Reflexive Leadership In Local Government

REFLEXIVE LEADERSHIP IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT The power of public knowledge

Jostein Askim and Harald Baldersheim

Department of Political Science

University of Oslo

Nasjonal fagkonferanse i statsvitenskap, 2006 1. The tools of local governance: from control to leadership

The development of new tools of governance in the 1990s was, at the level of local authorities, largely concerned with enhancing accountability and the control capacities of executives through the introduction of results management, performance information, benchmarking, total quality management etc. Better information systems were perceived as the answer to problems arising from information overload and information asymmetries. These problems have again given rise to perceptions of insiders and outsiders in local governance – those who master new technologies and tools of governance and those who don’t, and who give up after a few years in local government, feeling excluded from the game and claiming local politics is difficult, inscrutable, boring or all of that.

This paper argues that the emergence of performance information and ICT-powered comparative data banks might provide answers to these challenges. We argue that the confluence of ICTs and PIs (performance indicators) is enabling a new type of leadership in local government, termed reflexive leadership. The generic function of leadership is creating visions and setting directions for change; reflexive leadership refers to a specific method or style of performing this function, i.e. drawing on comparative performance information. The paper operationalises reflexive leadership, explains how it works, i.e. what mechanisms it sets off in the polity, and assesses how widely it is practiced among elected representatives in Norwegian local governments.

Among the surprising findings in this study is the high level of usage of performance information among local politicians in Norway. Most scholars agree that New Public Management (NPM) has significantly enhanced governmental organizations’ exposure to performance information and that this new information context is affecting the work of decision makers at all levels in government, including elected representatives (Pollitt, 2005; ter Bogt, 2004). But in a survey of evaluation literature, Pollitt (2005) recently concluded that “[g]rand statements about the importance of performance information for democracy sit alongside extensive, if patchy evidence that ministers, legislators and citizens rarely make use of the volumes of performance information now thrust upon them”. Our paper tells a different and more optimistic story.

We situate our study within leadership theory – a field that seeks to understand the process of, antecedents to and correlates of effective leadership. Developing leadership theory means modelling the leadership process as well as identifying indicators of “effective outcomes” of

2 the process. There is a variety of answers to both sets of issues. Northouse (2004) outlines ten different approaches to or “models” of leadership according to their empirical foci: Traits, skills, styles, situations, contingencies, path-goal nexus, leader-member exchange, transformational, team, and psychodynamic approaches. Northouse’s own definition of leadership is “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (p. 3). Another definition emphasises that a central function of leadership is to provide purpose, meaning and guidance to collectivities by stimulating a collective vision that appeals to values, motives or self-perceptions of followers (House 1995). The latter definition indicates that leadership will be called for in particular in situations of ambiguity, when there are no pre-established organisational routines or political programmes to guide action, or when action across institutional boundaries may be called for, i.e. in processes of governance more than government.

Though it is beyond the scope of this paper to review the various approaches outlined by Northouse, it is worth noting that reflexive leadership embodies some of the features of transformational leadership. The latter is above all concerned with organisational change and a characteristic process for stimulating change. That process involves raising levels of aspiration and achievement beyond what is normally expected in conventional, contractual arrangements between leaders and followers. In the original version of transformational leadership the mechanism for achieving such results appears to be the nurturing of bonding relations between leaders and followers, which set this type of leadership apart from “transactional” leader-follower relations of other leadership models (Macgregor Burns 1978, Bass 1985). In reflexive leadership1 the core mechanism is discursive action based on public knowledge of comparative data.

The paper argues and empirically demonstrates that discursive action based on public knowledge of comparative data is activated at three stages of reflexive leadership. First, as politicians search for political guidance among sources that may contextualize the current performance of the organization. Second, as leaders set issues on the local agenda to create visions and set directions for change. And third, as they refer to comparative performance information in order to rally support for new policy initiatives. The paper also examines the

1 The concept of ‘reflexivity’ appears frequently in postmodern social analysis, emphasising how multiple levels of meaning give social relations an indeterminate character (Platt 1989, Pollner 1991,); when introducing such a perspective into organisational analysis (e.g. Gephart 1996) the very notion of an organisation tends to become a chimera. In contrast, our own use of the concept of reflexivity seeks to highlight processes of clarification of meaning through dicursive action.

3 impact of this new information context on relations between municipal actors, including those of elected and executive leaders.

The paper utilizes empirical evidence from a survey conducted among local politicians in Norway in the period October-December 2005.

But first, let us elaborate the phenomenon reflexive leadership.

2. Reflexive leadership

We define reflexive leadership as the judicious use of comparative performance information to shape local agendas and decision-making. Performance information is systematic information describing the outputs and outcomes of public programs and organizations, generated by systems and processes intended to produce such information. This includes data generated by performance monitoring systems operated by operational managers, as well as data flows from evaluations (internal or external), performance audits (internal or external) and other special exercises and reviews which have as a main purpose the discovery or analysis of performance information (Pollitt, 2005:2).

