Walker and Andrews Local G o v e rn m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a n d P e rfo rm a n c e 105

studies as a serious branch of social psychology and sociology has led generic theories of organization to become increasingly influential among policy-makers, scholars and practitioners (Kelman 2007). Three key broad theoretical perspectives on the manage ment of local governments—economic theories of service production; contingency theories of organizational design; and, resource-based arguments about distinctive production capabilities—encapsulate much of this literature.

The “classic” economic perspective on scale economies in local government that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s suggested that larger units of government simply per form better and more efficiently due to their ability to spread fixed production costs (Boyne 1998). This focus on the benefits of scale was apparent in many of the early studies of local government performance (e.g., Davies 1969) and has subsequently emerged in the call for greater collaboration between local governments (Agranoff and MacGuire 2003). Even so, there may be an optimum size for any given unit of local government at which its performance is maximized. In addition to an optimum scale for production, economic theories of local government suggest that there may be a pre ferred ownership structure, with certain local services better provided by private firms rather than “in-house” by local governments themselves (Christoffersen, Paldam, and Wurtz 2007). In fact, contestability of service provision itself can also be a vital source of competitive pressure that prompts local governments to manage resources in a more effective and efficient manners (Baumol and Willig 1986), as can the active involvement of service users in the coproduction of local services (DeWitte and Geys 2013).

Decisions about whether to “make or buy,” to increase coproduction and about the optimum scale of service production resonate strongly with the broader inspira tion that lies behind contingency theories of organization. That is, that certain organi zational forms (or configurations of characteristics such as size, structure, process, and environment) are likely to prove more successful than others, and that the design task for top management is therefore to establish a fi t between an organization’s form and its goals (Miles and Snow 1978; Thompson 1967). More specifically, according to contingency theories, an organic structure is required to achieve fit successfully in complex organizations, whereas a more mechanistic one would suffice in simpler enti ties (Burns and Stalker 1961). Within the field of public administration, contingency approaches to understanding organizational design began to emerge in the studies car ried out by members of the Institute for Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham in England. These studies explored the associations between differ ent configurations of size, structure, administrative intensity, and the organizational environment (e.g., Greenwood, Hinings, and Ranson 1975a; 1975b). This research was, in turn, influenced by the growing belief that strategic planning held the key to organizational performance (Mintzberg 1994). Application of the panoply of rational management techniques from targets and action plans to benchmarking and perfor mance management would furnish the kind of goal clarity needed to deliver better results.1 At the same time, there was a growing awareness that the broad strategic

i For the purposes of our review, we describe rational management techniques as examples o f planned organizational activity that is designed to “enhance performance by forecasting changes in the organization and its environment” (Boyne 2010, 61). O f course, such techniques have many different functions within organizations and are as often used as motivational and learning tools as they are used to assess performance improvements (Moynihan 2005).

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content of organizations mattered; be it outward and expansive in nature, or inward and defensive in orientation, a stable and consistent strategy would be more likely to boost performance (Greenwood 1987). Yet, it was only in the 2000s that the per formance benefits of all of these different aspects of strategic management for local governments were examined in depth (Andrews et al. 2012).

Missing from the largely UK-based literature applying contingency theory has been the consideration of the human and material resources required to ensure the effective delivery of local public services. This issue was, however, at the heart of debates during the 1970s among public administration scholars in the United States, for whom the concept of capacity came to be viewed as “a language for public man agement” (Burgess 1975, 706). To this end, it was argued that a “capable organization manages its physical, human, informational, and financial resources” (Honadle 1981, 578). High capacity governments would thus have a combination o f strong policy, program and resource management, which in turn enabled them to be “adaptable, effective and efficient” (Burgess 1975,711). For Ingraham, Joyce and Donahue (2003), strong capital management, financial management, Human Resource Management, Information Technology management and leadership are all “management systems” that each have important parts to play in delivering high performance. Interestingly, this emphasis on the resources available for making policy happen is similar to the core theoretical insight behind resource-theories of the firm. Resource-based theories suggest that an organization’s human resources (i.e., its knowledge and skills-base), in particular, are rare and difficult to imitate and so constitute a key source of sustained competitive advantage (see Barney 1991). These insights derived from research on private firms are increasingly being applied to the management and performance of public organizations (Bryson, Ackermann, and Eden 2007; Piening, 2013). In fact, although the human aspect of public management has often been a focus of personnel specialists, it is increasingly seen as a subject fit for organizational analysis (O’Toole and Meier 2009). The quality of leaders and managers within a local government, the effectiveness of their links with key external stakeholders and the strength of the connections developed between bureaucrats and citizens, all constitute resources that must be deployed effectively in order to achieve desired outcomes. As such, the emer gence of new ways of organizing public service delivery that go beyond the conven tional use of hierarchies and markets has been reflected in the growth of empirical studies o f local government management and performance that draw upon resource- based arguments.

