Do Managers Make Use of Increased Autonomy? Evidence from Large Scale Organizational Reform

Figures & data

Table 1. A survey of survey studies of the impact of new public management reforms.

Author	Purpose of survey	No. of surveyed studies	Effect variable	Main result of survey
Andrews, 2011	Do NPM reforms influence cost-efficiency of public organizations?	18	Efficiency	Inconclusive
Andrews et al., 2011	Does an organization’s publicness affect its performance?	31	Performance	Inconclusive; call for more methodological rigor
Boyne, 2002	Is public and private management different?	34	Effects of publicness: environment, goals, structures, and managerial values	Inconclusive; call for more methodological rigor
Boyne, 2003	Does public management affect performance?^1	11	Performance	Management may matter; strong call for more methodological rigor
Bryson et al., 2010	Does strategic management influence performance?^1	Unspecified	Performance	Inconclusive; call for stronger research designs
Dan & Pollitt, 2015	Does NPM work in Central and Eastern Europe?	32	Performance	NPM works sometimes
George et al., 2019	Does strategic planning improve performance	31	Performance	Moderate positive effect
Gerrish, 2016	Does performance management influence performance?	49	Performance in public organizations	Substantively small, but statistically positive effect; call for more methodological rigor
Meier & O’Toole, 2008	Does good management make a difference?^1	Unspecified (results from 10 years of research on Texas schools)	School performance	External management may positively influence performance; inconclusive effects of internal management
Poister et al., 2010	Does strategic management influence performance?^1	34	Performance	Inconclusive; call for stronger research designs
Walker & Andrews, 2015	Does local government management affect performance?	86	Performance	Some aspects of management matter, others not; call for more methodological rigor

Notes: 1. Here we choose to focus on the one (out of several) question asked by this survey that focuses on effects of management.

Figure 1. The mediated relationship between managerial autonomy and performance.

Table 2. Elements of managerial autonomy.

	Low extreme	High extreme
Autonomy in staffing decisions	No freedom; Must be approved centrally	Full freedom to allocate resources between salary groups and non-salary expenses, and to make staffing decisions
Autonomy to transfer accounting deficits	No transfer allowed	Transfer allowed, no or limited need for central approval
Autonomy to transfer accounting surplus	No transfer allowed	Transfer allowed, no or limited need for central approval

Figure 2. Municipal amalgamation generating changes in managerial autonomy.

Figure 3. Distribution of changes in managerial autonomy across amalgamated municipalities.

Table 3. Outcome variables in the study.

Management behavior/activity	Variables in the study
Staffing patterns	Organizational growth Teacher ratio Use of part-timers
Employment conditions	Turnover Salary
Organizational demographics	Proportion of women Mean age of employees Age spread among employees (std. dev.)

Table 4. Difference-in-difference regressions predicting hiring patterns.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
	Number of employees	Number of employees	Teacher/total employees	Teacher/total employees	Part-timers	Part-timers
Managerial Autonomy Change Index	−0.377	−0.376	0.000	0.000	0.045**	0.045**
	(0.503)	(0.503)	(0.849)	(0.840)	(0.009)	(0.009)
After	3.353***		−0.051***		−0.060
	(0.000)		(0.000)		(0.097)
Index*after (DiD)	0.221*		−0.002***		−0.059***
	(0.039)		(0.001)		(0.000)
Number of employees			−0.001***	−0.001***	0.037***	0.037***
			(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
Before reform		Ref.		Ref.		Ref.
2007		0.226		−0.024***		0.106
		(0.602)		(0.000)		(0.071)
2008		5.045***		−0.058***		−0.184**
		(0.000)		(0.000)		(0.002)
2009		4.051***		−0.065***		−0.119*
		(0.000)		(0.000)		(0.046)
2010		4.180***		−0.057***		−0.054
		(0.000)		(0.000)		(0.367)
Index*2007		0.178		−0.002		−0.055*
		(0.301)		(0.128)		(0.019)
Index*2008		0.071		−0.001		−0.075**
		(0.685)		(0.266)		(0.002)
Index*2009		0.140		−0.004***		−0.053*
		(0.424)		(0.001)		(0.026)
Index*2010		0.519**		−0.003*		−0.055*
		(0.003)		(0.013)		(0.020)
Constant	84.733**	84.735**	0.770***	0.770***	1.444	−1.462
	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.080)	(0.077)
R-square
within	0.07	0.04	0.25	0.26	0.15	0.16
between	0.18	0.18	0.11	0.11	0.63	0.63
total	0.17	0.16	0.14	0.15	0.36	0.36
N (school-years)	6128	6128	6128	6128	6128	6128
N (number of schools)	694	694	694	694	694	694

All models include dummy variables (fixed-effects) for 98 new municipalities. P-values in parentheses.

