2.1 Introduction: Theorizing the Nordic Municipal CEO

Studying human agency inescapably requires the interpretations of meanings—relating beliefs, actions, and practices to further webs of meaning. (Bevir & Blakely, 2018, p. 1)

Many features of the contemporary nation-state derive from worldwide models constructed and propagated through global cultural and associational processes. (Meyer et al., 1997, pp. 144–145)

The purpose of this chapter is to theorize the position of the Nordic municipal chief executive officer (MCEO). To do this, we elaborate upon and clarify the theoretical lenses used to analyse similarities, differences, and changes relating to MCEOs and integrate them into a conceptual framework.

As discussed in Chap. 1, present-day MCEOs manage some of the largest organizations in their country in terms of turn-over and number of employees. In the following chapters, we analyse the genesis, evolution, and contemporary practice of the people inhabiting the position of MCEO. We examine a range of questions: (1) How did the position emerge? (2) How was the position shaped by broader historical trends? (3) What characterizes the biography of the people inhabiting the position? (4) What values do they convey? (5) How do they prioritize leadership tasks? (6) How do they collaborate with important internal and external actors? To theorize the MCEO position, we combine theories of organizing, leadership, and public administration and merge them into a coherent conceptual framework.

Our overall approach is rooted in interpretive phenomenology. It combines the macro-phenomenological concept of a world society that enhances ‘global cultural and associational processes’ (Meyer et al., 1997, pp. 144–145) that propagate and legitimate models of public governance with the micro-phenomenological notion of national and local path dependencies and human sense-making processes that often substantially translate and adapt globally supported models (March & Olsen, 1989; Røvik, 2007, 2016).

Thus, it is impossible to understand the challenges facing MCEOs from a purely local, national, or global perspective. Globally theorized and supported models of appropriate governance are very real in even the smallest and most remote municipalities of the Nordic countries. At the same time, there are national policy reforms and local economic conditions of decline and enrichment.

Interpretations of phenomena are occasioned by humans in networks of social relations framed by formal and informal institutionalized rules. To understand the position of MCEOs, we must understand how the position is related to other positions in the political–administrative network at the apex of the municipality (Klausen & Magnier, 1998; Mouritzen & Svara, 2002a). In particular, it is crucial to understand the MCEO’s position through the evolution and current characteristics of the relation and division of labour between the mayor, the leading elected politician, and the MCEO, the highest-ranking not-elected public servant in the municipality.

2.1.1 The Embeddedness of the MCEO Position

The position of MCEO is embedded in a specific context that influences and infuses meaning (into the position) in numerous ways. The concept of embeddedness is important and raises questions about the types of contextual factors influencing the MCEO position and how. Our approach to the issue of embeddedness and context builds on seven contextual conditions, which we emphasize as important in understanding the MCEO position in Nordic local government:

  1. (a)

    Local–national welfare state: MCEOs are embedded in the institutional logics of public administration in the local context of liberal democracy and the vision of a national welfare state that provides universal welfare services.

  2. (b)

    Governance models: MCEOs are influenced by several distinct, often globally supported governance models that imply dynamic tensions between different governance and management ideas.

  3. (c)

    Regional dynamics: MCEOs work under various conditions and manage resource portfolios that vary significantly due to regional dynamics and disparities.

  4. (d)

    Political–administrative organization: MCEOs work within a political–administrative social network at the municipal apex, and this position at the intersection between politics and administration is crucial to understanding their tasks and challenges.

  5. (e)

    Leadership expectations: MCEOs are responsible for the management of large multi-task organizations. Thus, they are expected to act as leaders in enhancing both short-term, high-quality efficient welfare provision and long-term innovation and local community development.

  6. (f)

    Public servants: MCEOs work in an institutional setting in which they are expected to act both as leaders managing large organizations and public servants of local elected politicians and the citizens of the municipality.

  7. (g)

    Career system: MCEOs’ biography and bureaucratic ethics are influenced by career systems embedded in national civil service systems and their historical evolution.

The seven contextual conditions should be understood as dynamic, enacted, and embedded. They are dynamic in the sense that they can change over time; they are enacted since their specific meaning is constructed in network relations; and they are embedded since their meaning is entangled in broader institutional logics. Our understanding of the MCEO position as an embedded model of seven contextual conditions is illustrated in Fig. 2.1.

Fig. 2.1
An illustration of 7 contextual conditions influencing the M C E O position. They are local-national welfare state, governance models, leadership expectations, regional dynamics, public servants, political-administrative organizations, and career system.

Model of contextual conditions influencing the MCEO position

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The model presented in Fig. 2.1 is a heuristic tool with which to think about and analyse the MCEO position. It should not be understood literally. For instance, the arrows do not illustrate direct causal mechanisms; rather, they illustrate important contextual conditions. The thinner arrows pointing in the opposite direction illustrate that MCEOs can and do influence the interpretation and meaning of these conditions. The conditions imply a negotiated room for managerial choices, one delimited by more or less clear demands (things you are expected to do) and constraints (things you are not expected to do) (Stewart, 1982a, 1994) in the MCEO role. The negotiated room is illustrated by the circle in Fig. 2.1. In the next two sections of this chapter, we elaborate on our seven contextual conditions concerning the embeddedness of the MCEO position.

