دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی مدیریت دولتی استراتژیک برای وضعیت مالی: تمرکز بر تعادل صندوق در مناطق مدرسه - الزویر 2017

abstract

Scholars have emphasized the roles of strategic public management and the financial condition but little is known about the link between the two. Finding the missing link is the purpose of this study. By analyzing data from K-12 Texas school districts, this study investigates how top managers’ strategic efforts toward their superiors, subordinates, and external stakeholders affect the financial condition of school districts. The findings suggest that superintendents’ managing upward toward school boards increases fund balances, whereas managing downward toward school principals decreases fund balances. Apparently, the relationships between school boards, superintendents, and school principals contain different priorities and incentives that influence their behaviors in managing school district budgets.

7. Discussion and conclusion

The initial inquiry of this research was derived from the central question—can a top manager’s public management, driven by the pursuit of managing upward, downward, and outward, induce a satisfactory financial condition at the local level.

To explore the complex nature of public management in the specific context of school districts, this study empirically examined the relationship between superintendents’ interaction with other key local stakeholders and the districts’ financial condition (here, the unreserved general fund balances of school districts). By investigating the Texas K-12 educational system by using superintendents’ management surveys and school district financial data, our sample appears to rule out the possibility of a connection between theory and practice, despite an increasing concern for the management-performance link. Even though the empirical results partially supported our hypotheses, thefindings suggestthat a topmanager’smanagingupward toward political leaders above and downward toward line subordinates will have a significant impact on district fund balances. It seems that the public manager’s primary managing strategies have markedly changed toward facilitating resource sharing in an effective manner to ensure a satisfactory level of organizational performance. As such, our empirical evidence is reminiscent of Moore’s (1995) argument that “public managers can become strategists rather than technicians.. . . They engage the politics surrounding their organization to help define public value as well as engineer how their organizations operate” (1995, p. 20).