Public Management in Time: A Longitudinal Examination of the Full Range of Leadership Theory

Though management is theorized as a temporal process, and public organizations are understood as generally inertial, most public management studies rely upon cross-sectional research designs. As such, we have little understanding about how public management matters over time. To fill this gap in the literature, this article conducts a longitudinal analysis of one of the most established management theories: Bass's full range of leadership theory. This theory expects positive outcomes when managers establish patterns of transactional and transformational leadership. To examine Bass's theory, this article studies US federal government subagencies over a 7-year period in the beginning of the 21st century. The findings show that there are remarkably strong intra-organizational patterns over time. Nonetheless, there is evidence that management matters: improvements in leadership are positively associated with follower cooperation, satisfaction, and perceptions of work quality. In comparison, as Bass expects, transformational leadership is a stronger predictor of improvement. Though public management appears to matter over time, the article also shows that cross-sectional examinations may overvalue its effect. As such, the article closes by arguing for further longitudinal public management study.