2.2 The External Environment of the Municipal CEO

In this section, we present the first three contextual conditions related to the global, national, and regional external environments. The challenges and conditions in these areas vary substantially in ways that are important to the priorities of the MCEO.

2.2.1 The Local–National Welfare State

Nordic MCEOs are embedded in the institutional logics (Thornton et al., 2012) of public administration (Rosenbloom, 1983) in the local context of liberal democracy as well as in the vision of a national welfare state that provides universal welfare services (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Rothstein, 1998). These logics create tensions and paradoxes that MCEOs need to tackle. To find the position attractive and survive in it, MCEOs must understand and accept their role within the inherent tensions between political and administrative logics and those between national and local priorities.

The tensions between the inherent institutional logics in the public administration of liberal democracy have been a core theme in public administration theory. Rosenbloom (1983), for instance, showed the inherent tensions between three approaches—managerial (efficiency), legal (legality), and political (political feasibility)—to public administration. This obligation to ensure both legal and efficient administration in helping to enhance politically feasible solutions to salient problems on the political agenda of the municipality is an inherent part of the MCEO’s job. In principle, and sometimes in practice, it involves conflict between competing institutional logics. For instance, the rule of law implies legal procedures that may cause delays and increase costs for politically feasible solutions.

Following a broadly similar logic, Hood (1991, p. 11, Table 2) contrasted three core values of public management: sigma-type values (keep it lean and purposeful), theta-type values (keep it honest and fair), and lambda-type values (keep it robust and simple). Hood’s basic point was to show how the new public management (NPM) reforms of the 1980s emphasized sigma-type values of efficiency while neglecting the theta- and lambda-type values of fairness and resilience. In later publications, Hood (Hood & Peters, 2004; Margetts et al., 2010) explored the inherent trade-offs and paradoxes of public management reforms.

The primary lesson from Rosenbloom and Hood is that the job of MCEO is influenced by various institutionalized values that imply tensions, conflicts, and dilemmas. MCEOs are expected to pursue a complex balance among efficiency, legality, fairness, resilience, and political feasibility in public administration and service provision. This complexity is further enhanced by the multi-level tensions of the MCEO position between national and local priorities. The purposes of the Nordic municipality are to deliver nationally decided welfare services, enhance local development, and the adaptation of national policies to local circumstances. Thus, there is a tension between national implementation and the local community perspective, which has been a core theme in local government studies for decades (Bergström et al., 2021; Goldsmith & Page, 2010; Page & Goldsmith, 1987) and is inherent in the job of MCEO. From the perspective of national implementation, Nordic municipalities are tools for the implementation of standardized welfare services. From the perspective of the local community, municipalities are a forum for local interest negotiations and the promotion of local development.

On the one hand, Nordic municipalities are responsible for delivering welfare services to a specific nationally defined standard. The vision of a universal welfare state implies that education, eldercare, and other welfare services are expected to adhere to certain minimum standards of roughly equal quality, independent of geographical location. If a family moves from one part of the country to another, they should expect and find a reasonably equal level of welfare services compared to what they left behind. In the event of the contrary—and it is quite often problematic to ensure this kind of regional equality—it is considered a major problem in public debate. Since the 1980s and 1990s, this function of the primary local provider of nationally decided welfare services has been a major characteristic of the Nordic municipality. Much public debate about municipal performance relates to the quality and quantity of these services compared to nationally defined standards.

On the other hand, the Nordic municipality is also an organization characterized by local autonomy and self-rule, with a long tradition of decentralized decision-making. Locally elected politicians may prioritize differently from national governments and can do so within limits. Different localities may require different policies, and the challenges and political priorities of municipalities at the periphery are not necessarily the same as those of the capital. There are substantial differences between the contextual conditions of the municipalities in the capital regions of Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Reykjavik, and Stockholm and those of Northern Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

Thus, the local–national welfare state theme captures two important tensions in the job of MCEO. First, there are the classical tensions of old public administration between efficiency, legality, and political feasibility. Second, there are inherent multi-level tensions between national standards and local autonomy and adaptation.

2.2.2 Governance Models

MCEOs are influenced by several distinct, globally evolving governance models (Hood, 1991; Osborne, 2006; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017; Rosenbloom, 1983; Torfing et al., 2020), which imply tensions between different notions of good governance (Hood & Peters, 2004; Thornton et al., 2012). In the decades following World War II, the public sector grew rapidly in all advanced economies, and most of this growth—especially in the Nordic countries—took place in local government. Education, health, and other expanding public services where increasingly organized by local government. This public sector growth required new models of governance. The old public administration, with its classical Weberian (Weber, 1968) bureaucracy and focus on the rule of law, hierarchy through a parliamentary chain of command, and professional decision-making, was insufficient and supplemented, though not replaced, by other governance models (Hansen et al., 2020).

