Abstract
Why are some public administrators more innovative than others? Is it because of differences in their environments, opportunities, personality, or motivations? These are the questions that Manuel P. Teodoro addresses in his book, Bureaucratic Ambition: Careers, Motives, and the Innovative Administrator. Teodoro adds to the literatures on entrepreneurship, innovation, and motivation in public administration, which he criticizes as deficient in explanations for psychological motivators or “bureaucratic ambition.” Using case studies, in-depth interviews, and surveys he advances the field’s understanding of why some administrators are innovative and ambitious, whereas others are not.
In Chapter 1, Teodoro indicates what he means by policy entrepreneurship. He defines this as decisions made by administrators to pursue innovative policies, either new to their organization or to their profession, and to actively advocate for these policies over others. He believes, in part, that some administrators are more innovative because of the different institutional career paths that are open to them. Teodoro introduces his theory of “bureaucratic ambition” by looking at two career paths that administrators follow. They either take a vertical career path or a “ladder,” which has a person moving from lower-level positions to higher-level position within the same organization, or they take a diagonal career path, or a “ramp,” which has a person moving from organization to organization each time taking a higher-level position. In addition, in this chapter, Teodoro introduces the individual psychological elements of his theory that make this book particularly worthwhile. He uses theories of motivation and personality to address why some administrators are innovative. Specifically, David Winter’s (1973, 1991) theory of motivation and personality, based on the work of David McClelland (1961, 1975), is presented as a way of looking at individual motivation, achievement, power, and to a lesser extent, affiliation motivation. This combination of structural and psychological theories makes this book a valuable resource for understanding the personal motives behind policy entrepreneurship.
Teodoro turns to case studies in the next chapter to illustrate the challenges faced by policy entrepreneurs. These case studies highlight the particular administrators’ career paths and the decisions they made for policy innovation and advocacy. These cases strengthen Teodoro’s argument about the personal reasons underlying the administrators’ policy decisions, but the political context is important too. Government administrators are affected by the agendas of their elected officials and by their professional norms, and these factors mitigate the impact of policy entrepreneurs’ personal motivations. And of course, not all innovations are successful. They may contribute to the betterment of the community or to the detriment of the administrator. Citizens may not desire the innovations, and administrators may be fired for attempting new policies over citizen objections, hence the importance of career mobility. This chapter reads well and provides political context for the following chapters.
Chapter 3 details the methodology of this research. Teodoro compares two types of professionals, police chiefs and water utility managers, to serve as samples for the larger population of mezzo-level administrators within the United States. Although one might suggest that these two samples are too dissimilar and may not be appropriate for comparison, Teodoro makes an excellent argument for their inclusion based on the different challenges they face within their organizations and their contrasting career paths. The effect of career paths, motives, and ambition on policy innovation or activity is the main premise for this research. He also looks at motives, more specifically achievement and power motivations, and their relationship to career paths, either vertical or horizontal.
The relationship between career path and policy innovation is the central idea of Chapter 4. For each sample, Teodoro defines his variables of professional innovation, for police chiefs—agency accreditation and for water utility managers—conservation rates and succession planning. These, he argues, are policy innovations for the particular field from which each sample is drawn. Controlling for governance systems (full-time elected officials or city managers), specific professional variables, education, marriage, children, and plans to retire, Teodoro uses logistic regression to test his hypotheses. This analysis is appropriate for what he is studying and provides an array of information about why certain administrators might be innovative whereas others are not. For both samples, diagonal career paths increase professional innovation. Similarly, for both samples, plans to retire decrease the likelihood of innovation, though not significantly. The mobility offered by diagonal career paths allows administrators to be more externally focused and, therefore, more innovative, while the lack of advancement opportunities may inhibit innovation or risk-taking. A person’s desire and ability to move along a mobile career path might constitute a very important indicator for those making public sector hiring decisions, because hiring from outside an organization might increase organizational innovation. Another interesting finding was the effect that an administrator’s family situation has on how innovative that administrator might be. Marriage status is strongly related to decreased innovation among police chiefs, while the presence of minor children is related to decreased innovation among water utility managers. These different family circumstances help explain the effects of personal variables on innovation. Although these factors may not be considered in hiring or promotional decisions, they do add to our understanding of innovation among public administrators.
In the next chapter, Teodoro looks at the motivations of individuals and policy advocacy. He provides a discussion of the historic literature about bureaucracies in the public administration literature, including Anthony Downs’s (1967) Inside Bureaucracy and James Q. Wilson’s (1989) Bureaucracy, arguing that the literature lacks understanding of the human motivations involved with public policy. This chapter provides a unique understanding of why entrepreneurship happens in government. It is not always structural or organizational elements that determine why some people adopt innovative policy positions at the local level; their actions are also partly determined by individual personality factors. By thoroughly analyzing the motivation levels of public administrators, Teodoro is able to link achievement-oriented individuals to behaviors that represent political advocacy, though this effect diminishes when they reach jobs with less advancement opportunity. Family situation again influences policy advocacy, as married administrators or administrators with minor children are less likely to pursue, or advocate for, innovative policies.
The next two chapters examine the organizational implications of these findings. Teodoro proposes,
the usefulness of bureaucratic ambition as a theory of policy change or as a theory of management is limited indeed if administrators with entrepreneurial personalities simply emerge at random from the executive ranks of the public service. A satisfying theory of bureaucratic policy entrepreneurship must offer some explanation for why they appear at some times and not at others, for a theory that predicts unpredictability is no theory at all. (p. 139)
He connects the motivations of individuals with the opportunities they have within different career path structures. He explains how these motives can determine advancement in different organizational structures, which will then determine their level of entrepreneurship. Concluding, he suggests that professionally innovative professionals, who tend to be more ambitious and take diagonal career paths, may find that their loyalty is torn between their current organizations and those organizations for which they might work in the future. Even while serving in their current positions, these individuals may be focused on future careers and on the broader innovations in their field.
Teodoro offers research in an area that is lacking in the field of public administration. It looks at the human elements (motivations, personality, ambition, and family situations) that influence policy innovation and advocacy. This constitutes a real advance in the motivation theories of public administrators and suggests why some public administrators are policy entrepreneurs and others are not. It brings together the fields of public administration, psychology, political science, management, and public policy in a seamless way that helps the reader see how useful these connections are for understanding those who serve as leaders in public organizations. This book offers a wonderful opportunity for researchers in the area of organizational theory in public administration, as well as those interested in public policy and innovation. It would be a useful supplement for foundation courses in public administration or courses that address innovation and/or leadership. This is a well-crafted book, and it is clear why it won the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Section on Public Administration Research 2013 Best Book Award.