Essays on Specialist and Non-specialist Managers in Public Organizations

A plethora of leadership research has demonstrated that public organizations’ success depends on their managers’ characteristics and leadership. However, one easily observable managerial characteristic that has eluded attention is the formal education of public managers. This is rather surprising, given the theoretical argument that specialist managers, who possess educational qualifications closely aligned with the work they oversee, are likely to contribute favorably to organizational performance due to their in-depth understanding of the work. Moreover, public managers’ formal education is a legitimate recruitment criterion, making it a potential means to steer the performance of public organizations. Thus, examining the influence of specialist and non-specialist managers is an imperative yet underexplored topic in public management research on leadership.

To advance our understanding of how specialist and non-specialist managers influence public service provision, this dissertation examines how the two types are associated with different aspects of public organizations. First, the dissertation investigates the association between specialist and non-specialist managers and measures of organizational performance. Second, it examines how employees perceive specialist and nonspecialist managers’ clarity of communication and prioritization of the core service provision. Lastly, it explores whether specialist managers report higher levels of professional development leadership compared to non-specialist managers.

The findings suggest that specialist managers influence performance in public organizations positively and are perceived by employees as communicating more clearly and prioritizing professional quality more than non-specialist managers. However, there is no evidence that specialist and non-specialist managers have different approaches to professional development leadership. These findings suggest that specialist managers may be more favorable for public organizations than non-specialist managers under certain conditions. However, the lack of experimental evidence exploring changes from non-specialist to specialist managers and vice versa unfortunately impedes recommendations on changing managers.