This brief and somewhat linear story of the development of empirical research in the field has allowed us to introduce key ideas in an orderly fashion, but it is important to note that just as an interest in the human side of local governments has been evi dent for more than ten years (see Davies and Barton 1975), so too has research focused on the size of those organizations persisted (see Andrews and Boyne 2010). Another way to incorporate each of the alternative theoretical perspectives on local govern ment management is to draw on formal theory specifying types of activities that might result in performance improvement. O ’Toole and Meier’s (1999) well-known model of public management, in particular, offers a clear account of how to synthesize the various effects of the management activities associated with the aforementioned per spectives. Their model establishes four core activities that public managers undertake

Walker and Andrews Local Government M anagem ent and Performance 107

when deciding how to allocate time and money. The first involves the maintenance and adaptation of existing structures and routines (M l). The second entails the devel opment and implementation of a conscious strategy for managing the environment in which an organization operates (M2), which in turn takes the form of a balance between seeking to exploit environmental changes and to defend the organization from those changes (M3/M4) (O’Toole and Meier 1999).

Table 1 lists the main management approaches associated with the three theo retical perspectives on local government management and performance that we have introduced, and which we identified as having been the focus of one or more of the empirical studies reviewed. Table 1 also indicates how each approach to local govern ment management can be incorporated within Meier and O ’Toole’s model of public management, and the anticipated relationship between those different approaches and local government performance. This conceptual framework forms the basis for our analysis of the studies o f local government under review. The management approaches included in the final analysis are indicated in the right-hand column of the table.

M E T H O D S

The empirical literature on management and organizational performance in local gov ernments was located in the Anglophone public administration journals listed in the Thompson Reuters Web of Science Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Not all of the abstracts reviewed indicated that a study was situated in local government. Rather than using search terms, we reviewed each article by hand from 1970 to 2012. This search

Table 1 Local Government Management Approaches

Theory Key Concepts O ’Toole and

Meier

A nticipated Relationship with

Performance Included in the Analysis

Econom ic theory O rganization size M l, M 3/M 4 + / C ontracting out M 3/M 4 - o r + Com petition M 3/M 4 - o r + Collaboration M 3/M 4 + Coproduction M 3/M 4 +

Contingency Administrative intensity M l - theory C entralization M l -

Integration M l + Strategy content M 3/M 4 + / Planning M l + /

Resource-based M anagem ent systems M l + theories Staff quality M l + /

Personnel stability M l + / Leadership M l + H um an resource M l +

m anagem ent practices Representative bureaucracy M 3/M 4 + / Networking M 3/M 4 + /

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procedure resulted in 490 empirical articles featuring questions of management and organization. We examined these studies in greater depth, and implemented the follow ing decision rules for inclusion in the review: the unit of analysis was an organization, or part thereof (thus excluding studies at the individual level of the manager or citizen); studies included measures of management and organization (thus excluding studies focused solely on management or performance); performance was operationalized as the dependent variable; and articles presented statistical results in the form of multiple regressions that could be used in the “support score” meta-analytic technique used in this study (see below).2 This procedure resulted in a sample of 86 articles, containing 999 independent tests of some aspect of the management-performance relationship.3

The review strategy that we adopted benefits from focusing on peer-reviewed journal articles that were judged to be of suitable quality for publication by editors following a blind review process, and therefore expected to meet the basic require ments of theoretical and methodological rigor. It does, however, exclude unpublished articles on management and performance in local government and work sponsored by government, national and global organizations, such as the OECD, with an interest in the achievements of public organizations, along with books and book chapters. This approach may lead to bias, by overstating the relationship between management and performance if articles that contain statistically significant results are more likely to be published. Even so, estimates from other fields suggest that the magnitude of the bias is likely to be small (Rosenthal 1991).

The first group of studies we identified were published in the 1970s (Davies, Barton, and McMillan 1971; Hansen and Kjellberg 1976). Three more were published in the 1980s, and eight more in the 1990s. Forty-eight were published in the 2000s and 25 in 2010-2012. The distribution of these articles over time suggests that interest in this topic soared in the 2000s, reflecting the upsurge in interest in questions of performance during that period. The majority of the studies were conducted in the United States (49), with 28 based in the United Kingdom (England and Wales), 6 in other European countries, and one each in Israel, Pakistan, and South Korea. Local governments in most coun tries vary in scope and purpose. The studies in this sample capture these variations with 54 studies examining single-purpose governments including fire brigades, police depart ments and school districts, and the balance (32) investigating multipurpose governments that deliver several types of public service. Because most of the studies were conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, evidence of the provision of acute and primary healthcare by local governments is largely absent from our sample.

All of the studies were focused on a single set of organizations with an average sample size or number of observations of 1,070, ranging from 40 (Andrews et al. 2011) to 6,994 (Pitts 2007). Seventy percent of the studies (70.5%) implemented research designs that sought to address endogeneity and tease out causality, largely by introduc ing some semblance of time into the regression model: 42 used a panel design and 19

2 Independent or linear associations between management and performance are considered in this review. Nonlinear, mediated, and moderated relationships are examined in some empirical studies (e.g., Andrews and Boyne 2011; Meier and Bothe 2000; and Walker et al. 2011), but not in sufficient numbers to undertake a comprehensive review on this occasion. 3 The full list of citations are included in the references, and identified by use o f an asterisk.

