Undervurderes effekter af offentlig ledelse

Formålet er at undersøge, hvordan studier af offentlig ledelse varierer i resultater alt efter, om man undersøger med udgangspunkt i selvrapportering fra ledelsen eller frontpersonalets perspektiver på ledelsen.

De surveysvar, som henholdsvis ledere og ansatte i samme organisationer har angivet på meget enslignende spørgsmål, varierer meget fra hinanden, hvilket tyder på, at ledernes og personalets rapporter måler på forskellige ting.

Studiet anvender et unikt datasæt bestående af parallelle spørgeskemaer besvaret af både ledere og personale.

Hvorvidt man vælger at måle effekten af offentlig ledelse fra toppen eller fra bunden har således stor betydning for undersøgelsens resultater.

Public management research is dominated by a top-down perspective in which organizational behavior and performance are dominated by managers. These are also the typical survey respondents in management studies. An alternative view of management is from the bottom up and starts with the perception by subordinates of what management is seeking. This view of organizations suggests that simply taking management’s word for what management does might be problematic. This may be due to social desirability biases, communication problems, and errors of measurement from using single sources. Using a unique data set of parallel surveys on management with managers and their subordinates as respondents, we examine the differences and relationships between Danish school managers’ and teachers’ perceptions of management aspects and the implications of this for organizational performance. We find a low correlation of manager and teacher responses about the same management aspect. Teacher responses are better predictors of student performance for management aspects – resource allocation and delegation of authority - that are visible to and mediated by teachers. Management seems to matter more when measured in surveys of employees rather than managers. However, manager responses better predicts performance for manager expectations that are less visible to employees and are communicated also directly to target groups (students and parents).