2.1 Search

We argue that discursive action based on public knowledge of comparative data is activated as a mechanism at three stages of reflexive leadership. First, as politicians who expose themselves to a broad array of performance feedback tend to search for political vision among sources that contextualize the current performance of the organization. Performance feedback includes all accounts of past experience, formal as well as informal; oral as well as written; prose as well as numerical, information gained through systematized channels as well as ad hoc. Local political leaders vary particularly much in the extent to which they expose themselves to informal, unfiltered performance feedback. Some engage emphatically in face-to-face, telephonic and electronic interaction with stakeholders, and others much less so. Such exposure influences political leaders’ beliefs and preferences and subsequently their search behaviour.

The reflexive leadership approach leads us to expect that politicians that embrace stakeholder contacts seek to contextualize the current performance of the municipality. This

4 can be achieved through comparisons with the organization’s own previous performance (all-time highs or over-time averages), some normative standard (set by the organization itself or by someone else) and/or the performance of other organizations (Simons 1939:106, Wholey 1983, Mausolff 1999:2, Moynihan 2005:212). Reflexive leaders are particularly inclined to consult information about the performance of other organizations, be it group averages or positive outliers - so-called “best cases”2. Access to ICT tools lowers the bar for acting out such reflexive leadership.

2.2 Initiative

Samuels (2003) identifies the capacity to “expand the limits of the possible” as the hallmark of leadership. This can be interpreted as an ability to present a collective vision that substantially raises the level group aspiration, by stimulating a collective vision that appeals to values, motives or self-perceptions of followers (House 1995). Reflexive leadership coins a specific method or style of performing this generic function of leadership. Reflexive leaders activate discursive action based on contextualizing public knowledge to create visions and set directions for change3. Referring to the performance of other units within or outside the organizational field (e.g. the field of local governments) can serve several purposes. Politicians in organizations that lead the field can refer to the pack of laggards and say “let’s widen the gap and loose this crowd”. Laggards can in turn refer to field leaders to illustrate the opportunity space and make the organization want to close the gap. In both cases organizational leaders consciously activate discourse based on comparative information in order to up the ante, i.e. to raise the level of group aspiration4. The reflexive leadership approach leads us to expect that politicians whose search activities are externally oriented are the most active local agenda-setters. And, furthermore, that some leaders even refer to comparative performance information when doing this. While the latter exemplifies explicit, conscious use of public knowledge, the former exemplifies what Weiss (1980) calls “knowledge creep”, a gradual awareness and incorporation of information.

It follows that reflexive leadership involves a range of choices. One is the choice of referential organisation, which again informs the vision or direction of development that the

2 Cf. Bretschneider et al. (2004) for a discussion of methodological problems in identifying “best cases”. 3 Drawing on comparative performance information is obviously only one of a number of ways that leaders employ to provide purpose and guidance to followers. Alternatives are e.g. election programmes, speeches, heroic example, or, more sinisterly, by outlining enemies or threats of various kinds. 4 A third possible effect of inter-organizational comparisons is field nivellation. This refers to the possibility that field leaders refer to field averages to argue that their performance is unnecessarily high.

5 leader seeks to set for the organisation. Levinthal and March (1993) argue that inter- organizational learning has a tendency to be self-limiting because decision makers are prone to limit their search to organizations and experiences that are similar to their own. That implies that most politicians will tend to limit their outward search to the field of local governments for inspiration, or maybe even to local governments they have previous first- hand knowledge of, e.g. due to geographical nearness or other proximity factors. There are however also examples of leaders that go beyond acquaintances and even beyond the field for inspiration5. This choice of reference will inform whether the municipality should become for instance a more business-like organisation, a more caring organisation or a more democratic polity.

A second leadership component consists in defining an appropriate level of relative aspiration for the organisation. Is the aim to become the best municipality of the Western Coast, in the whole of Norway, or in the whole of Europe? All these aspirations can be found in policy documents of Norwegian municipalities. Setting the level of aspiration too high may demoralise the organisation (creating “mission impossible”), while setting it too low may not provide enough change-mobilising pressure.

2.3 Support

Discursive action takes place a third time when reflexive leaders rally support for policy initiatives. A mayor’s reference to a set of comparative indicators may be an act of leadership in the sense of highlighting and communicating a vision for the future development of the municipality. It is, however, only a first step. The mayor (or any other decision-maker) will probably need to elaborate his/her reference into a development programme to convince others about the virtues of the initiative. Samuels (2003) outlines three chief strategies that leaders may pursue in order to gather support for their objectives. These are inspiring, buying and bullying. The extent to which these strategies are pursued, or the mixture of strategies applied may vary with situation and circumstances or the traits, skills and qualities of the leader as well as those of the supporters or target groups. We argue that reflexive leaders activate a mixture of inspiration and pride to rally support. Inspiration is a snowball effect from the illustration of the opportunity space that comes from comparisons to positive outliers: Look, it’s possible! (To ban smoking in bars, to halve HIV

5 An example of search for inspiration in faraway places is the flow of groups of Scandinavian municipal leaders who have traveled to the Arizonian city of Phoenix to study innovative practices after the city was awarded the Carl Bertelsmann Prize for outstanding performance in 1993.

