Connecting the dots in public management: Political environment, organizational goal ambiguity, and the public manager's role ambiguity

Abstract

This article is a systematic effort to study a key theoretical question from the vantage point of public sector organizational behavior. Most political science models, with a primary interest in democratic control of bureaucracy, study the political influence on the bureaucracy from an agency theory perspective. Organization behavior literature, on the other hand, is focused largely on the study of individual-level phenomena in private organizations and does not incorporate political context as part of explanatory models. This article proposes a middle-range theory to "connect the dots," beginning with disparate sources in the polity influencing organizational goal ambiguity, which in turn is expected to increase managerial role ambiguity. An empirical test, using data collected from a national survey of managers working in state human service agencies, supports this theoretical model. We find that certain types of political influence have an impact on organizational goal ambiguity, which in turn has a direct effect in increasing role ambiguity and also an indirect effect in increasing role ambiguity through organizational structure. © The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.