Walker and Andrews Local G o v e rn m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a n d P e rfo rm a n c e 109

others a lagged data structure, leaving 31 purely cross-sectional studies.4 Within these studies, eight dimensions of performance were used: effectiveness measures were most frequently used (459), followed by equity (148), aggregated performance indices (128), efficiency (79), service quality (68), customer or user satisfaction (64), cost effective ness (31), and output quantity (23). Measures of management were evenly balanced between archival (497) and perceptual (502) methods of operationalization, whereas measures of performance tended toward the use of archival (or administrative) data sources (793), perceptual (or survey based) (163), and indices incorporating both (43).5

S u p p o r t S c o r e M e t h o d

The method used to combine and synthesize the results of the empirical evidence is based on the percentage of statistical tests that support the hypothesis that manage ment positively or negatively (see table 1) influences performance (Light and Smith 1971). We use the support score approach because the majority of the studies reviewed implemented multiple regression techniques without reporting correlations (Boyne 2003; Damanpour 2010).6 To count as support for the hypothesis, two conditions must be satisfied. First, the results must be in the predicted direction. Second, the results must be statistically significant; that is, greater than would be likely to arise by chance.7 By applying these criteria to all of the tests in a single study, a support score can be calculated as a percentage of all of the tests reported in the study.

Following this, an aggregate support score can be calculated across all of the studies in at least two ways (Boyne 2002b; Rosenthal 1991). First, the support score for each study can be treated equally, regardless of whether it contains 1 or 300 tests. Second, each study can be weighted (multiplied) by the number of tests in that study, with equal weight attached to each test rather than to each study. The advantage of the weighted mean is that studies that only report a small number of tests do not have a disproportionate influence on the analysis, whereas the advantage of the unweighted mean is that studies that conduct a large number of tests on the same data set are not given undue importance. An examination of the number of tests in each study shows that there is some right-side skew, with a number of studies reporting in excess of 40 tests over the average of 12 (standard deviation [SD] 13, minimum 1 and maximum 63). These studies are essentially outliers and could affect the robustness of the results, typically by suppressing the support score and producing heightened discrepancies

4 Hill (2005) included a panel and a lagged dataset, Walker and Boyne (2006) included cross-sectional and lagged analysis. 5 A document summarizing the different indicators used to measure each o f these dimensions of performance can be obtained form the authors. 6 Alternative statistical and computational approaches can be adopted for the purposes of meta- analytic reviews. These techniques generally require the reporting o f correlation matrices. Unlike studies using correlation coefficients, the support score method reports statistically significant associations from regression models that control for other variables, thereby reducing concerns about bias arising from spurious relationships (Damanpour 2010). 7 In the social sciences, authors sometimes report statistically significant results at p < . 1, a practice adopted by some authors in this review. We include test results at 0.1 in the analysis. Sensitivity tests indicated that the use of p < . 1 as against p < .05 had little effect on the support scores.

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between the unweighted and weighted scores. Given these unusual characteristics in the data, we report the unweighted support score first, and conduct sensitivity tests for studies with large numbers of tests and report these in footnotes. Finally, in inter preting the support scores, we follow Boyne (2002b) and Damanpour (2010), who proposed that unweighted and weighted support scores of 50% or more shows strong support for a hypothesis, that support is moderate if one support score is above 50% and that the hypothesis is not supported when both scores fall below 50%.

M A N A G E M E N T A N D P E R F O R M A N C E E V ID E N C E

To ensure that we focus our attention on approaches to local government manage ment, which have been subject to sustained investigation, the support score results are presented in tabular form exclusively for those aspects of management examined in 10 or more studies.8 Hence, seven local government management approaches form the basis for our review of the evidence on performance effects: organization size, strat egy content, planning, staff quality, personnel stability, representative bureaucracy, and managerial networking. These studies account for 80.2% of the total number of articles reviewed (69 out of 86) and 70.8% of the tests (708). Thus, the majority of the research conducted on the management and performance of local governments has been focused on these questions, rather than on the other concepts of management that we identify in table 1. Nonetheless, we are keen to stress that there is work going on in these areas, although it is relatively sparse when compared with that analyzed (see footnote #8). For now, systematic evidence suitable for meta-analytic review can only be garnered from findings on the seven management approaches benefiting from a larger number of studies. Included in the following seven tables are information on the sample, country of study, purpose of the government being investigated, the operationalization of the measure of management and performance, together with the support score for each study and a total for each area of management.

Economic theories of local government production have underpinned empirical research in the field for more than thirty years, and the role of size as a determinant of organizational performance was examined in more studies than any other man agement approach (table 2).9 These studies were predominately based in the United States, examined multipurpose governments and were more likely to operationalize management and performance using archival data. A range of performance measures were used to gauge the effects of size, the most frequent being efficiency; no doubt

8 Support score results for those facets o f local government management that were the focus o f between five and nine empirical studies are available on request: administrative intensity (5 studies, 29 tests), collaboration/ partnership (5, 19), competition (9, 40) and leadership (8—of which 3 examine executive succession, 28). 9 The concept of organizational size sits at the intersection between managerial discretion and environmental constraint. At first glance, the size of a public organization may seem to be a variable that is not within the purview of public managers; determined rather by the mission of the organization and the clientele to whom it must provide a service. Yet, the senior management in local governments may possess a degree o f discretion over the size o f the organization that they manage. Whether by seeking amalgamation with neighboring governments or by implementing expansionary policies to compete for fiscal migrants, discretion over the size o f local governments is an im portant component in the manager’s toolkit, however crude, for managing the environment.