6 infection rates, to triple the proportion of hydrogen-fuelled cars, etc.). There is, however, also a certain measure of bully-power or shaming potential inherent in public comparisons of performance.

Reflexive leaders, moreover, know how to activate pride on several levels to the advantage of their political initiatives. Municipal politicians, we suspect outside as well as in Norway, are often notoriously patriotic towards their local communities. Chances are that an initiative will fare well if the agenda-setter convincingly argues that his/her initiative will serve to close a “humiliating” performance gap between the municipality and its neighbours or field leaders. Activation of professional pride by referring to the performance of peers in other municipalities can also serve as an effective neutralizer of potential implementation veto points further down in the municipal hierarchy.

Comparative performance information, used judiciously, has, in other words, inherently two of three leadership strategies mentioned by Samuels: they provide vision and inspirational potential, and change-pressure from the shaming power of under-achievement. They do not, however, automatically supply the resources necessary for buying support if necessary. Organisational research demonstrates that slack resources may often be required for side- payments in order to maintain change coalitions over time (Cyert & March 1963). The lack of slack is a rock on which many change projects founder. This is a leadership component that potential change leaders will have to acquire external to the reflexive process.

2.4 The public nature of reflexive leadership and relational impacts

One interesting feature of reflexive leadership that we want to highlight in particular is the public nature of the knowledge on which it draws and the discourses thus engendered. We emphasise, therefore, that reflexive leadership is a communicative and discursive process that may be illuminated by the theory of communicative action as outlined by Jürgen Habermas (1981). Data bases of comparative performance indicators or benchmarking procedures are normally openly accessible to the public. This makes the use of such data highly transparent and gives a transparency to processes of change and development building on the data. The public nature or presentation of the data is precisely what provides the change pressure of such data. The change pressure may be felt as painful for under- achievers, of course, but is also an extremely powerful change agent. Recent theories of knowledge management have emphasised that much valuable knowledge in organisations is

7 of a tacit nature; consequently, much of the objective of knowledge management is to bring tacit knowledge into the open – to make it accessible and malleable to ordinary management procedures (e. g. Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995, Takeuchi and Nonaka 2004). This may be a difficult and cumbersome process, the efficacy of which is not easily demonstrated.

In contrast, reflexive leadership relies on public information and transparent transmission of knowledge: public databases that may be accessed by anyone with the necessary equipment or know-how (sometimes, just the ability to read is required). The actual invocation of comparative data (“we are not doing well enough compared to our neighbours!”) creates a situation of public discourse that opens up spaces for change. Opponents who may dislike the suggested direction of development implied by the chosen comparison may have to formulate counter-argument or counter-proposals, i. e. alternative futures. The overall outcome of such exchanges will be that of organisational enlightenment, whether change is achieved or not. These processes may therefore have many of the virtues of deliberative interaction (Habermas 1992, Eriksen and Weigård 1999:211ff)). Discourse on change takes place in public, draws on publicly available knowledge and by virtue of being public it is also under commitment of norms of rationality and consensus. We do not, suggest, however, that the norms of illocution (or mutual understanding) outlined by Habermas necessarily prevail throughout. At some stage strategic and manipulative action may also enter, i.e. perlocutionary behaviour, a possibility we have taken into account in the definitions of leadership on which we draw. A theory of realistic leadership must also include the possibility of strategic manipulation and coercion. However, we do wish to argue that reflexive leadership is intentionally of a deliberative and discursive nature in the Habermasian sense.

Consequently, we expect that the new information context may change relations between municipal actors.

8 2.5 When is reflexive leadership likely to emerge?

As indicated above, leadership theory and research is a notoriously disparate field (cf. e.g. The Encyclopedia of Leadership, Goethals et al. 2004). In a bird’s eye view, it is fair to say that political scientists have tended to see leadership as a question of astute wielding of political power and influence, sociologists have emphasised communicative proficiency, while psychologists have paid much attention to interpersonal skills and personality features. In recent years theory formations have converged on a focus on situational and contextual factors, highlighting how the demands of varying situations and localities shape leadership behaviour.

As suggested by House’s definition of leadership introduced above, leadership is likely to be in demand in particular in situations characterised by ambiguity as to the direction of municipal development at a given time, for example when non-routine situations are encountered, in situations of organisational stress or conflict, or when negotiations across organisational boundaries are called for. Reflexive leadership may emerge when the municipality’s performance is being questioned, for example the quality of the performance or the relevance of performance. This may happen for example when the environment is changing rapidly (“are we doing the right things when so much around us is changing?”, when resources are becoming more scarce (“should we lower our performance?”), more abundant (“what to do with new resources?”), when new people with new ideas or better information enter the organisation (which in a municipality may happen especially after an election), or when technological advances (ICT) make it easier to collect and process information.

