Managerial Skills and Job Performance in Subnational Public Administration: Disaggregating Katz’s Tridimensional Model in Peru’s Tacna Regional Government

Latin American research has largely treated managerial skills as a single aggregate, leaving unclear which skills matter for performance in public organizations. This study disaggregates Katz’s technical, human, and conceptual skills and examines their association with public servants’ job performance in Peru’s Tacna Regional Government. A sequential mixed-methods design with quantitative predominance was applied: 213 randomly sampled public servants rated the managerial skills of their immediate managers and reported their own job performance, and 16 managers were interviewed and completed a management instrument proficiency checklist. Technical skills showed no significant relationship with job performance (ρ = 0.120, p = 0.081), while human skills (ρ = 0.503, p < 0.001) and conceptual skills (ρ = 0.525, p < 0.001) demonstrated significant positive associations. In ordinal logistic regression, conceptual skills were the only significant unique predictor (OR = 3.90, p < 0.001); given the strong overlap between human and conceptual skills (ρ = 0.792), this likely reflects a shared relational–strategic repertoire rather than irrelevant human skills. Results held after marker-variable adjustment and after excluding straight-lining respondents, with a smaller effect. All 16 managers declared knowing or applying formal management instruments. The findings suggest prioritizing interpersonal and strategic-analytical competencies in subnational capacity-building.