Claudia N Avellaneda
Biographic Data
| ID | 827571 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Claudia N Avellaneda |
| GIVEN NAMES | Claudia N |
| FAMILY NAME | Avellaneda |
| SIGNATURE | AVELLANEDA C N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7083-2863 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 109 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Explaining Mayoral Delegation in Associative Arrangements
Among local governments’ collaborative arrangements, associations of municipalities are understudied in the literature of delegation and executive decision making. We explore the role of issue specificity and institutional context in mayors’ decisions to engage in collaboration with an association of municipalities by reviewing three survey experiments with Latin American mayors in Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia. Mayors received a scenario in w…
Elected Executives’ Preferences for Performance Assessment
Elected executives’ preferences for performance indicators when assessing their accomplishments remain scarcely researched despite their potential effects on strategic and managerial decisions. We propose credit-claiming opportunities’ perceptions affect elected executives’ preferences for performance indicators. Thus, preferences should vary with policy area and reporting government level. In a survey-experiment, we asked 243 Colombian mayors to…
Distributive Politics in Rural Housing Policy Implementation in Colombia
Resource distribution in salient social programs, such as affordable housing, is often subject to a trade‐off between technical response to housing demand and political interests at different government levels. While distribution of housing subsidies is formally expected to follow technical need‐based criteria, political influence may also affect these allocations. Consequently, this research explores demand/need and political factors as explanat…
Fifty years of local government studies
Goal achievement in municipal strategic planning
Strategic planning has been increasingly used by local governments worldwide to boost performance. While this can be seen as a technical and political process, the relationship between managerial qualifications, political context and achievement of strategic goals in local governments has been scarcely studied. This study explores these relationships using data from 137 Colombian municipalities at the middle and end of the 2016–2019 mayoral term.…
Mayoral preferences for delegation in collaborative arrangements
Multilevel governance offers different settings to study executive decision-making and delegation. Associations of municipalities (AoMs), which are collaborative partnerships, are understudied arrangements in the delegation literature. Using a survey experiment with 240 Colombian mayors, this research explores whether issue specificity and issue salience shift preferences for delegating funding appropriations. Mayors overall prefer not to delegat…
Municipal Response to Fiscal and Governance Reforms
The effectiveness of fiscal rules in limiting governmental indebtedness and expenditures has mixed results. This inconclusiveness may suggest debt-limit effects on fiscal outcomes may be moderated by other factors. Although literature has addressed the moderating effects government size has on fiscal outcomes, scarce research has done so with the type of jurisdictions making up a unit of government. Consequently, this study tests whether the type…
Organizational commitment in public servants through civic engagement
The public service motivation (PSM) theory has emphasized the distinctive motivational character of public employees in serving public institutions. However, scarce research has explored whether public service motivation extrapolates to civic engagement as another way to participate in public affairs. We contend that public employees' stronger sense of public interest expands toward higher engagement levels in social, economic, political, and civ…
Credit claiming and mayoral preferences for project uptake amid a migrant crisis
When considering taking over public projects, executives assess their perceived credit-claiming opportunities against potential blame attribution. The balance of these perceptions may shift under crisis. Meanwhile, the literature has mostly explored project uptake in delegation contexts when decisionmakers hold certain control powers over delegees, but not when such controls are absent. Amid one of the largest migrant crises worldwide, we conduct…
Governmental responses to Covid-19 Pandemic
In response to the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide adopted a variety of strategies that include not just preventive or mitigation strategies adopted to “flatten the curve”, but also interventions aiming to mitigate economic and social impacts of the pandemic. RAP`s special issue gathered 17 reflexive, timely and relevant contributions of different governmental approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper w…
Do the networks of inter-municipal cooperation enhance local government performance
Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) has increasingly become an important tool for local governments. This study aims to understand the role of IMC from the perspective of network management. We argue that IMCs create networks of horizontal interactions among local governments, facilitating collaboration and information exchange among them. By so doing, IMCs can promote local government performance even outside their main service domains. To evaluat…
Direct and non‐linear innovation effects of demographic shifts
A varied set of pressures drive organizational innovation. Among these pressures, demographic shifts seem to boost innovation, as the public sector responds to the arrival of migrants and to community changes in race and ethnic composition. However, we know little about innovation by governments in response to expected population decline. In particular, studies have under‐examined how anticipated demographic pressures prompt public organizations …
Environmental and Organizational Antecedents of Plural Sourcing of Public Services
Organizations use multiple governance modes (make , buy , ally) to produce their services. We consider plural sourcing as a portfolio of governance mode choices that a public service organization selects to provide its services , and investigate environmental and organizational factors that stimulate plural sourcing of public services. While studies of governance mode have usually relied on insights from theories of organizational economics (tran…
