LIMITS TO POWER - A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF MAYORS AND CAOS ON MUNICIPAL BUDGETS IN ONTARIO, 1977-1990

The degree to which leaders can influence organizational outcomes has long been a matter of controversy in the theoretical and empirical literature. This issue is especially complex in government organizations where both political and administrative leaders can influence policy and its implementation. The power of administrators may potentially exceed that of their political ''masters,'' particularly in municipal government in Canada where the typical structure combines a weak mayor, non-partisan elections and a chief administrative officer (CAO). Annual data on municipal budget allocations, turnover of mayors and CAOS in forty-nine Ontario municipalities were examined over a fourteen-year period in order to assess the relative impact of changes in these two leadership positions on variations in expenditures for six categories of services, as well as two income variables. Our methodology replicated and expanded on the analysis of variance approach used by Salanick and Pfeffer (1977) in a study of the influence of mayors on municipal budgets in the United States, and by Lieberson and O'Connor (1972) who studied the impact of presidents and board chairs on financial indicators in 167 U.S. manufacturing corporations. Our analysis, like these two previous studies, shows that leadership turnover has an insignificant influence on variation in municipal income and budget allocations, while the decision-making environment - the city itself and the year - accounts for most of the variation. Although neither mayors nor CAOS have a significant influence on municipal budget allocations in Ontario, the results suggest that the power of CAOS is somewhat greater than that of mayors. Our concluding discussion explores implications of this limited study for debates about the power of leaders in organizations, and about the relative influence of politicians and administrators in local government in Canada.