Identifying resilience patterns of local governments across different administrative systems- a matter of context or capacities?

The increased uncertainty, volatility and complexity under which governments operate, coupled with significant reductions in public spending, have put great emphasis on how organizations cope with shocks, in particular... [ view full abstract ]

The increased uncertainty, volatility and complexity under which governments operate, coupled with significant reductions in public spending, have put great emphasis on how organizations cope with shocks, in particular financial ones. It is therefore not surprising that we can observe a sharp rise of contributions focusing on governmental fiscal stress and/or responses to shocks and austerity. Few authors however deal with the long-term strategic and managerial consequences of such phenomena (Bozeman 2010; Pandey 2010; Pollitt 2010) or the processes and capacities within governmental entities, which, among others, allow them to anticipate, absorb and react to shocks (Wildavsky 1988, Hood 1991) that affect their finances.

Building on previous research, this paper therefore aims to explore organizational capacities that local governments build and deploy to face shocks and unforeseen events. In doing so, it applies a resilience perspective (Sutcliffe and Vogues 2003, Boin and Van Eeten 2013; Boin and Lodge, 2016) and further operationalizes the dimensions that shape governmental (financial) resilience (e.g.Lengnick-Hall and Beck, 2005; Somers, 2009; Linnenluecke and Griffith, 2013; Linnenluecke 2017; Nelson, Adger and Brown 2007, Davoudi, Brooks, and Mehmood 2013, Sutcliffe and Vogus 2003, Steccolini et al. 2017) applying a quantitative research design. We carried out a survey of local governments in Germany (n= 300) and Italy (n= 236), and complement the results with economic, financial and socio-demographic data as well as published reports to supplement the survey results and facilitate data triangulation. Analyzing the combination of resilience dimensions against the background of recent crises and across countries, this contribution particularly aims to enhance our understanding of local government financial resilience and its relevance for local government performance by (1) identifying and analysing the types and levels of financial resilience capacities, capabilities and vulnerabilities that are present in local governments across the countries, and (2) analysing their organizational consequences, i.e. their relationship with financial and non-financial performance.