Managing in all the right directions? The relationship between public managers’ perceived autonomy and leading upwards, sidewards, outwards and downwards

Caroline Howard Grøn, Niels Opstrup, Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen*, Anders Ryom Villadsen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaperJournal articleResearchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Although researchers have discussed autonomy as important at the organizational level, the autonomy of the individual manager has not received similar attention. Knowledge about how managerial autonomy is used is, however, important for understanding the conditions under which management matters. We ask whether perceived managerial autonomy enables public managers to prioritize their efforts to support their individual career progression, organizational goal attainment, or both. Based on survey-data from 854 Danish public managers, we find perceived managerial autonomy is positively related to managers ability of aligning their time efforts towards as well their own career progression as towards obtaining organizational goals.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPublic Management Review
Volume26
Issue5
Pages (from-to)1113-1135
Number of pages23
ISSN1471-9037
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords

  • Public management
  • autonomy
  • individual goals
  • organizational goals

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