*p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Table 5. Difference-in-difference regressions predicting employment conditions.

	Model 7	Model 8	Model 9	Model 10
	Turnover	Turnover	Avg. hourly wage	Avg. hourly wage
Managerial Autonomy Change Index	0.023	0.024	0.194	0.197
	(0.829)	(0.819)	(0.095)	(0.083)
After	−1.176***		9.726***
	(0.000)		(0.000)
Index*after (DiD)	−0.024		−0.106
	(0.845)		(0.334)
Number of employees	−0.019**	−0.021***	−0.037***	−0.035***
	(0.001)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
Before reform		Ref.		Ref.
2007		−3.055***		17.830***
		(0.000)		(0.000)
2008		−2.625***		−0.927*
		(0.000)		(0.021)
2009		−1.980***		7.606***
		(0.000)		(0.000)
2010		3.041***		14.138***
		(0.000)		(0.000)
Index*2007		0.039		−0.130
		(0.842)		(0.408)
Index*2008		−0.236		0.112
		(0.234)		(0.488)
Index*2009		−0.164		−0.254
		(0.410)		(0.113)
Index*2010		0.254		−0.245
		(0.202)		(0.126)
Constant	14.053**	29.784***	186.718***	190.627***
	(0.002)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
R-square
within	0.00	0.02	0.19	0.37
between	0.26	0.26	0.15	0.16
total	0.05	0.07	0.18	0.33
N (school-years)	6128	6128	6117	6117
N (number of schools)	694	694	694	694

All models include dummy variables (fixed-effects) for 98 new municipalities. P-values in parentheses.

*p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Table 6. Difference-in-difference regressions predicting demographic composition.

	Model 11	Model 12	Model 13	Model 14	Model 15	Model 16
	Ratio women	Ratio women	Avg. age	Avg. age	Std. dev age	Std. dev. age
Managerial Autonomy Change Index	−0.002	−0.002	−0.029	−0.028	−0.006	−0.006
	(0.069)	(0.068)	(0.456)	(0.454)	(0.732)	(0.725)
After	0.015***		−0.203***		0.450***
	(0.000)		(0.000)		(0.000)
Index*after (DiD)	0.001**		−0.017		−0.031**
	(0.007)		(0.336)		(0.005)
Number of employees	0.000	0.000	−0.030***	−0.030***	0.014***	0.014***
	(0.251)	(0.269)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
Before reform		Ref.		Ref.		Ref.
2007		0.014***		−0.136		0.224***
		(0.000)		(0.053)		(0.000)
2008		0.018***		−0.221**		0.552***
		(0.000)		(0.002)		(0.000)
2009		0.018***		−0.374***		0.607***
		(0.000)		(0.000)		(0.000)
2010		0.011***		−0.089		0.432***
		(0.000)		(0.214)		(0.000)
Index*2007		0.001		−0.019		−0.023
		(0.080)		(0.496)		(0.180)
Index*2008		0.002*		−0.008		−0.026
		(0.026)		(0.779)		(0.134)
Index*2009		0.002*		−0.043		−0.016
		(0.021)		(0.128)		(0.376)
Index*2010		0.000		0.002		−0.055**
		(0.703)		(0.932)		(0.002)
Constant	0.629***	0.630***	47.344***	47.327***	11.974***	12.014***
	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
R-square
within	0.03	0.03	0.07	0.07	0.09	0.10
between	0.14	0.14	0.20	0.20	0.27	0.27
total	0.10	0.10	0.15	0.15	0.18	0.18
N (school-years)	6128	6128	6128	6128	6128	6128
N (number of schools)	694	694	694	694	694	694

All models include dummy variables (fixed-effects) for 98 new municipalities. P-values in parentheses.

*p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

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