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ABSTRACT
Consistent or continuous use of two-way engagement mechanisms is key to effective citizen participation. This article examines how to make the municipal manager’s use of two-way engagement mechanisms more consistent when they prepare local budgets. To test the model, self-administered mail surveys were compiled from two American states—New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The findings address the role of individual intentionality. The municipal manager’s attitudinal willingness, his perceived ease or difficulty, the trust she receives from elected officials, and the capacity to coordinate effectively are significantly related to his consistent use of two-way engagement mechanisms. However, district representatives and pressures channeled through media scrutiny are not able to compel a municipal manager to routine use of such mechanisms.
Notes
The survey result confirmed the leading role of municipal managers in preparing local budgets. For example, when it comes to drafting the budget proposal, the result shows that a majority of municipal managers are either solely or jointly responsible for drafting the budget proposal. In New Jersey, 75.51% of municipal managers who responded directly participate in drafting the local budget.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania are two neighboring states sharing similar political culture (Cronin & Loevy, Citation2012) and state legal requirements on citizen participation (Berner & Smith, Citation2004).
The scale measures whether municipal managers “always,” “seldom,” “sometimes,” or “never” use two-way engagement mechanisms each time when preparing the annual budget. According to Merriam-Webster, “always” is defined as “on every relevant occasion; for all time.” The synonyms of “always” include “consistently” and “continuously.” It should be noted that consistency is not the same as frequency. A municipal manager using two-way engagement mechanisms in every budget cycle does not necessarily mean she frequently uses such mechanisms.
Prior research has justified the use of the single-item indicator in SEM. Bergkvist and Rossiter (Citation2007) found that for constructs with a concrete singular object (e.g., media) and a concrete attribute (e.g., attitude), the single-item measure demonstrated equally high predictive validity as the multiple-item measure. Petrescu’s (Citation2013) literature review of 69 marketing research articles using single-item indicators in SEM in the period 1997–2012 suggests that measures using a single time can be successful and can be employed in statistical procedures such as SEM.
The model allows the measurement errors of two items (“I am experienced enough to know the public needs without consulting with the public,” and “I know what is best for the public, based on my professional expertise”) to correlate.
For ease of presentation, the correlations for CFA analyses are not reported, but available upon request.
The squared population size and the natural log of medium household income for each municipality were used in the SEM analysis.
TLI is one of the relative fit indices that are considered non-normed, because they may be larger than 1 or slightly below 0. With respect to CFI, while a CFI = 1.0 is infrequent, models achieving that value are reported in respected journals (see Fritz, Sonnentag, Spector, & McInroe, Citation2010; Perry, Brudney, Coursey, & Littlepage, Citation2008).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Yuguo Liao
Yuguo Liao is an Assistant Professor in Political Science and Public Policy Administration at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO.