I measured perceived leadership success by developing a 12-item scale on perceived municipality performance scale (see, Appendix I).
Item generation. I adopted items of Delaney and Huselid’s (1996) perceived organizational performance scale to municipality context by considering the legal duties and responsibilities of mayors (Ö. Köseoğlu, personal communication, July 27, 2014;
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Municipal law no: 5393, 2005). I provided earlier version of the adopted scale to employees in human resource departments and strategic development units in a convenient sample of municipalities (i.e., Üsküdar municipality, Şişli municipality) and revised according to their feedbacks.
The final version of the scale asks employees’ their municipalities’ and mayor’s performance within the last six months (nearly 7 months after the local election). Four items correspond to the responsibilities legally expected from a successful mayor and municipalities. As stated before these responsibilities are as following (Municipal law no: 5393, 2005): 1) protecting municipality’s rights and interest, 2) appropriate and timely planning of municipality strategies and activities, 3) adherence to strategic plans and 4) the efficient management of budgeting.
Conversations with municipality employees revealed that other potential and highly visible indicators of the performance of a municipality and therefore mayor were the quality of basic services: 5) waste management/cleaning services, 6) the constructions of streets, park and gardens, 7) cultural/sportive/ social activities as well as 8) the development of new activities/services for district citizens. In addition, 9) employees’ satisfaction from working in the municipality were mostly reported as a general indicator. When probed, employees reported that the main determinant of such organizational satisfaction in municipalities and therefore the performance of the municipality in the eyes of employees are as follows: 10) the quality of interaction among managers/chiefs and subordinates, as well as 11) the selection/promotion of employees to specific roles/positions based on employees’ skills/knowledge. I also added a general item on 12) the effective management and administrative skills of the municipality mayor.
Scaling. Respondents rated each item on 10-point Likert scale ranging from 10% “Below the expected level. Should be improved more” to 100 % “Above the expected level. Excellent”. The higher scores reflect higher perceived organizational performance. I assessed the perceived performance of the mayor via this scale twice at Phase 1 to conduct EFA and Phase 2 for the hypothesis testing.
Factor structure and reliability. In order to estimate the construct validity of Municipality Organizational Performance Scale, I conduct EFA with principal component analysis and varimax rotation on 12 items. The results reveal 1-factor
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solution explaining 71.14% of variance. Item loadings range from .91 to .76 as shown on Table 3.14a.
Table 3.14a.
Exploratory Factor Loadings and Internal Consistency of Municipality Organizational Performance Scale (Phase 1)
N = 272. Exploratory factor analysis with Principal Component Analysis and Varimax Rotation
The Cronbach alpha coefficient is .96, indicating high internal consistency of municipality organizational performance scale. To validate the 1-factor model of the scale, I conduct CFA on Phase- 2 scores of the control group. Fit indices suggest misfit to the 1-factor model, χ2= 223.651, df = 54, p < .001, CFI = .80, TLI= .76, RMSEA (90 % CI) = .20 (.18-.23). I tested the 2-factor, χ2= 185.657, df = 53, p < .01, CFI = .85, TLI= .81, RMSEA (90 % CI) = .18 (.15-.21), and the 3-factor solutions, χ2= 150.667, df = 51, p < .01, CFI = .94, TLI= .92, RMSEA (90 % CI) = .12 (.10-.15). Three-factor solution yields a better fit. The inspection of modification indices and descriptive statistics of individual items pinpoint a potential problem of item PERF7 (new facilities
Item Factor
loadings PERF12. General performance of mayor (Belediye başkanın genel performansı) .912 PERF11. Adherence to plans (Önceden yapılan planlara uygun faaliyetlerinin yerine
getirilmesi)
.891 PERF1. Adequate recruitment of personnel (Belediye çalışanlarının bilgi ve becerilerine
uygun pozisyonlara yerleştirilmesi)
.874 PERF6. Adequate planning of municipality strategies/functions (Belediye