3. The infrastructure of reflexive leadership

The measurement of municipal performance and the construction of comparative performance data bases are spreading throughout Europe (cf. Kuhlman et al. 2004 for a review). In Norway such data bases vary on two dimensions—the range of policy areas they cover and the number of municipalities that take part. There are two data bases that cover practically the whole range of services and activities Norwegian municipalities perform. One is KOSTRA (abbreviation for The Local Government Data Registration and Information

9 Scheme), which was introduced by the Government in the late 1990s to help central government keep track of local government expenditures and activities and to allow municipalities to undertake valid comparisons amongst themselves. Annual reporting to KOSTRA was made compulsory for all municipalities in 2002. The other full-range data base is called The Better Municipality (Bedre kommune) and was initiated by The Association for Local and Regional Authorities in 2004—on the back of a nationwide benchmarking project. Whereas KOSTRA contains data on productivity and efficiency, The Better Municipality focuses on measures of service quality—many constructed from standardized satisfaction surveys. In addition to these two, there are a handful of Government-initiated data bases with comparative performance information covering single policy areas only (public management policies, education, water and renovation services, etc.) and a few bottom-up initiatives where smaller groups of municipalities have initiated comparisons on their own (e.g. the cities of Kristiansand, Tønsberg, Bærum and Skien).

The existence of these data bases with comparative performance information does not guarantee that reflexive leadership is practiced in Norwegian municipalities—only that the infrastructure for such leadership is in place. To increase the chances that this infrastructure was utilized, a national initiative known as the Efficiency Networks was taken in 2002 by the Government and the National Association of Local Authorities. Municipalities were invited to form networks of 4-8 municipalities and devise strategies for how to improve performances, based on evaluations of how their service provision compares with that of the high-performers of the field. More than 300 Norwegian municipalities (out of a total of 432) joined the project. Evaluation reports (Askim et al 2006, Fürst and Høverstad 2004, Paulsen 2003) indicate that this network-based exposure to performance information to a considerable extent managed to spark off or contribute to learning processes in the municipalities. Askim et al (2006) found the project to has had both direct and indirect impacts on the municipalities’ internal change processes, and they identified a handful of drivers for municipalities’ learning outcome from benchmarking; amongst these the size of the benchmarking networks (smaller is better), network heterogeneity (more is better) and active involvement of executive and elected officials.

Other studies have showed that municipalities have used benchmarking to stimulate

10 organisational development (Baldersheim and Øgård 1997). The Municipal Compass is a benchmarking system quite well known in the Nordic countries. The system is derived from the so-called Bertelsmann Test that was developed in the early 1990s (Bertelsmann Foundation 1993) and has been used widely in Norway and Sweden. Examples of municipalities that have used this benchmarking framework actively include the City of Larvik, who from 1999—instigated by a new CEO—took the test annually over a five year period and during this period fundamentally changed its organisational structure and system of management and became something of a beacon among Nordic cities, raising its benchmarking scores by more than 100 percent. Another example is “The Five Twin Cities” effort. In 2002 the City of Kristiansand suggested that the five cities of Trollhättan, Kerava, Hjørring, Reykjanesbær—and Kristiansand—take the test together to identify respective strong and weak points. In this way, they established a foundation for mutual learning. They subsequently set up inter-municipal work groups to analyze performance in selected areas and suggest ways of improving it. When the five cities took the test again two years later, all had improved their scores.

There is i.e. some evidence that municipalities, seen as unified actors, make strategic use of comparative performance information. But what is the role of local political leaders in these utilization processes? Do they consult and make use of comparative performance information in their work? Some quotations from preliminary case studies cited below suggest that local politicians do consult sources such as those outlined above. Other quotations indicate that political interest in these data is not necessarily widespread, or that impacts are limited.

Quote 1: (councillor A, Stavanger) “I often call the City of Oslo and ask how Oslo is addressing various problems. I have also contacted the City of Copenhagen. It is a wise strategy to collect this sort of information, and I search the Internet a lot to find this type of information”.

Quote 2: (councillor B, Drammen): The councillor indicates that he makes use of the Internet a lot to access information that supplements documents provided by the municipal administration: “I have the National Association of Local Authorities, Parliament and the national ministries as permanent book marks (on my browser)”.

11 Quote 3: (executive officer, Drammen): Politicians tend to look at performance indicators (from KOSTRA) one by one; they do not get the whole picture but concentrate on particular areas which may give a misleading picture when seen in isolation from other pieces of information. The presentation of indicators needs to become more coherent.

Quote 4: (executive officer, Drammen): “Politicians remember the last complaint they heard (from citizens), not average scores from the last user survey”.

Quote 5: (executive officer, Stavanger): Politicians have recently gained access to an internal reporting system (BASIS) that includes results of user surveys for particular services. This has generated an overall performance pressure throughout the organisation, especially if there are “red” indicators. “Politicians become more concerned with how well we run our services, rather than coming up with new services we cannot afford!”

