The Face of the Problem: How Subordinates Shield Executives from Blame

Though avoiding blame is often a goal of elected officials, there are relatively few empirical examinations of how citizens assign blame during controversies. We are particularly interested in how this process works when an executive has been caught in a lie. Using two survey experiments, we examine whether subordinates can shield executives when they act as the face of a crisis. We first leverage a real-life situation involving the family separation crisis at the US–Mexico border in 2018. Respondents who read that Donald Trump falsely claimed he could not end the practice of family separation disapprove of his dishonesty. Yet this cost disappears when Trump’s then-Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, is the primary official discussed in news stories. We then replicate these findings in a fictional scenario involving a city mayor, showing that the mayor is partially shielded from negative appraisals when the city manager lies on his behalf.

Proposição de implementação do city manager nos municípios brasileiros

Atualmente, na realidade brasileira, muitos municípios enfrentam dificuldades para implementar uma gestão eficiente e diminuir os índices de corrupção. Essa constatação motivou a busca por um novo modelo de governo e gestão a ser analisado. Logo, o objetivo deste livro é propor a utilização do city manager nas prefeituras municipais brasileiras, sendo suas funções adaptadas ao contexto e realidade do país. Inicialmente, procede-se com uma análise bibliográfica e documental realizada para subsidiar o desenvolvimento da proposta de estudo. Assim, para tal, foram analisados artigos e legislações internacionais relativas ao city manager. A etapa qualitativa foi operacionalizada por meio de uma análise bibliométrica e documental. A fim de concretizar o estudo bibliométrico buscaram-se periódicos nas bases de dados Scopus, Web of Science e SciELO, utilizando como palavra-chave o termo “City Manager”. Da mesma forma, foram realizadas buscas em legislações e contratos atinentes ao cargo de City Manager. Posteriormente à coleta de informações, os resultados obtidos foram interpretados com a utilização da técnica análise de conteúdo. Dentre os resultados apresentados, destaca-se a sugestão da proposta de Lei no que tange à implementação do city manager nas prefeituras brasileiras. Tal proposta foi elaborada posteriormente à análise de diversas legislações americanas e artigos científicos ilustrando os principais pontos em comum e importantes sobre o tema. Cabe ressaltar que para propor esta legislação foi necessário adaptar o cargo às exigências e características dispostas na legislação brasileira.

City manager’s resources and optimization of the online education system

This paper attempts to assess the resources of the City Manager to optimize the system of online education. The need to develop a Russian platform for the implementation of online education is justified by highlighting the main problems: technical, organizational, and pedagogical. It has been established that the problems described above are related primarily to the platforms on which the online education process is implemented. The authors evaluate the functionality of popular services used by Russian universities and conclude that their tools do not meet the goals of online education and do not allow realizing its potential. A pilot concept of an online-education platform, which is supposed to be created within the framework of public-private partnership, is presented. It is recommended to realize large projects, which require significant investments, as a part of cooperation of authorities, business community and science, and the emphasis is made on this aspect in the process of project concept creation. The main forms of interaction between the actors involved and the areas of their responsibility are considered, recommendations for the selection of the most appropriate procedure for the development of the platform for online education that meets the needs of students and teachers are given. It is concluded that such an initiative will help to overcome the main obstacles facing online education and bring it to a new level by combining the efforts of government and business.

Forms of Night-Time Economy Governance

This chapter introduces a framework for understanding forms of night-time economy governance. First, the chapter identifies, defines, and classifies six ideal types of night-time economy governance modes drawing upon key literatures and real-world night-time economy governance practices. The six ideal types of night-time economy governance modes are: public-private partnership, night-time commission, night mayors, night city managers, night lobby groups, and night advocacy groups. Second, the chapter discusses the ideal type of night-time economy governance modes, and their potential role for night-time economy resilience and recovery during and post-COVID-19 crisis. Local governments, policy practitioners, night-time economy advocates have the opportunity to rethink night-time economy governance through entrepreneurialism, flexibility, adaptation, leadership, resource mobilization, coordination, and knowledge generation. Alternatively, we may assist to a weak night-time economy policy implementation and the decadence of forms of night-time economy governance. Recently, public discourse praises a night mayor or a night city manager with little knowledge around governance models.

CITY MANAGER IN RUSSIA: BALANCE OF INTERESTS OR CONFLICT RISKS?