stratejilerinin/faaliyetlerinin uygun şekilde önceden planlanması)
.870 PERF9. The quality of services such as the construction of road, park and gardens
(Belediyenin ilçedeki yol, park ve bahçe gibi hizmetlerinin kalitesi)
.863 PERF2. General employee satisfaction (Belediye çalışanlarının genel olarak bu
belediyede çalışmaktan memnun olması)
.852 PERF4. Budget management (Belediye gelir-giderlerinin verimli bir şekilde yönetilmesi) .850 PERF7. New facilities and services offered to district citizens (Belediyede ilçe halkına
yönelik yeni etkinlikler ve hizmetlerin getirilmesi)
.831 PERF5. Protection of municipality rights (Belediye haklarının ve menfaatlerinin
korunması)
.830 PERF3. The quality of relationship among managers-subordinates (Belediye
çalışanlarının genel olarak üstleriyle-müdürleriyle iletişimi ve ilişkilerinin kalitesi)
.814 PERF9. The quality of waste management services (Belediyenin ilçedeki temizlik ve
atık/çöp toplama hizmetlerinin kalitesi)
.791 PERF8. The adequacy of cultural, sportive and social services (Belediyenin ilçe halkına
sunulan kültürel, sportif ve sosyal hizmetlerin yeterliliği)
.762
Eigenvalues 8.54
Variance accounted for (%) 71.14
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and services provided to district public).The relatively high missing rate of this item particularly reveals that employees might have less information on novel public activities/services. Therefore, I extract this item and re-run CFA on 11 items with 3- factor model. The model has a better fit to the data, χ2= 100.667, df = 41, p < .01, CFI = .96, TLI= .794, RMSEA (90 % CI) = .10 (.08-.14). Table 3.14b presents loadings of 3- factor CFA model of municipality organizational performance scale with 11 items.
Table 3.14b.
Unstandardized Loadings (Standard Errors) and Standardized Loadings for CFA Model of Perceived Performance of Municipality Scale at Phase 2 on the Control Group
Factor Items of Perceived Performance of Municipality Scale Unstandardized (Standard Error) Standardized Perceived Performance for Public Services
PERF 10. The quality of services such as the construction of road, park and gardens (Belediyenin ilçedeki yol, park ve bahçe gibi hizmetlerinin kalitesi)
1.000 (.000) .919
PERF 9. The quality of waste management services (Belediyenin ilçedeki temizlik ve atık/çöp toplama hizmetlerinin kalitesi)
.882 (.075) .824
PERF 8. The adequacy of cultural, sportive and social services (Belediyenin ilçe halkına sunulan kültürel, sportif ve sosyal hizmetlerin yeterliliği)
.851 (.068) .802
Perceived Performance for Strategic Issues
PERF 6. Adequate planning of municipality strategies/functions (Belediye
stratejilerinin/faaliyetlerinin uygun şekilde önceden planlanması)
1.059 (.061) .935
PERF 11. Adherence to plans (Önceden yapılan planlara uygun faaliyetlerinin yerine getirilmesi)
1.019 (.059) .934
PERF 5. Protection of municipality rights (Belediye haklarının ve menfaatlerinin korunması)
1.000 (.000) .901
PERF 4. Budget management (Belediye gelir- giderlerinin verimli bir şekilde yönetilmesi)
.995 (.070) .864
Perceived Performance for Internal Issues
PERF 1. Adequate recruitment of personnel
(Belediye çalışanlarının bilgi ve becerilerine uygun pozisyonlara yerleştirilmesi)
.966 (.074) .893
PERF 2. General employee satisfaction (Belediye çalışanlarının genel olarak bu belediyede çalışmaktan memnun olması)
1.000 (.000) .844
PERF 3. The quality of relationship among managers-subordinates (Belediye çalışanlarının genel olarak üstleriyle-müdürleriyle iletişimi ve ilişkilerinin kalitesi)
.840 (.070) .811
PERF12. General performance of mayor (Belediye başkanın genel performansı)
.866 (.060) .887
N = 124. Note. Cronbach alpha for sub-scale of public services= .91; Cronbach alpha for sub-scale of strategic issues = .94; Cronbach alpha for sub-scale of internal relations = .92.
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The first factor is composed of 3 items which are concerned with perceived performance related to services provided to the public, such as the quality of cleaning and waste management system (α = .91). The second factor is composed of four items which are related to perceived performance on strategic issues of municipality, such as the effectiveness of budget management (α = .94). The third factor is composed of four items on perceived performance for internal issues, such as employees’ general organizational satisfaction as well as general performance of mayor (α = .92).