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Turnaround management strategies in local authorities: managerial, political and national obstacles to recovery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2014

Itai Beeri  and
Doron Navot
Itai Beeri*
Affiliation:
School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Doron Navot
Affiliation:
School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
*
Corresponding author: itaibeeri@poli.haifa.ac.il
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Abstract

Over recent decades, nations worldwide have been struggling with public finance difficulties and other organizational and functional challenges that, inter alia, led to the EU Fiscal Stability Treaty in 2012. Under various reforms, poor-performing local authorities are subject to continuous pressure to employ turnaround management strategies – strategies borrowed from the private sector that are assumed to be effective in public-sector contexts. Based on insights from institutional theory, we argue not only that turnaround management strategies have been either poorly matched to the causes of failure in the government sector or poorly implemented, but that turnaround management strategies will almost always tend to fail in the public context. Based on survey data collected in local authorities, we empirically verify this argument. Theoretical and practical lessons for improving reforms in the government sector and other public organizations that face crisis are suggested.

Keywords

local governmentinstitutional theoryresource-based theorycentral–local relationturnaround management strategiespoor-performing public organizationspublic recoveryisomorphism
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 121 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2014 

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