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reflecting the dominant economic perspective on the realization of scale economies in larger organizations. However, the unweighted support scores indicate that size is not a strong determinant of performance because over half of the studies provided nonsignificant tests, reflecting findings on public sector organizations more widely (Boyne 2003). Although the percentage of positive support scores indicate that larger organizations may be more likely to perform well than badly, these findings are not strong enough to confirm the basic tenets of economic (or democratic) theory. It is quite possible that the relationship between size and performance is nonlinear. We uncovered four studies that reported 11 nonlinear tests and offered encouragement for this proposition, with an unweighted support score of 58% (weighted 72%) (Ashford et al. 1976; Knapp and Smith 1985; Meier and Bothe 2000; Theobold and Nicholson- Crotty 2005).10

Contingency theory indicates that the broad strategic orientation of an organiza tion (strategy content) and its use of and commitment to formal analytical processes of planning play a vital part in determining levels of performance. Strategy content was examined in 12 studies of local government, and planning in 14 (see tables 3 and 4, respectively). The majority of these studies were undertaken in the United Kingdom (7 of the strategy content and 11 of the planning studies in England and Wales, respectively—mostly multipurpose local governments). The measures of management for content and planning were perceptual, with the exception of the studies led by Folz (2004; Folz and Hazlett 1991), whereas performance measurement was varied. The results for strategy content are moderate, with the unweighted support score over 50% (66%), and the weighted below at 47% (table 3). Strategy content is concerned with the plan of action through which goals are achieved in relation to environmen tal circumstances and internal characteristics. Contingency theories suggest that the actual content, or broad overall orientation, of organizational strategies a key part of the picture, but also that the effects of strategy content on performance are more likely to be felt when considered in combination with processes and structures (Miles and Snow 1978).11 In contrast, the evidence on planning is more convincing and strong with both support scores over 50% (62% unweighted and 56% weighted).12 Planning is associated with technical approaches to the management of organizations focused on the achievement of specific organizational goals. The body of evidence on the performance effects of planning in local government implies that rational planning and a spectrum of related techniques (such as benchmarking, targets, and perfor mance management) is a likely route to higher levels of performance. These findings on the influence of various types of planning are in keeping with the tenets of modern

10 Ashford et al. (1976) and Knapp and Smith (1985) are not included in our review because they only report results for quadratic terms. n Public administration scholars have focused on this question. Tests o f the joint effects between strategy, structure, process and the environment have offered support for the contingent nature o f these relationships (Andrews et al. 2012). However, attempts to examine the multiple interactions simultaneously have led to lackluster findings (Meier et al. 2010). As noted earlier, meta-analysis of the studies examining nonlinear relationships is something that must await the development o f a body of evidence dealing with each of a range o f core structural contingencies. 12 The large number of tests in Boyne and Gould-Williams (2003) and Boyne and Chen (2006) do not skew the means. Removing these studies increases the unweighted test to 60% whereas the weighted test remains unchanged at 56%.

Walker and Andrews Local G o v e rn m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a nd P e rform an ce 113

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management, which argue that a rational approach to the management of organiza tions is associated with higher performance (Walker et al. 2010).

According to resource-based theories, attracting and retaining high-quality staff is critical to organizational success (Barney 1991). The stronger the talent within an organization, the more likely that it can be relied upon or marshaled to achieve higher levels of performance. The evidence for this thesis is strong. Table 5 indicates that around three-quarters of the studies examining staff quality and local government performance support the hypothesis that staff quality is an important route to success. Still, it is important to note that all of these studies, bar one, were conducted in the United States in single purpose governments (school districts), and drew on largely archival measures. All of the studies, except that of Carmeli (2006), included measures of effectiveness. Until this set of studies is supplemented by more research in other settings, it is difficult to generalize about the benefits of staff quality.

Resource-based theories stress that personnel turnover can lead to declines in per formance as organizations lose the vital expertise offered by experienced staff (Dess and Shaw 2001). Table 6 presents the results of our support score analysis for the effects of personnel stability on local government performance. Changes in person nel can be especially harmful to governmental performance because of the loss of investment in skills it represents and the costs of training new members of staff to replace those with experience and know-how (O’Toole and Meier 2003). As with staff quality, this aspect of local government management has largely been examined in special purpose governments in the United States, with just two studies conducted in the United Kingdom and to date none elsewhere. Over 50% (unweighted 52, weighted 52) of these studies support the hypothesis that personnel stability is a positive force in public organizations. One especially interesting feature of the evidence in these studies is that stability has a positive effect on performance across two different organiza tional echelons: the front-line; and senior managers. In all of these studies, stabil ity was measured as staff turnover, but used a mix of archival and perceptual data. Effectiveness was investigated in each study, with equity and service quality also a focus in four and two studies, respectively.