What is the overall political interest in comparative performance data, and how is it put to use in municipalities throughout the country? This is the question addressed in the section below.

4. The extent of reflexive leadership: Survey of Norwegian councillors

4.1 Modelling and analysing reflexive leadership behaviour

The purpose of this section is to ascertain the spread of reflexive leadership in local politics. This is done by 1) analysing survey material on the search behaviour of local politicians in connection with important decision on the agenda of local authorities, and 2) relating search behaviour to agenda setting initiatives and potential impacts on relationships between actors in local government. We seek, furthermore, 3) to explore drivers of reflexive leadership in local government.

The data for the following analysis stem from a survey conducted among local politicians in Norway in the period October-December 2005. Paper questionnaires were sent to a random sample of 1.500 local politicians from all over the country. The response rate after one probe was 50 percent. The survey has been part of the project ‘ICT and Local Democracy’, which is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and conducted in collaboration between Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR), University of Oslo and

12 University College of Oslo. The analysis also uses municipality-level data from the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) and from Statistics Norway (SSB).

As an heuristic aid for the analyses indicated above a model of reflexive leadership is developed following the leads indicated in section 1 above. The basic features of the model are outlined in figure 1. The model’s triggering impulse is the exposure of local politicians to a broad array of external sources of information. The broader the exposure the more likely it is that they will encounter information that may lead them to worry about the performance of their own municipality. This may again trigger search for systematic information with which to assess their municipality.

Next, accessing sources of comparative data will lead to processes of evaluation. The data as such may not contain a clear message to the municipality. The message may have to be teased out of the data through processes of discussion and assessment of the relevance and usefulness of the data, including rejection of or resistance to messages suggested by interpretations of the data. We expect, however, politicians who have started to worry about their municipality and who have actively sought out external sources of information to be more inclined to accept the usefulness of such data than politicians who remain more passive with regard to information sources.

We assume, furthermore, that agenda setting is a concrete expression of political visions, and hence an essential leadership function. A central research question is, therefore, whether search behaviour is systematically related to agenda setting for the municipality. Do certain forms of search behaviour enable local leaders to be more active agenda setters? If we are to really talk about the emergence of reflexive leadership we should expect externally oriented search behaviour to be associated with particularly active agenda setting. Consequently, those who are a) worried about their municipality’s current development, b) have sought out comparative information, and c) have found such information useful, are d) expected to be more active seekers of influence and agenda setters.

The introduction of comparative data may have wider repercussions for relations between actors in the municipality. Information on which political decisions are based is frequently of an ambiguous or contested nature, although it is normally the task of the administration to provide advice and recommendations that are as clear and unambiguous as possible. It is the very purpose of performance indicators to reduce ambiguity and uncertainty. If this function

13 is fulfilled, some of the tension often found in relations among municipal actors may be reduced. In consequence, there may be more of Habermasian illocution and less perlocution in council discussions and political-administrative relations. In short, the level of rationality and good will may be enhanced in council affairs.

Figure 1. A model of reflexive leadership behaviour

Exposure to a broad array of contacts and sources of information increases likelihood of worries about the performance of own municipality H1: Politicians who are exposed to a broad array of information sources are more likely to be aware of and to seek out sources of comparative data - table 1 Worries about performance leads to enhanced search for information - where can I find useful information? H2: Politicians who actively seek out sources of comparative data are more likely to find this type of information useful for decision-making - table 2 which leads to discussion and evaluation of received information - how useful is it for decision-making? H3: Politicians who search out and find comparative indicators useful are more likely to be active agenda setters in their municipalities - table 3

Use of information to persuade others; influencing setting of agendas and goals H4: Politicians who find comparative indicators useful are more likely to experience beneficial impacts of these indicators on political-administrative relations in their municipalities - table 4 Impact of information Changing relations between municipal actors

14 As a starting point, factor analysis of search behaviour (as indicated by the query: “When taking a stand...”, see table 1) was carried out, which yielded three components interpreted as externally oriented search behaviour, internally oriented behaviour and party oriented behaviour. The items of the respective components were combined into three separate indices for search behaviour. The results of the factor analysis are presented in appendix table 1, including the list of items on which the search behaviour indices are based. The groupings of the items that make up the respective indices are indicated below.

External sources=  The web-pages of other municipalities (7)  The web-pages of central government, regional government, trade unions or the Association for local governments. (18)  Reports from researchers or consultants (23)  National databases with benchmarking data (33)

Internal sources=  Case documents from previous cases in the municipality (48)  Results from satisfaction surveys conducted among users/inhabitants (29)  Performance information in the municipality’s annual report or in balanced scorecard documentation (43)

Party sources=  Party programmes and other documentation of your local party’s policies within the area in question (51)  The web-pages of the political party you represent (24)

The figures in brackets indicate the proportions of councillors who responded that they consulted the respective sources of information “very often” or “quite often” (as against “sometimes”, “rarely” or “very rarely”). Overall, internal municipal sources and party sources are consulted more frequently than externals sources in connection with decisions on the agenda of the municipalities, which may not be so surprising. Nevertheless, one third of the councillors claim they regularly seek out information from national data bases with benchmarking data (e.g. KOSTRA or the Efficiency Networks). Around one fifth consult

15 web pages of central government agencies or research reports. This must be considered a fairly widespread interest in external data of a comparative nature. Is it possible to relate this interest to the chain of reflexive leadership? A first step towards answering the question is found in table 1.

