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Yahong Zhang, Robert Lee and Kaifeng Yang City Management Association (FCCMA). Within the professional networks, they learned ethical responsibilities and the application of those responsibilities in accordance with the tenets outlined in the ICMA’s Code of Ethics. DISCUSSION: DO LOCAL GOVERNMENT MANAGERS NEED SPECIAL SKILLS FOR POLICY MAKING? With interview data collected from 30 city and county managers in Florida, this study uses a qualitative approach to examine how local public managers contribute to the legislative policy-making process and what they need to know to fulfill this role. We acknowledge the limitations of this study. First, due to the nature of the qualitative approach—the sample is purposefully chosen and the sample size is relatively small, so the generalization power is somewhat limited. City and county managers in other localities and other states may hold different opinions due to their different experiences and different institutional and political environments. Second, this study merely addresses descriptive questions of “what” and “how.” With a small sample size, it is unable to answer explanatory questions—for example, whether managers’ responses are associated with their work experience or forms of government they serve. Future research with quantitative methods is expected to addresses the explanatory questions. Third, this study focuses on the demand side (public managers) rather than the supply side (MPA programs) of knowledge and skills for policy making. The research would be improved if we had data from both sides. Nevertheless, this study contributes to the literature by addressing new questions, and we hope it will encourage more scholars to examine these questions in the future so that we can cumulate our understanding and develop suitable MPA programs to better equip future public administrators. Public managers’ involvement in policy preparation and deliberation is a great extension of responsibilities beyond their traditionally perceived work of administration and policy implementation. Such responsibilities reasonably require—as the city and county managers in our interviews suggest—strong people skills in listening, compromising, consensus building, and practical ethics on the one hand and solid knowledge in budgeting and financial management, information technologies, and analytical methods on the other hand (see Table 1). First, managers cannot develop sound policy proposals unless they possess adequate listening skills and information techniques that help them collect information in an accurate and effective way. Accurate and sufficient information is a precondition to developing a sound policy proposal. With strong listening skills, managers are able to hear the real needs and concerns of various stakeholders including citizens, interest groups, and elected officials. Information technologies not only allow managers to involve people in community-wide conversations with officials but also enable them to look for information and resources beyond their jurisdictions for policy change. For example, managers 200 Journal of Public Affairs Education
Stories from Local Public Managers in Florida may find regulations or guidelines on a particular policy issue from federal or state-level governments; they may search the positive and negative consequences of the policy change in other jurisdictions and learn their lessons; they may also find supportive programs provided by higher-level governments or nonprofit agencies through information technologies. Analytical skills are essential for managers to develop policy proposals because with such skills, managers can discover real problems underneath noisy surfaces, identify the relationships amid complicated phenomena, and analyze the pros and cons of each policy alternative. Since almost all decisions in local government involve some type of budgeting and financial management, managers need this type of knowledge to develop policy solutions that are financially feasible and economically beneficial for the community. Second, managers would particularly need compromising and consensusbuilding skills when they advocate their policy recommendations or when they participate in policy deliberation. The challenge for managers is the diversity in the elected body—usually the elected officials have different socioeconomic backgrounds, constituencies, and political goals. In addition, many of the elected officials lack professional expertise and thus sometimes make decisions for irrational reasons. Therefore, managers must skillfully exchange opinions with council members, negotiating and compromising with them to make a certain agreement in policy direction that would protect or improve the common interest of the community. During such a consensus-building process, managers would also use their professional expertise and rational analysis skills to educate elected officials; they may use computer techniques to present their ideas in a way that elected officials can understand; and they need to be familiar with the local government structure and professional ethics to avoid violating institutional rules or norms. In short, managers should be equipped with compromising and consensus-building skills, knowledge of budgeting and financial management, information technologies, analytical skills, and skills of practical ethics when they engage in policy advocacy or policy deliberation with their elected body. Do managers need special skills for policy-making responsibilities that are beyond their traditionally perceived administrative role? The knowledge and skills identified in this study are not fundamentally unique from those required for managers’ administrative responsibilities as identified by NASPAA (2006) and Lazenby (2010). All these studies rate ethics, communication skills, and human resources management as important, reflecting the manager’s role as a generalist in the public organization. However, differences exist with regard to ranking the importance of such knowledge and skills. Table 3 presents the comparison of the top five essential skills and knowledge, ranked by three studies respectively. It demonstrates that previous studies rate higher on community leadership and internal management skills for managers, which matches the traditional perception that local government managers are primarily responsible Journal of Public Affairs Education 201
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JPAE VOLUME 18 NUMBER 1 JOURNAL OF
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Journal of Public Affairs Education
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FROM THE EDITOR In the symposium in
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NASPAA Presidential Address Annual
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Leading by Example: Modeling Global
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FROM THE GUEST EDITOR FROM THE GUES
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FROM THE GUEST EDITOR A SYMPOSIUM I
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on other fronts, certainly it can h
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Picasso, P. (1937). Guernica. Pictu
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A View from the 50th Street Gate on
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Reflections of a Working-Class Acad
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Reflections of a Working Class Acad
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Reflections of a Working Class Acad
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Class Rooms Kenneth Oldfield Univer
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Class Rooms although I did, but not
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Class Rooms GRADUATE SCHOOL I was u
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Class Rooms the odds this appointee
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Class Rooms The Great Leveler, too
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Class Rooms of higher learning and
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ook (Oldfield & Johnson, 2009). The
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Didactic Changes Class Rooms Pedago
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Admittedly, it will be difficult to
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hooks, b. (2000). Where we stand: C
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Shaw, G. B. (1928). The intelligent
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What’s a Girl Like You Doing in a
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What’s a Girl Like You For exampl
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What’s a Girl Like You and operat
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What’s a Girl Like You captured t
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What’s a Girl Like You full-blown
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What’s a Girl Like You inside). I
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What’s a Girl Like You and collea
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What’s a Girl Like You toward ser
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Blue-Collar Teaching in a White-Col
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Blue-Collar Teaching Half of my fam
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Blue-Collar Teaching from physics.
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Blue-Collar Teaching lifelong dream
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Blue-Collar Teaching Before him, in
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Blue-Collar Teaching One may argue
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Blue-Collar Teaching graduation in
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Blue-Collar Teaching advantages oth
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Carrizales, T. (2010). Exploring cu
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Oldfield, K. (2010). Socioeconomic
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Moving Forward by Looking Back Gary
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Moving Forward My father married my
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Moving Forward became apparent that
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Moving Forward to Duane, because he
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Moving Forward by this contaminant.
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Moving Forward quite by chance to b
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Moving Forward Federalist 51 detail
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Moving Forward their profession, in
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Moving Forward as the study shows,
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REFERENCES Ashwander v. Tennessee V
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics:
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Many researchers have explored the
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LITERATURE REVIEW Techniques in Tea
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics b
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics T
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics l
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics i
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Table 1. Downloads of Papers at Sel
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Figure 2. Expanded Model of Researc
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics o
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Figure 3. Expanded Model of Researc
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics L
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics o
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Felbinger, C. L., Holzer, M., & Whi
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Snee, R. D. (1993). What’s missin
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Are They Connected? Exploring Acade
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Exploring Academic and Social Netwo
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Figure 2. Career Advice Network Fig
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Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of
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