The theory of representative bureaucracy suggests that public organizations are more responsive to service users’ needs when their workforces reflect the demographic characteristics of those users. From a resource-based perspective, workforce representa tiveness therefore constitutes a key human resource to be harnessed by managers seek ing to improve results. All but one of the 14 studies of representative bureaucracy that we analyzed were conducted in the United States, again in single purpose organizations, and drew exclusively on archival measures of management and performance (table 7). Ten of the studies included measures of effectiveness, and equity was examined in seven. Representative bureaucracy was operationalized at the organizational level and also across two echelons: the front-line and managers or administrators. The unweighted (61%) and weighted (43%) support score offer moderate legitimacy of the following thesis: that better representation of women and ethnic minorities in local governments appears, on average, to lead to better outcomes for those segments of society.13

B The large number o f tests in O’Toole and Meier (2003) skew the means, and removing this study results in strong support: the unweighted score is 63 and the weighted 52%.

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The final management-performance support score table presents evidence of the influence of managerial networking. Resource-based theories highlight that network ing with actors in the organizational environment is a key means for managers to secure external resources of money, time and legitimacy (Pfeffer 1987). Networking can both buffer the organization from unexpected changes in the environment and enable it to exploit any opportunities that arise, offering a conduit for the flow of organizational information. The unweighted support score confirms the veracity of these arguments, with 60% of the studies on managerial networking indicating better performance outcomes (table 8). However the weighted score stands at 37%, indicat ing moderate support.14 These studies typically examined the effect of networking on effectiveness, with some also addressing equity and service quality. Networking was operationalized in surveys of organizational leaders and managers, whereas perfor mance data were largely archival.

M A N A G EM ENT A N D PERFORMANCE: SUBANALYSIS

Subanalysis is presented on the trend towards disaggregating organizational units, the role of management at different organizational echelons and the impact of manage ment on differing dimensions of performance. We also touch on important questions of methodology. In seeking to identify management practices that improve the perfor mance of public agencies research studies need to be designed with appropriate meas urement of the management and performance to address concerns about common source bias, and recording independent variables before dependent to tackle concerns over causality.15

M u ltip le versus Single-Purpose G overnm ents

A prominent feature of the reforms that have swept across the public sector over the last three decades has been to disaggregate larger organizations into smaller more focused units (Boyne et al. 2003; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). The process of disag gregating larger organizations is argued to bring positive performance effects because smaller single-purpose organizations are seen to have clearer goals. Overall, the stud ies of single-purpose local governments offered modest confirmation of this hypoth esis with an unweighted support score of 53% and weighted of 46% (55 studies, 644 tests), set against weaker overall findings from multipurpose authorities (42% for unweighted and weighted, 31 studies, 355 tests). Turning to the effects of specific man agement approaches, studies of planning typically examined multipurpose organiza tions while those of staff quality, personnel stability, representative bureaucracy, and managerial networking were largely located in single-purpose organizations; studies of organizational size and strategy content were more mixed. Subanalysis of size did

w The large number o f tests in O’Toole and Meier (2004b) and Goerdel (2006) skew the means somewhat, and removal o f these studies increases the unweighted support score to 63% and the weighted to 52%. 15 We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for suggesting subanalysis on the important questions of single-purpose and multipurpose organizations and common source bias.

1 20 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

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not change the balance of results reported in table 2. Single-purpose organizations reported positive unweighted and weighted scores of 32%. Positive support scores were 38% unweighted and 27% unweighted for multipurpose local governments. The results for strategy content pointed towards some differences. Single-purpose organi zations reported a high unweighted support score of 70%, but this has to be tempered by a weighted score of 39%—a difference of just over 30% point casts some questions over the level of support offered (see Damanpour 2010 for a discussion). However, the positive support scores for multipurpose organizations was strong: 61% unweighted and 58% weighted. On balance these findings on the specific management approaches do not offer support for the argument that single-purpose organizations are more likely to reap the performance benefits of good management; however, this statement has to be set against the relatively small numbers of studies and the preponderance of single-purpose organizations in the United States and multipurpose local authorities in the United Kingdom that dominate the sample.

O rg an izatio n al Echelon

Managers and staff working at different levels within an organization fulfill particular hierarchical roles, bringing different levels of authority and functional responsibility, which in turn may influence organizational outcomes in distinctive and different ways (March, Schulz, and Zhou 2000; Moore 1995). Indeed, the role of staff at different echelons is central to the representative bureaucracy and personnel stability theses about management and performance. The former claims a stronger performance pay off for representation at the street-level, whereas the latter points towards a bigger payoff from a stable managerial cadre. To address the possibility that organizational echelon influences our findings, a subanalysis was conducted of the studies that exam ined representative bureaucracy and personnel stability because they focused on dif ferent organizational strata. The results for representative bureaucracy suggest that representation matters most at the street level. The positive unweighted support score for the studies that examined upper level managers was 18% (4 studies, 15 tests; 20% weighted), whereas it rose to 67% unweighted (8 studies, 49 tests; 60% weighted) for the front-line staff. Support for the argument about top management stability is more equivocal. In the eight studies (34 tests) that examined the upper levels of manage ment, the unweighted support score was 54% (weighted 56%). The unweighted score for the front-line staff was 59% (48% weighted). Future studies should focus on the varying important roles played by managers and staff across the whole gamut of man agement approaches to more fully understand the effects of organizational echelon on performance.