Subnational Government Performance
This article tests whether governors' work experience explains their state performance. Although the experience‐performance relationship has been researched, empirical studies report inconsistent results. This inconsistency might be due to the dissimilar conceptualization and operationalization of the work experience construct, for it can be conceptualized in qualitative or quantitative components. To address this disparity, the authors follow Te…
Chief executives' approval of immigrants
Several countries worldwide have experienced increasing immigration waves. Studies have explained immigration attitudes mainly in terms of cultural threats and material self-interest. However, scarce attention has been given to chief executives' empathy toward the causes of migration, the impact of which may be moderated by the size of the migration wave. We test these propositions on data drawn from a survey-experiment using 101 Latin American a…
Books by Our Readers
Adventures in the Classroom and Our Nation's Capital chronicles my career as a social studies teacher. Starting in Connecticut and upstate New York, you will read the struggles of a young teacher learning his craft in diff erent public and private, rural, suburban, and small town schools while also searching for meaning in America and American history. After arriving in northern Virginia, I immediately took advantage of nearby Washington, DC, for…
Limits on Innovativeness in Local Government
Theory and evidence on the diffusion and antecedents of innovation in public organizations demonstrate that organizations respond to their environment and react by being more or less innovative. However, questions about the limits of responses to organizational task environments remain unexplored: in short, what is the appropriate level of environmental capacity and when does the environment become too complex or dynamic for innovation to occur? …
Decentralization and Reform in Latin America
Is Small Beautiful? Testing the Direct and Nonlinear Effects of Size on Municipal Performance
Although the relationship between managerial capacity and local government performance is well established, research into the direct effect of population size on performance has yielded mixed findings. Using data for 787 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, this article examines the direct and nonlinear effects (moderating and curvilinear) of population size on municipal performance. Performance is measured in terms of property …
Mayoral Decision-Making
This study explores the effect on mayoral decision-making of three aspects of the decision environment: issue salience, context, and constraint. The study also tests the moderator effect that decision environment may have on a mayor's qualifications in terms of education and experience. These effects were tested on data drawn from a survey–experiment whose subjects were 120 incumbent mayors representing 12 Latin American countries. Mayors were pr…
Policymaking in Parochial Legislatures
Forthcoming Articles
All by Myself
Political decentralization has been promoted as a way to devolve responsibility, bring government closer to citizens, and improve accountability. The shift prompted new local elections, but were the elected officials responsive to citizens or to national party elites? This study examines unique survey data from 125 Colombian mayors to identify the factors they believe were critical in their victories and thereby to identify the people to whom the…
Market Orientation and Public Service Performance
The backbone of theory of the market‐based approach New Public Management is that market orientation improves public service performance. In this article, market orientation is operationalized through the dominant theoretical framework in the business literature: competitor orientation, customer orientation, and interfunctional coordination. Market orientation is examined from the vantage point of three stakeholder groups in English local governm…
Mayoral Quality and Local Public Finance
In most local developing settings, the political leader and the municipal manager are embodied in the same figure, the directly elected mayor. This research explores the impact of mayoral quality on local public finances in a developing country. Mayoral quality is operationalized as educational background and job‐related expertise to analyze its impact on two local financial indicators: property tax collection and social spending per capita. The …
Municipal Performance
This article presents the first empirical study in a Latin-American country on the effects of managerial quality upon municipal performance in education. Using 6 years of data from 40 Colombian municipalities, I assess the influence of mayoral qualifications—education and job-related experience—on the percentage of the eligible population actually enrolled in school. After considering other political, economic, and demographic factors, the findin…
Is Small Beautiful? Testing the Direct and Nonlinear Effects of Size on Municipal Performance
Although the relationship between managerial capacity and local government performance is well established, research into the direct effect of population size on performance has yielded mixed findings. Using data for 787 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, this article examines the direct and nonlinear effects (moderating and curvilinear) of population size on municipal performance. Performance is measured in terms of property …
Mayoral Decision-Making
This study explores the effect on mayoral decision-making of three aspects of the decision environment: issue salience, context, and constraint. The study also tests the moderator effect that decision environment may have on a mayor's qualifications in terms of education and experience. These effects were tested on data drawn from a survey–experiment whose subjects were 120 incumbent mayors representing 12 Latin American countries. Mayors were pr…
Limits on Innovativeness in Local Government
Theory and evidence on the diffusion and antecedents of innovation in public organizations demonstrate that organizations respond to their environment and react by being more or less innovative. However, questions about the limits of responses to organizational task environments remain unexplored: in short, what is the appropriate level of environmental capacity and when does the environment become too complex or dynamic for innovation to occur? …