Table 1. H1: Politicians who are exposed to a broad array of information sources are more likely to be aware of and to seek out sources of comparative data. Correlation coefficients, Pearsons r. N=663-661

Search behaviour Exposure/contacts “When taking a stand on issues on the agenda “How often are you in contact with the of the municipal council, how often do you following actors ?” – list of alternatives - seek out additional information from the sum index (a) following sources?” - list of potential sources, summary indices regarding: External sources/data banks, index (b) ,398(**) Internal sources (municipal), index (b) ,353(**) Sources in own party, index (b) ,315(**)

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

(a) The data source is responses to the following question: “How often are you in contact with the following actors?” – list of alternatives: other politicians, CEO, other executives, other functionaries, citizens, media, associations/interest groups (daily – never). A summary index for contacts has been calculated including contacts with all of the above actors.

(b) The data source is responses to the following question: “When taking a stand on issues on the agenda of the municipal council, how often do you seek out additional information from the following sources?” (very often – rarely/never).

Hypothesis 1 is supported by the results reported in table 1. Councillors’ exposure to contacts with various actors has been aggregated into one summary index (the worry creating factor). Next, councillors’ search behaviour has been aggregated into indices that reveal three foci of search (based on factor analysis): External sources of comparative data, sources related to their political party, and internal municipal sources (see appendix table A for details). The factor analysis demonstrates that there is indeed a distinctive group of councillors who are characterised by the type of search behaviour associated with reflexive leadership (search for external sources). Furthermore, councillors who are much exposed to contacts also demonstrate more search behaviour overall, as seen from the positive

16 correlation coefficients. However, the highest coefficient is that between the contact index and the external search behaviour index, which again is the behavioural linkage expected in the model of reflexive leadership.

Table 2. H2: Politicians who actively seek out sources of comparative data are more likely to find this type of information useful for decision-making. Correlation coefficients, Pearsons r.

Search behaviour Evaluation Sources of information consulted in Index regarding the value of external sources of connection with municipal decisions: information (a) ,832(**) External, index (b) Internal, index (b) ,417(**) Party, index (b) ,477(**)

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). a) The data source is responses to the following question: “When taking a stand on important issues on the agenda of the municipal council, how useful do you find information from the following sources?” - list of sources same as in table 1. A summary index was constructed based on the same list of sources as used for constructing the index for externally oriented search behaviour presented in table 1, note b). b) Same as in table 1, note b).

Hypotesis 2 concerns the evaluation stage of the leadership process, i. e. the assessment of the value of the information that has been sought out as an aid in decision-making. Those who are active information-seekers overall also tend to find external sources of information useful. But this is especially so for those who have consulted external sources of information containing performance indicators (note the extremely high correlation coefficient between externally oriented search behaviour and the assessment of such information as being of high value in the course of decision-making). Thus, hypothesis 2 is also supported by the data.

17 Table 3. H3: Politicians who search out comparative indicators are more likely to be active agenda setters in their municipalities. Correlation coefficients, Pearsons r. N=723-706

“How often have you taken an initiative aiming at putting an issue on the agenda of the municipal council or a council committee?”

Search and evaluation behaviour: External info index a ,176(**) Internal info index a ,138(**) Party info index a ,133(**) Usefulness of external info b ,171(**)

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). a) Same as in table 1, note b). b) Same as in table 2, note a)

Table 3 indicates that politicians who are active in searching out additional information in connection with important issues on the agenda of local councils are also more active agenda setters as they take such initiatives more frequently. This is so regardless of information sources consulted. But again, in accordance with our hypothesis, the relationship is demonstrated most clearly with regard to those politicians who are most active in consulting external sources. The same holds with regard to those politicians who find external sources of information useful.

18 Table 4: H4: Politicians who search out and/or find comparative indicators useful are more likely to experience beneficial impacts of these indicators on political-administrative relations in their municipalities. Correlation coefficients, Pearsons r. N= 706-696.

Question to councillors: Consulted Assessment of “As regards your own experiences with the external sources value of role of performance indicators in municipal of info, index (a) external info, decision-making, do you agree or disagree index (b) with the following statements?”