P erform ance D im ension

The assessment of the independent effects of the seven management approaches pre sented in tables 2-8 examined performance as a homogeneous concept. However, performance is multidimensional, thus a subanalysis of the support scores for the sep arate performance dimensions was conducted to tease out more subtle relationships.

122 J o u r n a l o f P u b lic A d m in is t r a t io n R e s e a rc h a n d T h e o ry

To summarize the results for the effects of management on the different dimensions of performance, table 9 presents a four-by-seven matrix containing the unweighted and weighted mean positive support scores for each measure of management, three key dimensions of performance (efficiency, effectiveness, and equity), and the index measures reported on at least four occasions.

The first thing to note is that the main focus is on effectiveness. Less attention has been directed at the relationships between management, equity, and index meas ures, and only the researchers who focused on the effects of organization size have systematically examined management’s influence on efficiency (studies of staff quality have also examined service quality and planning user satisfaction, see below). Second, nearly half of the cells in table 9 are empty. Efficiency has only been examined in rela tion to size. Studies taking equity as a dependent variable have examined staff qual ity, stability, representative bureaucracy, and networking while those examining size, strategy, and planning have used performance indices. Third, the mean unweighted support scores for the 15 populated cells are 50% or above in 10 cases. These find ings suggest that planning, strategy, staff quality, and networking are all valuable for enhancing effectiveness. Strong associations are also identified for personnel stability, representative bureaucracy, and human staff quality in relationship with equity, as are strategy content and planning for indexes, whereas support for the argument that larger local governments garner efficiency gains is moderate. Last, and perhaps most importantly, the performance subanalysis in table 9 suggests that some management approaches may have a different relationship with the various dimensions of perfor mance. This would be in keeping with contingency theory and is something to which it would be valuable to return in future meta-analysis.

Size has a positive moderate association with efficiency, but largely nonsignificant relationships with effectiveness and performance indices. The two aspects of strategic management examined, strategy content and planning, are good for effectiveness and index measures of performance. Planning has a nonsignificant relationship with user satisfaction: the support scores are 49 and 40% unweighted and weighted respectively (not reported in table 9). Staff quality is associated with both effectiveness and equity. Four staff quality studies also included service quality as a dependent variable (not

T a b le 9

Effects o f M anagem ent on D ifferent D im ensions o f Performance: R eporting Percentage o f Positive S upport Scores

M an ag em en t

Efficiency E ffectiveness E q u ity Index

S T + S T + S T + S T +

Size 7 20 50 (40) 5 16 4 ( 6 ) X 5 10 2 0 (1 0 ) S trateg y X 7 32 75 (50) X 5 22 60 (59) P lan n in g X 5 56 80 (82) X 8 23 53 (52) S ta ff q u a lity X 13 46 73 (78) 6 27 90 (93) X Stability X 12 57 47 (44) 4 19 50 (84) X R ep resen tativ e B ureau cracy X 10 83 48 (42) 7 15 71 (60) X N etw o rk in g X 14 58 73 (60) 4 58 29 (31) X Note: Weighted support scores in parenthesis; S = number o f studies, T = number of tests, + = positive support score, X = no test.

Walker and Andrews Local G o v e rn m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a n d P e rfo rm a n c e 123

reported in table 9). These studies indicated an overwhelming and somewhat surpris ing negative relationship between staff quality and service quality, with a negative unweighted support score of 75% and weighted of 67%. This is the only large negative association uncovered in this study and is a relationship that clear would benefit from renewed empirical attention.

Representative bureaucracy and stability are more likely to be associated with equity, which would be in keeping with the theoretical framework, but as was noted in footnote #13, the unweighted test for the impact of effectiveness on representative bureaucracy rise to strong associations in the absence of studies with large numbers of tests. Networking is associated with positive outcomes for effectiveness and has a weaker relationship with equity. Thus, in sum, our analysis of the impact of manage ment on different performance dimensions is strongly suggestive of the need for local government managers to emphasize different management approaches in order to achieve different goals, and for researchers to include multiple dimensions of perfor mance in their models such that they can examine the trade-offs made by managers.

A r c h iv a l v e r s u s P e r c e p t u a l M e a s u r e s o f P e r f o r m a n c e

There has been growing discussion of common source bias—recording management and performance in the same survey (Meier and O’Toole 2012; Spector 2006). It is argued that the same source of data likely inflates result leading to overestimates of the impact of management on performance. Perusal of the tables presented in this article indicates that archival measures of performance are frequently used in studies of management and performance in local government. A sizable number of studies (38 studies, 457 tests) did however use perceptual data on both sides of the equation. Rather unexpectedly the support scores for these studies did not result in overly optimistic assessments—positive support scores are 49% unweighted and 43% weighted. Studies that draw upon archival data for measures of the independent and dependent variable are somewhat surprisingly no more robust, and do not meet the threshold of a 50% for either support score—49% unweighted, and weighted (54 studies, 457 tests). The data presented in tables 2-8 do not provide sufficient variation to conduct more detailed analysis. The studies reported in these tables largely draw on archival dependent variables or measures combining percep tions with secondary data and largely report positive support scores (with the exception of organizational size). Meta-analysis is a fruitful way to examine this question, and researchers could focus on this topic in more detail in future studies.