Do the networks of inter-municipal cooperation enhance local government performance
Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) has increasingly become an important tool for local governments. This study aims to understand the role of IMC from the perspective of network management. We argue that IMCs create networks of horizontal interactions among local governments, facilitating collaboration and information exchange among them. By so doing, IMCs can promote local government performance even outside their main service domains. To evaluat…
Credit claiming and mayoral preferences for project uptake amid a migrant crisis
When considering taking over public projects, executives assess their perceived credit-claiming opportunities against potential blame attribution. The balance of these perceptions may shift under crisis. Meanwhile, the literature has mostly explored project uptake in delegation contexts when decisionmakers hold certain control powers over delegees, but not when such controls are absent. Amid one of the largest migrant crises worldwide, we conduct…
All by Myself
Political decentralization has been promoted as a way to devolve responsibility, bring government closer to citizens, and improve accountability. The shift prompted new local elections, but were the elected officials responsive to citizens or to national party elites? This study examines unique survey data from 125 Colombian mayors to identify the factors they believe were critical in their victories and thereby to identify the people to whom the…
Direct and non‐linear innovation effects of demographic shifts
A varied set of pressures drive organizational innovation. Among these pressures, demographic shifts seem to boost innovation, as the public sector responds to the arrival of migrants and to community changes in race and ethnic composition. However, we know little about innovation by governments in response to expected population decline. In particular, studies have under‐examined how anticipated demographic pressures prompt public organizations …
Municipal Performance
This article presents the first empirical study in a Latin-American country on the effects of managerial quality upon municipal performance in education. Using 6 years of data from 40 Colombian municipalities, I assess the influence of mayoral qualifications—education and job-related experience—on the percentage of the eligible population actually enrolled in school. After considering other political, economic, and demographic factors, the findin…
Mayoral Quality and Local Public Finance
In most local developing settings, the political leader and the municipal manager are embodied in the same figure, the directly elected mayor. This research explores the impact of mayoral quality on local public finances in a developing country. Mayoral quality is operationalized as educational background and job‐related expertise to analyze its impact on two local financial indicators: property tax collection and social spending per capita. The …
Market Orientation and Public Service Performance
The backbone of theory of the market‐based approach New Public Management is that market orientation improves public service performance. In this article, market orientation is operationalized through the dominant theoretical framework in the business literature: competitor orientation, customer orientation, and interfunctional coordination. Market orientation is examined from the vantage point of three stakeholder groups in English local governm…
Policymaking in Parochial Legislatures
Forthcoming Articles
All by Myself
Political decentralization has been promoted as a way to devolve responsibility, bring government closer to citizens, and improve accountability. The shift prompted new local elections, but were the elected officials responsive to citizens or to national party elites? This study examines unique survey data from 125 Colombian mayors to identify the factors they believe were critical in their victories and thereby to identify the people to whom the…
Mayoral Decision-Making
This study explores the effect on mayoral decision-making of three aspects of the decision environment: issue salience, context, and constraint. The study also tests the moderator effect that decision environment may have on a mayor's qualifications in terms of education and experience. These effects were tested on data drawn from a survey–experiment whose subjects were 120 incumbent mayors representing 12 Latin American countries. Mayors were pr…
Decentralization and Reform in Latin America
Is Small Beautiful? Testing the Direct and Nonlinear Effects of Size on Municipal Performance
Although the relationship between managerial capacity and local government performance is well established, research into the direct effect of population size on performance has yielded mixed findings. Using data for 787 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, this article examines the direct and nonlinear effects (moderating and curvilinear) of population size on municipal performance. Performance is measured in terms of property …
Limits on Innovativeness in Local Government
Theory and evidence on the diffusion and antecedents of innovation in public organizations demonstrate that organizations respond to their environment and react by being more or less innovative. However, questions about the limits of responses to organizational task environments remain unexplored: in short, what is the appropriate level of environmental capacity and when does the environment become too complex or dynamic for innovation to occur? …
Books by Our Readers
Adventures in the Classroom and Our Nation's Capital chronicles my career as a social studies teacher. Starting in Connecticut and upstate New York, you will read the struggles of a young teacher learning his craft in diff erent public and private, rural, suburban, and small town schools while also searching for meaning in America and American history. After arriving in northern Virginia, I immediately took advantage of nearby Washington, DC, for…
Chief executives' approval of immigrants
Several countries worldwide have experienced increasing immigration waves. Studies have explained immigration attitudes mainly in terms of cultural threats and material self-interest. However, scarce attention has been given to chief executives' empathy toward the causes of migration, the impact of which may be moderated by the size of the migration wave. We test these propositions on data drawn from a survey-experiment using 101 Latin American a…
