Elucidating the Linkages Between Entrepreneurial Orientation and Local Government Sustainability Performance

Abstract

Linking strategic management to performance has been called essential for public managers to confront pernicious environmental and community problems in the 21st century. This article examines the role that an organization’s entrepreneurial orientation (EO) plays in the linkages between organizational capacities, strategies, and perceived performance. An EO is considered a key driver of a public organization’s willingness to engage in risk taking, innovation, and proactivity aimed at enhancing organizational routines, decision-making, and performance. Scholars have provided empirical guidance for the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurialism in bureaucracy, yet we know little systematically about how EO links to strategies that may affect performance in the public sector. To investigate, we employ a mixed methods design using a nationwide survey of U.S. local governments and interviews with local government managers about their experiences in sustainability programs. Quantitatively, we find evidence for environmental factors of political and administrative capacities positively influencing EO, and that strategic activities of performance information use, venturing, and interorganizational collaboration mediate the relation between EO and perceived sustainability performance. Interviews corroborate these findings and illuminate how local government managers proactively engage stakeholders, consider risk taking, build capacity, and pursue innovation in sustainability.

The Erosion of Trust During a Global Pandemic and How Public Administrators Should Counter It

“…Launched in response to the Great Recession, the program produced a net job gain of 62,902 job years, avoided 25.7 million metric tons of carbon emissions, and led to US$5.2 billion in total cumulative savings on energy bills (U.S. Department of Energy [U.S. DOE], 2015). It also helped hundreds of local governments take initial steps into sustainability through hiring staff and accruing expertise (Deslatte & Swann, 2020;Terman & Feiock, 2015). Despite this, research on the program found that local governments generally did a weak job of communicating these gains (Deslatte, 2020a).…”

“…Questions about whether our federal system is up to the challenge are only going to grow louder as these threats multiply (Adolph et al, 2020; Haffajee & Mello, 2020; Perez & Ross, 2020b). Although thousands of local governments around the world, and hundreds within the United States, have started engaging in climate action, resilience or sustainability planning (Deslatte & Swann, 2020; Hawkins et al, 2016; Swann & Deslatte, 2019; Yi et al, 2017), hardly any of them attempts to identify social vulnerabilities within their jurisdictions. This is despite readily available tools such as the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.…”

“…Public managers tend to be inwardly focused and reluctant to “get out in front” of bad news or take risks in the midst of uncertain circumstances (Deslatte, 2020b; Deslatte & Swann, 2020). Despite social equity labeled as the fourth pillar of public administration, government officials generally shy from justice issues.…”

Entrepreneurial orientation and performance in a developing country: Strategic entrepreneurship as a mediator

“…To discuss much more research work that is stressed obviously on changes in the economy, which is unambiguously significant for two specific motives. By employing the quantitative methods, Deslatte and Swann (2020) found the significant effect of environmental factors (political and administrative capacities) on EO. Further, the strategic activities of performance information use, venturing as well as inter-organizational collaboration mediate the relationship between perceived sustainability performance and EO.…”

Assessing Sustainability Behavior and Environmental Performance of Urban Systems: A Systematic Review

“…In government sustainability, performance represents a complex notion [98][99][100] and is thus difficult to assess. Public entities can develop entrepreneurial orientation for improving sustainability behavior by use of capacity-building and performance management.…”