"Use of performance information enhances ,218(**) ,209(**) the quality of discussions in the Municipal Council "

"Use of performance information reduces the ,177(**) ,167(**) level of conflict in the Municipal Council"

"Use of performance information improves ,181(**) ,193(**) the communication between administrative executives and politicians"

"Use of performance information improves ,191(**) ,188(**) political control over administrative implementation of political decisions”

"Performance information makes it easier for ,182(**) ,182(**) councillors to judge how well the municipality meets the needs of the inhabitants”

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). a), b) See notes tables 1 and 2.

In table 4, the impact of councillors’ interest in performance indicators on relationships among municipal actors is analysed. The councillors’ interest is measured in terms of their externally oriented search behaviour and their valuation of this type of information. Overall, councillors who demonstrate features of reflexive leadership (i. e. active search behaviour and positive valuation of external information) also find that performance indicators have a benign influence on municipal relationships: council debates become more rational (in the sense that Germans term sachlich and Scandinavians saklig), i. e. less propagandistic, levels of conflict are reduced, communications between politicians and administrators is improved, while political control over the administration is enhanced. PIs also help politicians judge

19 how well the municipality serves the need of the inhabitants. In other words, many of the ideals of discursive democracy are (better) realised through the presence of PIs in the local processes of decision-making. This is particularly so in the eyes of those most familiar with PIs and comparative performance data, the politicians who actually take an interest in and make use of such data, i. e. the reflexive leaders.

4.2 The triggers of reflexive leadership

A further research question concerns the triggers of reflexive leadership. Under what conditions and in what kinds of situations is this type of leadership likely to emerge? We have suggested above that leadership is likely to be called for especially in situations characterised by ambiguity, such as crisis situations, the break-down of routines or when inter-institutional action is called for. Does this apply to reflexive leadership also?

At the contextual level we expect that council members in communities undergoing rapid change may feel that they are facing uncertainty more often than those functioning in more stable environments. In such situations they may think that their municipalities may have to adapt services to rapidly changing circumstances, which may induce them to look for new or better sources of information regarding municipal performance, such as results information. Furthermore, the governance of large-scale organisations may present more challenges to leadership than smaller units as regards span of control and the emergence of unprecedented situations. Consequently, reflexive leadership is more likely to occur in large municipalities than in smaller ones. At the institutional level, vicissitudes of resource flows and financial difficulties may create grave challenges for municipal leaders. We expect, consequently, that situations of resource squeeze will instigate search for new solutions and visions. Finally, at the individual level, council members with formal positions of responsibility (mayors, committee leaders, etc.) may be more exposed to both to non-routine issues and also to stronger expectations as to providing directions. They may therefore be more inclined to search for solutions farther away from home than the ordinary council members do.

We wish, furthermore, to introduce the notion of enabling factors that may influence search behaviour with regard to comparative data bases. These are circumstances that facilitate information search of this nature. Obvious factors at the individual level are education, experience and technical competence.

20 These hypotheses are explored in table 5. Three sets of regression analyses are carried out in order to explore the anticipated relationships. Features of reflexive leadership constitute the dependent variables (the extent to which external information is sought out, the value put on external sources of information, and the assessment of the usefulness of performance information in taking agenda-shaping initiatives).

21 Table 5. Contextual, institutional and personal features related to reflexive leadership behaviour. Regression analysis. Standardised beta coefficients.

Reflexive leadership behaviour:

Seeks Values Performance external external information information information significant for (a) (b) agenda initiatives (c) Gender -,003 -,046 ,017 (1=female, 2=male) Age (years) ,089* ,115* -,079 Educational level ,096* ,083* -,112 (5 point scale; 5=university, 1=primary school only) Political experience ,066 ,048 -,009 (Number of 4-year electoral periods in the municipal council. Survey) Mayor ,162*** ,161*** ,131** (1=yes; 0=no) Deputy Mayor ,127*** ,116** -,019 (1=yes) Member of the executive committee ,101* ,076 ,053 (1=yes) Fiscal situation of municipality -,022 ,011 -,015 (Average net annual budgetary result for the period 2002-2004 per capita. NOK. Data from Statistics Norway) Municipal size ,093* ,065 ,040 (Number of inhabitants. 2004. Data from Statistics Norway) Contextual (in)stability ,075 ,079* ,055 (Net in-migration 1994-2004 as pct. of total number of inhabitants 2004. Data from Statistics Norway) Ajusted R2 ?? ,069 ,064 ,029

Levels of significance: * .05 ** .01 *** .001 a. Index construction, cf. table 1. b. Index construction, cf. table 2. c. "When you have tried to get an issue on the agenda of the council/committee, was performance information of any significance for your initiative?" Responses coded as "yes, of great sign.", "yes, of some sign.", "no".

22 The suggested triggers of reflexive leadership function largely as expected. The contextual factors of community (in)stability and size both impact upon the propensity to engage in this type of behaviour (beta coefficients significant at the ,05 level). The organisational level factor of fiscal situation (availability of slack resources) included in the analysis does not play any significant role with regard to reflexive behaviour, however.