Subnational Government Performance
This article tests whether governors' work experience explains their state performance. Although the experience‐performance relationship has been researched, empirical studies report inconsistent results. This inconsistency might be due to the dissimilar conceptualization and operationalization of the work experience construct, for it can be conceptualized in qualitative or quantitative components. To address this disparity, the authors follow Te…
Direct and non‐linear innovation effects of demographic shifts
A varied set of pressures drive organizational innovation. Among these pressures, demographic shifts seem to boost innovation, as the public sector responds to the arrival of migrants and to community changes in race and ethnic composition. However, we know little about innovation by governments in response to expected population decline. In particular, studies have under‐examined how anticipated demographic pressures prompt public organizations …
Environmental and Organizational Antecedents of Plural Sourcing of Public Services
Organizations use multiple governance modes (make , buy , ally) to produce their services. We consider plural sourcing as a portfolio of governance mode choices that a public service organization selects to provide its services , and investigate environmental and organizational factors that stimulate plural sourcing of public services. While studies of governance mode have usually relied on insights from theories of organizational economics (tran…
Governmental responses to Covid-19 Pandemic
In response to the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide adopted a variety of strategies that include not just preventive or mitigation strategies adopted to “flatten the curve”, but also interventions aiming to mitigate economic and social impacts of the pandemic. RAP`s special issue gathered 17 reflexive, timely and relevant contributions of different governmental approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper w…
Do the networks of inter-municipal cooperation enhance local government performance
Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) has increasingly become an important tool for local governments. This study aims to understand the role of IMC from the perspective of network management. We argue that IMCs create networks of horizontal interactions among local governments, facilitating collaboration and information exchange among them. By so doing, IMCs can promote local government performance even outside their main service domains. To evaluat…
Mayoral preferences for delegation in collaborative arrangements
Multilevel governance offers different settings to study executive decision-making and delegation. Associations of municipalities (AoMs), which are collaborative partnerships, are understudied arrangements in the delegation literature. Using a survey experiment with 240 Colombian mayors, this research explores whether issue specificity and issue salience shift preferences for delegating funding appropriations. Mayors overall prefer not to delegat…
Municipal Response to Fiscal and Governance Reforms
The effectiveness of fiscal rules in limiting governmental indebtedness and expenditures has mixed results. This inconclusiveness may suggest debt-limit effects on fiscal outcomes may be moderated by other factors. Although literature has addressed the moderating effects government size has on fiscal outcomes, scarce research has done so with the type of jurisdictions making up a unit of government. Consequently, this study tests whether the type…
Organizational commitment in public servants through civic engagement
The public service motivation (PSM) theory has emphasized the distinctive motivational character of public employees in serving public institutions. However, scarce research has explored whether public service motivation extrapolates to civic engagement as another way to participate in public affairs. We contend that public employees' stronger sense of public interest expands toward higher engagement levels in social, economic, political, and civ…
Credit claiming and mayoral preferences for project uptake amid a migrant crisis
When considering taking over public projects, executives assess their perceived credit-claiming opportunities against potential blame attribution. The balance of these perceptions may shift under crisis. Meanwhile, the literature has mostly explored project uptake in delegation contexts when decisionmakers hold certain control powers over delegees, but not when such controls are absent. Amid one of the largest migrant crises worldwide, we conduct…
Goal achievement in municipal strategic planning
Strategic planning has been increasingly used by local governments worldwide to boost performance. While this can be seen as a technical and political process, the relationship between managerial qualifications, political context and achievement of strategic goals in local governments has been scarcely studied. This study explores these relationships using data from 137 Colombian municipalities at the middle and end of the 2016–2019 mayoral term.…
Fifty years of local government studies
Elected Executives’ Preferences for Performance Assessment
Elected executives’ preferences for performance indicators when assessing their accomplishments remain scarcely researched despite their potential effects on strategic and managerial decisions. We propose credit-claiming opportunities’ perceptions affect elected executives’ preferences for performance indicators. Thus, preferences should vary with policy area and reporting government level. In a survey-experiment, we asked 243 Colombian mayors to…
Distributive Politics in Rural Housing Policy Implementation in Colombia
Resource distribution in salient social programs, such as affordable housing, is often subject to a trade‐off between technical response to housing demand and political interests at different government levels. While distribution of housing subsidies is formally expected to follow technical need‐based criteria, political influence may also affect these allocations. Consequently, this research explores demand/need and political factors as explanat…
Political science (22 works) · Business (14 works) · Economics (14 works) · Local Government Finance and Decentralization (13 works) · Public Administration (13 works) · Public Administration (12 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Public relations (8 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (7 works)