Characteristics of collaborative public managers: Empirical evidence from Catalonia

Public organizations often face the dilemma of whether to collaborate or not when designing their strategies (O'Leary & Blomgren, 2009). Recent works have tried to undercover the determinants of collaboration engagement (Krueathep, Riccucci, & Suwanmala, 2010; McGuire, 2009; McGuire & Silvia, 2010; Smith, 2009; Termeer, 2009; Thomson & Perry, 2006; Weiss, 1987). However, whether some public managers are more likely to engage in collaborations compared to others, has not been assessed. Therefore, the present proposal aims to address the determinants of public collaborations by understanding the characteristics of public managers. The questions that this proposal seeks to answer are: (i) Are some public managers more collaborative than others? (ii) What are the characteristic features of more collaborative public managers? In order to answer these questions, an email survey questionnaire has been sent to 1244 public managers from Catalonia. Drawing on upper echelon's theory (Hambrick, 2007; Hambrick & Mason, 1984) it is assessed if the public manager's functional track, gender, age, formal education and job tenure are related to their engagement in collaborations. Moreover, relations are established between the characteristics of the public manager and its likelihood to collaborate with organizations from the public or the private sector. The study controls for institutional settings such as the size and the sector of the organization, as well as for the socioeconomic context where the organization operates (Krueathep, Riccucci, & Suwanmala, 2010; McGuire & Silvia, 2010).