Municipal Executive Recommendation by Citizens: Who Is Most Significant?

Abstract

This paper explores which variables are more significant in municipal executive recommendation by citizens. We estimated the influence of public dimensions, such as municipe loyalty, municipe satisfaction, and municipe perceived value in municipal executive recommendation by citizens. Then, we tried to understand if the citizen’s opinions influenced the evaluation of the municipal executive recommendation. The parishes of the municipality of Valongo were selected and analyzed, namely the parishes of Alfena, Campo e Sobrado, Valongo, and Ermesinde, and a total of 998 questionnaires were collected. Data were collected in November 2020 in the different parishes under study. It was concluded that all studied dimensions were statistically significant in the final structural estimated model. The structural results point to municipe loyalty and municipe satisfaction dimensions having a direct, positive, and statistically significant influence on municipal executive recommendation. On the other side, the municipe perceived value dimension has a direct positive but not statistically significant influence on municipal executive recommendation. This study showed that a loyal and satisfied citizen recommends the continuity of the municipal executive in the city’s political leadership in which he or she lives. Therefore, for the municipal executive administration, it is fundamental to know which dimensions the society considers most important in order to be able to remain in the management of the shared destinies of a city. In this sense, political decisions throughout the mandates can be directed, on the one hand, to the satisfaction and loyalty of the citizens and, on the other hand, to the balanced management of the destinies of this type of public entity.

Reputation of Public Organizations: What Dimensions Are Crucial?

“…The interaction between the parties allows the citizen to judge the action of the public entity (concerning its performance) against the legitimate expectations of any citizen. When expectations are equal to or are even exceeded, the citizen's satisfaction is created or sedimented; the results reiterated over time consolidate the perception of satisfaction (Meirinhos et al 2022b).…”

“…For this reason, we believe that organisational performance creates a positive effect on an individual's knowledge, on individual mental representations in the form of an image, as well as on the aggregation and consolidation of positive experiences and realities lived by the citizens that consolidate the reputation of the public organisation (Helm et al 2010). In terms of organizational performance and perceived quality, previous studies have shown a direct influence of this dimension on the notoriety, image, and reputation of the municipality (Zins 2001;Meirinhos et al 2022aMeirinhos et al , 2022b, suggesting that this dimension is a valid tool for measuring the competence and decisions of the municipal executive (Zeithaml et al 1996;Boyne 2003). The performance of the executive and the perception of the quality of its decisions and management methods leads to positive or negative evaluations by the citizens who daily feel the influences of these decisions in their personal and family lives.…”

“…The dimensions and aggregates of municipal satisfaction (MS), organizational performance and perceived quality (OPPQ), and municipal executive complaints (CCME) assume important explanatory and scientific capacities in the understanding of the phenomenon of the NIR of a public organization. Therefore, within the scope of NIR, a series of statements were presented in which the respondents positioned themselves, namely statements related to seriousness, credibility, responsibility, sensitivity, transparency, innovation, creativity, trust, public visibility, media strength, public communication management, and politics (Meirinhos et al 2022a(Meirinhos et al , 2022b. This aggregate allows us to ascertain the mental representation residing in the collective memory about a set of vectors related to the knowledge, representation, and social evaluation of the quality of political action carried out by elected representatives.…”

“…Within the scope of organisational performance and perceived quality (OPPQ), we investigated the quality of organisational functioning and its perception by the citizen. To this end, a series of statements were presented relating to the direction and management of the municipality, concern for people and companies, compliance with deadlines, database management, variety of means of contact with the community, opening hours, internal procedures, location and places of attendance, and the human qualities of public servants (Meirinhos et al 2022a(Meirinhos et al , 2022b. This aggregate allows us to clarify which vectors deserve greater valorisation as well as the vectors that the municipality will have to invest in, review, or change.…”

“…Sci. 2022, 12, 126 2 of 19 becoming sensitive to the market, the consumer, the citizen, and the voter (Meirinhos et al 2022b).…”