The most important factors are found at the individual level. Having a role of leadership responsibility is the one most important driver for becoming a reflexive leader, as indicated by significant coefficients with regard to the roles variables (mayor, deputy mayor, executive board member). Interestingly, the relationship between role status and reflexive behaviour is stronger the higher the status of the role and the greater the extent of responsibility. Being a mayor induces reflexive behaviour more than being a deputy mayor, who is again more inclined to this type of effort than members of the executive board, and so on. Clearly, the demands of higher office make office incumbents value and seek out external sources of information that may help them assess the performance of their own municipality and find directions for their community.

The enabling factor of education also works as expected: Higher education is of assistance in seeking out the type of information in question. Long political experience is not related to reflexive behaviour, however, contrary to our expectations.

We have, furthermore, introduced two control variables: gender and age. Familiarity with digital technology is an enabling factor of reflexive leadership. Research on digital divides has demonstrated that gender and age are related to mastery of ICT (Norris 2001): younger people and men are more likely to be heavy users of ICTs. Interestingly, our data show that older councillors actually are more likely to behave reflexively than younger ones, while there is no difference between male and female councillors in this respect.

Conclusions and discussion

The paper started with the notion that a new type of leadership is emerging in local government: reflexive leadership. It is a type of leadership that takes advantage of new tools of governance: the spread of new information and communication technologies and the construction of data banks with easy-to-access data on comparative performance indicators. We have provided a number of examples of such data banks in Norway and also illustrated attitudes among political leaders and municipal executives as to the benefits of performance

23 data. The examples demonstrate that attitudes and experiences are mixed but indicate also that a process of adoption is indeed taking place in a number of municipalities. Previous research has been sceptical as to the actual use of these opportunities by councillors or the benefits they might bring to processes of local governance. We have tried to demonstrate theoretically the leadership potential of these tools and the uses to which they may be put in providing political guidance in the hands of astute leaders.

We have tried to model the process of reflexive leadership and to investigate the extent to which the connections stipulated by the model are actually unfolding in local government in Norway. On the whole, we did find the connections we were looking for. First of all, the interest in comparative performance indicators was quite widespread, with a third of all councillors surveyed indicating that they do check relevant data banks and other sources of information. The paper shows a considerably higher level of usage of performance information among Norwegian councillors than what existing research (e.g. ter Bogt 2004, Pollitt 2005) leads us to expect.

Agenda setting is a concrete expression of political visions, and hence an essential leadership function. The paper shows that politicians who are active in searching out additional information in connection with important issues on the agenda of local councils are also more active agenda setters as they take such initiatives more frequently. This is so regardless of information sources consulted, but the relationship is demonstrated most clearly with regard to those politicians who are most active in consulting external sources.

Moreover, the impact of reflexive leadership on relations between actors in local government was found to be strong. These impacts were in the direction suggested by theories of discursive action: council debates become more rational, levels of conflicts are reduced and the cooperative atmosphere in political-administrative relations is enhanced. These impacts are attributed to two features of performance information: fairly objective measurement of achievements and the public nature of the knowledge on which debates are based. The public nature of the data is both a force for change in cases of under-achievement and guidance as to the direction of change. This does not take the political nature out of guidance since there will still be choices to make and conflicts to face as to the direction of municipal development.

24 A further significant finding is that reflexive leadership is closely related to existing patterns of influence and responsibility. Councillors with roles involving extensive responsibilities (mayors, deputy mayors, board members) demonstrate reflexive leadership more often than councillors in less demanding roles. The challenges of decision-making under uncertainty entailed by high-office induce office-holders to seek new sources of information and to be on the lookout for comparisons and examples that may point their municipalities in the “right” direction. The alternative expectation, that the new tools of governance would be eagerly grasped by backbenchers and outsiders, was not borne out by the analysis.

Appendix

Table 1. Search behaviour of local politicians (N=718 )

Rotated Component Matrix(a)

Component 1 2 3 Case documents from previous cases in the municipality 0,052 0,602 0,322 Results from satisfaction surveys conducted among users/inhabitants 0,158 0,767 0,099 Performance information in the municipality's annual report or in balanced scorecard documentation 0,309 0,741 0,061 Party programmes and other documentation of your local party's policies within the area in question -0,025 0,326 0,788 The web-pages of the political party you represent 0,465 0,049 0,748 The web-pages of other municipalities 0,724 0,087 0,41 The web-pages of central government, regional government, labour unions or the Association for local governments. 0,827 0,07 0,304 Reports from researchers or consultants 0,733 0,358 -0,126 National databases with benchmarking data 0,756 0,229 0,023

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. a Rotation converged in 9 iterations.

Question in survey:

”When you are in the process of taking a stand on a specific case, how often do you actively and single- handedly collect information to supplement the pre-prepared case documentation?”. The rows in the question matrix named nine potential sources for supplementing information. These are listed in Table 1. The question was accommodated to Likert-scale items, with responses falling along a continuum regarding the level of frequency of use. The scale’s values ranged from one to five: Very often, fairly often, occasionally, fairly seldom and very seldom - or n.a./do not know.

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