Managerial Networking and Stakeholder Support in Public Service Organizations

CITATION

Andrews, R., & Beynon, M. (2017). Managerial Networking and Stakeholder Support in Public Service Organizations. Public Organization Review, 17(2), 237–254.

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ABSTRACT
Resource dependence theory suggests that to function successfully, organizations
must obtain certain resources controlled by actors in their environment. To do this
effectively, managers often develop networking relationships with key stakeholder groups
in order to make critical resources available. Managers in public service organizations, in
particular, are frequently under great pressure to network with relevant actors from
stakeholder groups in order to build support for service (co)production and legitimacy
for strategic and operational decisions. To identify networking strategies which are
conducive to stakeholder support, we explore the networking behaviour of over 1,000
English local government managers. Fuzzy cluster analysis identifies four distinctive,
though inter-related types of managerial networking: technical, reputational, political, and
tokenistic. The cluster membership functions from this analysis are used to examine the
relationship between types of networking and stakeholder support in depth. The results of
hierarchical regression analysis suggest that technically-orientated networking is the most
conducive to stakeholder support, with tokenistic networking the least conducive.


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