The research is aimed at developing ideas and approaches to the implementation of the city manager model in modern Russian conditions. The research focuses on professionalization of municipal management, the practice of contractual hiring of city managers. There has recently been the acute controversy whether it is appropriate to implement the "city manager" model in modern Russian conditions, as there are cases of conflict interactions in political practice with the participation of a city manager. to the current study aimed to determine whether it is possible to balance interests and level conflict risks while optimizing the system for selecting and retaining professional personnel in municipalities. In order to answer this question we carried out a qualitative analysis of modern domestic and foreign studies, selected with the principle of scientific sources differentiation, as well as an expert survey of the heads of local authorities (582 experts from 76 regions of the Russian Federation), which made it possible to eliminate the "gap" between the theoretical substantiation models of a city manager in scientific literature and its real application in modern conditions. As a result of the study, the advantages and disadvantages of the "city manager" model were found, and the key mechanisms for reducing conflict risks during its implementation were identified. Based on the results obtained, we developed recommendations for changing the practice of hiring a city manager, which will eliminate the element of competition and confrontation in his interactions with the Head of the municipality, defining the hierarchical statuses of the two key figures of the municipality.

PolisMaker. Figura clave en el Diseño y la transformación urbana

El PolisMaker es un -city manager-, un -facilitador-, un estratega urbano local, global y glocal con la tarea de presidir la transformación de la ciudad y el territorio. Su lectura de los fenómenos urbanos combina el conocimiento técnico con una particular sensibilidad por el bien-estar del hombre haciendo uso del diseño colaborativo, conjugando la calidad de vida con el desarrollo económico a diferentes escalas, al tener en cuenta el espacio existencial y las dinámicas económicas y sociales que constituyen el fluir de la vida cotidiana. Como constructor de estrategias urbanas, con un marcado desarrollo endógeno y por su naturaleza interdisciplinaria, cubre desde sectores de la Administración Pública, organismos transnacionales y stakeholders, a empresas de desarrollo en real estate o entidades especializados en la reconstrucción de asentamientos urbanos acechados por catástrofes o calamidades de origen antrópico o natural. Utiliza un conjunto de técnicas de vanguardia destinadas a captar el valor social de los bienes públicos, con especial referencia a los beneficios generados por los futuros usuarios directos, indirectos y potenciales a través de la utilización de los análisis multicriterial de valor y de beneficios comunes bajo la innovación sistémica. El objetivo de este escrito ofrece reflexiones sobre el presente y el futuro de esta disciplina, PolisMaker (Politecnico di Milano), formación académica y figura que acompaña, en su vigésimo año, decisiones en la transformación urbana.

New competences to manage Urban Health: Health City Manager core curriculum

Health as a common good is a prior essential objective to be pursued by an alliance including citizens and local administrations. Role of cities in health promotion is emphasized by urbanization, entailing 70% of the global population living in urban areas. Cities are therefore perfect laboratories within which to act: studying and monitoring dimensions that determine the level of quality of life in cities, improving their sustainability and capacity for growth, is fundamental for a new governance model able of managing this complexity. Under the premises, the Health City Manager (HCM) has been launched, a professional gaining skills in PH management, sociology of communities, urban design and control in reducing health inequalities. A course lasting 80 hours gives then the opportunity to put into practice, at municipal level, knowledge, competences and abilities achieved. In the background, both the former EU Commissioner for Health and the Committee of the Regions warmly supported the establishment of HCMs, who would coordinate a process ensuring alignment of policies on a macro and micro scale. During G7 in 2017, Ministry for Health and Presidency of Italian Municipalities signed the Urban Health Rome Declaration, underlining the need for a stronger synergy facilitated by HCMs. In 2019, Ministry of Youth and Sport approved and financed the project. On the basis of a core curriculum, validated by a group of experts, the course is starting in 2020 for the first 120 HCMs. Innovation lies in the holistic approach, a multidisciplinary project managing method overcoming silos logic. Customization of public policies and participatory process make the figure ideal to be applied in all countries. Sustainability is ensured by a relatively high return on investment. Main impact relates to improvement of the quality of life through a full involvement and accountability of local administrations; contrast of climate change identifying strategies of urban resilience. Key messages Improvement of the quality of life through a full involvement and accountability of local administrations. Contrast of climate change identifying strategies of urban resilience.