Professionalism, Responsiveness, and Representation: What do They Mean for City Managers?

Abstract

The literature in public administration advances three important values for public administrators. In their roles as technical experts, public administrators are professionals whose decisions are guided by the norms and principles of the public administration profession. In their roles as appointed officials, public administrators are expected to be responsive to their elected superiors. As representatives of the community, they are expected to voice the concerns and demands of citizens. Professionalism, responsiveness, and representation all are considered fundamental values that must be reflected in administrative decisions and actions. Despite the importance of these three values for public administration, insufficient empirical research has been done to examine what these values mean for public administrators. That is, the critical question that remains unanswered is: “What activities of public administrators are associated with these three values?” Based on a nationwide survey of city managers, this article identifies critical activities in which public administrators get involved, then reduces these activities into factors (dimensions), and finally examines the correlation of these factors with attitudes of city managers towards professionalism, responsiveness, and representation. The findings of this research help make these three values more concrete by associating them with major policy and political activities of city managers.

Keywords:

• city managers
• professionalism
• responsiveness
• representation

Notes

¹For a more comprehensive analysis of these activities, see Demir (2009).

²As seen in Table 3, correlations are moderate. Since the sample of this study is not homogenous (e.g., gender, city size, age, form of government) and the statements tap the perceptions of city managers, this pattern is not surprising. When there is variability in the data, correlations may be lower than expected (Kline, 1998). However, statistically significant correlations suggest the need for more research in the future.

³One city manager, indeed, put a note on the returned survey that emphasizes the importance of personal standards. Not being satisfied with our emphasis on professionalism as a guiding value, he stressed that his personal standards guide what he does (as opposed to the standards of the profession).