Public management and the expansion of an entrepreneurial ethos?

Abstract

This article examines public managers' orientations to entrepreneurial traits, values and characteristics. The data for the study come from an exploratory survey of 181 public managers. The article suggests ‘the entrepreneur’ is a category manager's esteem but cannot claim to occupy. While most align with entrepreneurial traits and values, the survey highlights significant variations across divisions of gender, seniority and sector. The expansion of an entrepreneurial ethos is uneven and previous assumptions – that public managers are willing entrepreneurial subjects – may have to be partially revised.

Key words:

• Entrepreneurship
• identity
• UK public managers

Notes

1 Questions from scale:

1.	This person makes decisions on ‘gut feeling’.
2.	This person has a dislike of taking risks.
3.	This person likes to work alone developing their own ideas.
4.	This person can always be relied upon to comer up with new ideas.
5.	This person feels their success and failure is ultimately dependent upon them and their ability.
6.	This person is highly influenced by colleagues around them.
7.	This person is primarily driven by well-defined short-term achievements.
8.	This person is happy without challenges.
9.	This person is typically constrained from doing what they want by rules and regulations.
10.	This person always finds creative ways around problems and barriers.

2 The scores on the (above) items were as follows. They compare the equality of means for senior managers and practising professionals with managerial responsibility. In each case the degrees of freedom equalled eighty-five and the significance is for a one-tailed t-test because the samples were unrelated.

• (1)Sig., p < .026.

• (3)Sig., p < .041.

• (7)Sig., p < .000.

• (8)Sig., p < .091.

• (9)Sig., p < .004.

• (10)Sig., p < .036.

3 These items and scores were as follows. They compare the equality of means for male and female respondents. In each case the degrees of freedom equalled 179 and the significance is for a two-tailed t-test because the samples were unrelated.

• (3)Sig., p < .067.

• (4)Sig., p < .001.

• (6)Sig., p < .085.

• (7)Sig., p < .092.

4 The number of questionnaire items in each scale was three in each case. Cronbach alpha coefficients (calculated using SPSS) were:

• Scale one ‘commercial’: .5287, n = 176, items 3.

• Scale two ‘risk’:  .7118, n = 179, items 3.

• Scale three ‘service delivery’: .6174, n = 177, items 3.