Strategic Changes and Organizational Reorientations in Local Government: A Cross-National Perspective

Description

Global, national and subnational change (political, economic, social and demographic) are forcing local governments to search, reactively or proactively, for alternative organizational patterns and management styles. This book explores different approaches toward local government reorientation in selected Western countries as well as the 'reinvention' of local government in Eastern Europe. Eight national case-studies (U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Norway, Israel, the Czech Republic and Russia) provide the empirical basis. From a theoretical point of view, the book exposes three main critical factors: the range of policy options facing local governments (strategic choice), their organizational capabilities to cope with major environmental shifts (strategic capabilities), and their capacity for organizational learning (including programmed experimentation, innovation and creativity). Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-20 Small is Innovative: Local Government Innovation Strategies in the United States and Other Countries....Pages 21-39 The Learning Local Authority: British Local Authorities in the Post-Thatcherite Era....Pages 41-56 Free Communes, Pilots, and Pathfinders: A New Vocabulary of Local Government Reforms in Scandinavian Countries — The Case of Norway....Pages 57-74 Organizational Reorientation and Learning in Israeli Local Government: The Role of Market Type Mechanisms....Pages 75-89 An Overview of Planning and Political Problems for Canadian Urban Municipalities in the 1990s....Pages 91-108 Rupture and Transformation: Local Government in East Germany....Pages 109-123 ‘Reinventing’ Local Government: The Czech Case....Pages 125-134 Russia: The Reinvention of Local Government?....Pages 135-157 Back Matter....Pages 159-160