C r o s s - s e c t io n a l o r L o n g i t u d i n a l R e s e a r c h D e s ig n

An exploration of research design pointed towards moderate positive support score results for cross-sectional studies (50% unweighted, 42% weighted, 26 studies, 211 tests) and those implementing a lag between the measure of the independent vari ables of management and the dependent performance measure (51% unweighted and 37% weighted, 19 studies, 145 tests). However, studies that used panel data over time typically found no support for the management-performance hypotheses they were exploring (43 and 47% unweighted and weighted respectively, 43 studies,

124 J o u r n a l o f P u b lic A d m in is t r a t io n R e s e a rc h a n d T h e o ry

655 tests). The results o f this subanalysis indicate that any conclusion about the moderate support scores from cross-sectional studies should be tempered by their findings of correlations rather than causality. Studies using lagged data structures (not in panels) are better able to tease out key relationships, but still utilize a less than perfect approach to do so. These are rather inconclusive findings, and more detailed analysis needs to be conducted as the data on the management-perfor mance relationship in local government accumulates and permits subanalysis on different management approaches.

DISCUSSION

In this study, we examined the effect of management on the performance of local governments. Our review of the 86 related articles investigates seven key approaches to local government management studied on more than 10 occasions: size, strategy content, planning, staff quality, stability, representative bureaucracy, and networking. The findings from the support score analysis points toward strong positive perfor mance effects from staff quality, personnel stability, and planning, and moderate sup port for the benefits of networking, representative bureaucracy, and strategy content. Findings were weak in relation to organizational size. Subanalysis illustrated some important variants: neither single nor multipurpose governments were more effective forms of organization, the management approaches of representative bureaucracy and personnel stability pointed to the impact that different groups of management in the hierarchy have on performance, and management approaches had different perfor mance effects. One important characteristic of these findings is that they are typically drawn from studies in the United Kingdom and United States. Although there are limitations to these findings, they do have theoretical and practical implications.

Debates about the merits of alternative management practices have waxed and waned. Empirical research on the management-performance hypothesis did not get fully underway until the 2000s in the management areas examined in this study—barring size, staff quality and representative bureaucracy—so the field is still relatively young. Yet, what we find in our meta-analysis does tend to corroborate what is known about organizational performance in the public sector more generally. In particular, our find ing pointing towards the importance of staff quality for the performance of local gov ernments mirrors that uncovered in Boyne’s comprehensive (2003) meta-analysis of the effects of management on performance across all public organizations. Still, the partial coverage of key management approaches indicates that the prescriptions of economic, contingency, and resource-based theories for the management of local governments have not yet been fully explored in the public administration literature. From a theo retical perspective, what evidence there is seems to suggest (as does Boyne [2003] and Walker, Boyne, and Brewer [2010]) that a resource-based perspective may offer a better approach to understanding performance in local governments than economic or contin gency theories—though our subanalyses points toward the probable impact of multiple contingent relationship rather than the linear ones that are the focus of our present study. As scholars conduct more studies in different contexts and test more complex models of public management using techniques of moderation and mediation it is possible that

Walker and Andrews Local G o v e rn m e n t M a n a g e m e n t a n d P e rfo rm a n c e 125

contingency theories may offer more powerful explanation—something that we believe to be an important priority for future research. In terms of the O’Toole and Meier (1999) model, M l and M3/M4 appear equally likely to be associated with better perfor mance. Even so, there is to date only limited examination of the full range of variables that can be associated with that model. Table 1 lists nine management concepts of M l and nine of M3/M4. The studies we review examined only four of each of these.

One conclusion that we draw is that the research that has been conducted has not covered the full gambit of concepts underlying the theories that have been used to explain the management-performance relationship in local governments. At a very basic level, additional research is required on each of the concepts of management listed in table 1, irrespective of whether they were examined in more detail in this study to advance knowledge and permit future integrative reviews to be conducted. Researchers may also want to turn to other topics not uncovered in our review such as interorganizational relations, the decentralization of decision-making, and bureau cratic autonomy (Boyne et al. 2005; Walker, Boyne, and Brewer 2010).

We noted in the first half of the article that the theoretical preoccupations pushing forward research on the management-performance hypothesis had differed between the United Kingdom and the United States; the two places where this agenda has most fully advanced. U K scholars have utilized a contingency perspective to a greater degree in studies on strategy—content and planning—whereas those from the United States have been more open to resource-based perspectives to examine questions of staff quality, stability, representative bureaucracy, and networking. Studies drawing upon economic theory were more internationally distributed. To tease out the validity of the tentative theoretical conclusions we draw regarding the superiority of systems and resource perspectives as predictors of performance, it will be important in future studies to apply contingency theories more frequently in the US and resource-based perspectives more often in the United Kingdom, and indeed to extend studies to dif ferent jurisdictions to enhance generalization. Theoretical and empirical studies that sought to synthesize these two perspectives would also make a valuable contribution to the further development of the field.

