Understanding the Role of the Manager in Organizational Performance and Community Engagement

摘要

Public administration's history has a close relationship to the political and economic societies out of which it grew, and the purpose of public administration has been to enable and promote well-functioning societies. Western public administration, birthed in liberal republican philosophy, has embraced the idea that politics and administration should be distinct, with the sovereign citizens and their elected people setting the direction of policy and the society, while competent administrators carry out that mission. There has been a healthy debate over the past century about the appropriate role for managers in that politics-administration dichotomy ideal of Western public administration, with Waldo (1948) and Rosenbloom (1971, 2008), among others, arguing that the separation of the policy process from administration was untenable. Svara (1985, 1998, 1999, 2008) has demonstrated empirically that the interaction of roles and responsibilities of administrators and elected officials in city government is more nuanced and complementary than the orthodox dichotomy allows. In an era of governance when managers work across the sectors and with politically engaged actors, more than ever a new formulation of managerial rolesrnis needed. In 2020, managers are likely to be working across the three sectors of government, and engaging citizens and stakeholders, even more than they do currently.