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The importance of creating open, transparent policy-making processes is apparent and
has begun to extend into the administrative arena itself, as politically active citizens grow
to understand the influence of professional staff on government decisions and, therefore,
expect to know how staff members reach their conclusions and recommendations.

This trend entails an examination of the role of government and its relationship to the
private and nonprofit sectors in building collaborative partnerships.
Finally, it also involves the emerging presence of regionalism, with the opportunities and
threats that it poses for traditional ways of thinking about communities.
 Modernizing the organization. This is today’s expression of the traditional, internal
administrative focus for local government management. The fusion of technology with
efficiency had created inexorable forces of change. An explosion of consequences has
resulted, not the least of which is the sudden transformation in expectations about time,
accessibility of information, and responsiveness.

Software that enables accounting practices; tracks capital projects; provides for e-
government; and manages pavement maintenance, traffic control, the routing of solid-
waste collection vehicles, and inventory has given rise not only to ―better practices‖ but
also to higher expectations for professionalism and technical expertise.

The technology and software that modernize the organization’s internal operations also
allow citizens more access to reports, agendas, minutes, drawings and renderings, GIS-
based documents and data, and other information. This accessibility affects how the
manager and other professional and technical staff must deal with the public,
neighborhoods, and special-interest groups. Managers must act quicker and more
transparently, as they prepare for public involvement based on a review of material
shared by elected officials and other staff.

Challenges

For the local government manager, the first challenge is to understand the differences between a
community orientation and a traditional institutional paradigm. Community orientation places
more emphasis on process, norms, and direct engagement of citizens, in contrast to the
institutional perspective, which emphasizes structure, the law, and representation. The manager
must be able to operate well in both arenas and must resist the temptation to make one more like
the other. The two spheres are necessarily different because their purposes are different.

The second challenge occurs within the organization, as employees attempt to make better use of
mushrooming knowledge. As information and knowledge proliferate, managers find that work
teams, decentralized decision-making processes, and new managerial competencies are better
able to apply this knowledge effectively and creatively. However, this egalitarian group approach
challenges traditional departmental structures and hierarchical decision making.

Additionally, in the third challenge, these trends combine to accentuate the tension between the
two different perspectives. The first set of trends involves an increasing emphasis on citizen
engagement, accessibility to information, transparency in government, and greater visibility and