Rethinking Top Public Management Through Relational Dynamics: A Systems‐Informed Study of Senior Executives

Abstract

ABSTRACT The complex nature of top public managerial work is widely acknowledged in theory but rarely examined empirically. Existing research has mostly analyzed bivariate relationships among core components of top managerial work in government, including managers' attributes, practices, outcomes, and contexts. Drawing on a systems‐based framework, we investigate how effective top managerial work unfolds as a complex relational practice. We analyze seven cases of long‐serving, distinguished Chilean senior executives through a comprehensive and process‐oriented lens, based on 27 semi‐structured interviews with the managers and members of their personal and professional networks. Our findings indicate how the relational dynamics in which senior public executives engage shape their managerial attributes and practices. Specifically, strategizing, motivation building, and technical expertise are best understood as emerging primarily through interactions within agencies and with external sociopolitical environments. These results qualify perspectives that explain senior public management effectiveness by overemphasizing executives' individual attributes and views, and underscore the need for personnel policies and governance environments that equip managers with the capacities called for by a systems approach to top public management.