In terms of the practical implications of our study, the findings suggest that local government managers are likely to find routes to higher levels of performance when they seek to achieve the highest possible levels of staff quality, and when front-line staff reflect the demographic characteristics o f the clientele served. Policies, plans, and practices must be developed to ensure that key staff are retained and that turnover rates remain low. Networking with other actors in the organizations’ environments is also important. Finally, these practices should be located within a strategic manage ment framework, with emphasis placed on identifying appropriate strategy content and using planning techniques. Although organizational size was nonsignificant, the evidence from these studies does suggest that it matters for efficiency gains. Hence, these features of management cannot be overlooked. In fact, none of the management approaches examined were, on balance, harmful to performance. However, some man agement approaches offered a greater prospect of success than others, often with a particular dimension of performance. Notable here is the impact of size on efficiency, of strategy, planning and networking on effectiveness, personnel stability on effective ness and equity, and representative bureaucracy and staff quality on equity.

126 J o u r n a l o f P u b lic A d m in is t r a t io n R e s e a r c h a n d T h e o ry

It seems clear that tor managers seeking to deliver performance improvements the prescriptions of resource-based theories offer the simplest route to success. Recruiting and retaining good quality staff, ensuring that managers interact with external stake holders and that the organization is demographically representative are each manage ment approaches that require investments of time and money but ought to be within the reach of any well-managed organization. By contrast, the recommendations of contingency theory for a clear and consistent strategic orientation and the adoption of rational planning processes seem to be less reliable path to better results, perhaps because the demands of time, money, and commitment required for successful imple mentation of these approaches are so great. Under the rubric of economic theory, we only reviewed size effects on performance, and so, unfortunately, are unable to offer any thoughts on the practical implications of contracting out, collaboration or copro duction for local governments. Still, that larger local governments do appear to be more efficient is an important finding, particularly for those local and national policy makers and managers seeking to eke out savings from local government systems in the wake of the financial crisis o f the early 21st century that has had a major effect on local governments in the two countries most studied in this review—the United Kingdom and the United States.

There are a number of limitations to this study, which point to the need for fur ther investigation. N ot all studies on the performance of local governments will be published in the public administration section of the SSCI. Some such studies may be found in the political science and urban studies disciplines, or in specialized policy journals in fields such as housing or education. These studies could be included in future work to develop a more comprehensive picture. The scope of this study does not permit space to examine methodological issues associated with measurement and model specification in detail. We note that the majority of the studies employed research designs that included time in the regression model, and thus seek to address concerns about causality. Issues of endogeneity nonetheless remain a concern in many studies of public management. For example, good performance may lower turnover intention or result in more demand for discussions with the staff of these local gov ernments, leading to higher levels of networking. Prior performance has been used as an independent variable in a number of the studies that examine these and other questions as an approach to capture these concerns, but there are other methods that draw on instrumental variable and experimental approaches that can be applied. An in-depth examination of this aspect of research design would be fruitful.

Another such area is the use of single versus multiple informants in survey research. These approaches have trade-offs in terms of response rates and richness of information on organizational life. To date, there are important differences in the studies examined here. In the cases of perceptual measures of management, the Texas School District studies quizzed the superintendent of the school district while stud ies from England and Wales adopted multiple informant strategies, surveying three echelons of the organization (O’Toole and Meier 2003; Walker et al. 2011). The find ings from the echelon subanalysis reported above point towards this as an important area of enquiry. The research evidence also suggests that using indices to measure performance is not perhaps the best way to operationalize the concept. Nonetheless, specific approaches to research design could influence the study findings and should

Walker and Andrews Local Government M anagem ent and Performance 127

be subjected to scrutiny. On a more practical level, scholars publishing studies of man agement and performance in local government could serve the academic community by publishing correlation coefficients in their multivariate studies. This would have two key benefits. First, future researchers would be able to conduct more traditional meta-analysis that reports effect sizes, and second it would be possible to publish stud ies that include both support score results and meta-analysis, simultaneously provid ing analysis that controls for other variables (support scores) and examines effect sizes (meta-analysis).

C O N C LU S IO N

A substantial amount of effort has been expended by a number of scholars to develop evidence of the effectiveness of management practices in local government. The bal ance of this evidence suggests that local governments’ management strategies pay dividends. We examined independent effects on this occasion, but many scholars have been developing more sophisticated models of local government management, examining moderated and mediated relationships and using statistical techniques that reveal questions concerning performance trade-offs to understand more about high- achieving organizations. This is an important area of research that can contribute to our knowledge of management and performance in local governments and the poli cies and practices of delivering services to citizens. We encourage others to make the chamber of evidence richer.

F U N D IN G

National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, the Korean Government (NRF-2011- 330-B00194); City University of Hong Kong Startup Grant (#7200332).

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