In the 1980s, there were attempts to reduce or roll back public sector growth and enhance efficiency in public service delivery through privatization, marketization, and performance management (Czarniawska & Solli, 2014; Hansen & Lindholst, 2016; Solli, 2014). These new modes of governance were later labelled NPM (Hood, 1991) and were a reaction to the growth of the public sector in the post-war decades, consequently introducing various new ways of organizing public sector activities. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, this change in public management involved cutback management and rolling back the state, while in others, such as the Nordic countries, it involved diminished public sector growth, tighter budget discipline, and a greater focus on efficiency in the delivery of core public services.

Since the 1980s, several alternative and, to some extent, competing governance models were influential in the management of Nordic municipalities (Hansen, 2010, 2011). In Table 2.1, the most important of these are presented (see also Fig. 1.2 in Chap. 1); the latter three are sometimes labelled post-NPM governance models. While the tension should not be exaggerated, the models in Table 2.1 represent differences in the current predominant thinking concerning good governance.

Table 2.1 Five governance models
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The ideas in the models are contradictory, but they also exist side by side and influence one another. Management models as ideas concerning how to manage public sector activities are constantly tried out, adapted, and tried out again in various contexts. Such processes of learning and cross-fertilization sometimes result in new hybrids of management models (Gross, 2017). The neo-Weberian state (NWS) model (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004, 2017) represents a paradoxical hybrid of the traditional public administration model (TPA) and the NPM model. New public governance (NPG) and digital era governance (DEG), however, represent very different notions of good governance.

The five models can have important implications for the priorities of MCEOs. According to the TPA model, MCEOs should emphasize the classical virtues of public administration and enhance their administration based on the rule of law and a loyal, neutral civil service. According to the NPM model, MCEOs should enhance an administration that supports competition between providers of public services through the establishment of quasi-markets (Solli, 2014), semi-autonomous agencies, and managing through goals, key performance indicators, and contracts. According to the NWS model, the MCEO should combine the TPA and NPM models. Some scholars have suggested that the NWS model has become predominant in Nordic public administration (Hansen et al., 2020). According to the NPG model, the MCEO should enhance internal and external collaboration across silos and organizational borders. Finally, according to the DEG model, the MCEO should change organizational routines and practices in ways that utilize the many possibilities of digitization.

While each of the priorities suggested by the models may seem reasonable, they do imply tensions and paradoxes in public sector management. Historically, the organic network portrait of society in NPG was advanced as an alternative and criticism of the TPA’s more rigid hierarchical portrait (Osborne, 2006; Rhodes, 1994). Both NPM and TPA tend to create and strengthen some of the silos and organizational boundaries that NPG seeks to transcend in order to enhance cooperation. Furthermore, some of the governance principles of DEG tend to be at odds with NPM (Dunleavy et al., 2006).

All five models are, however, influential and constitute a set of managerial values that influence the priorities of MCEOs. An important understanding of Table 2.1 is that the five models are not mutually exclusive. Parts of all five can be concurrent, even in the same place (Solli et al., 2005). However, models often fade over time but quite often leave behind traces in the form of sediments (Jönsson & Solli, 2017).

2.2.3 Regional Dynamics and Disparity

MCEOs work under different local conditions and manage resource portfolios that vary due to regional dynamics and disparities. This has implications for the relevant strategic choices that the MCEO and other managers at the apex of the municipality need to consider. Some municipalities, often those in the more remote parts of a country, are characterized by economic decline, often indicated by a shrinking population, an increasing share of elderly citizens, and a relatively low share of citizens with higher education qualifications (Hansen et al., 2018; Knudsen, 2020). In Chap. 1, we showed substantial variations in the demographic realities of Nordic municipalities, even though the respective populations have increased, on average, in recent decades.

In municipalities characterized by a rural shrinking and aging population, it is often difficult to attract young talented employees for vacant positions, and those who do apply often move on when offered job opportunities elsewhere. The main challenges of the MCEO and other leaders in the political–administrative system can be characterized as the management of decline, a situation which influences the most urgent municipal policy problems and the strategies for tackling them. If a company should show interest in moving their activities to a municipality, the mayor and MCEO will go to great lengths to remove obstacles and will dedicate their time and resources to welcome them (Hansen, 1997). We occasionally see desperate attempts to reverse the trend and attempts to brand municipalities in new ways and find new forms of income. We also see attempts at influencing state policies in favour of disadvantaged regions (Etzerodt & Hansen, 2018), with recent political trends showing that regional disparity can change the political landscape (Hansen et al., 2018).

Another type of municipality is characterized by an increasing urban population, with many educational institutions, attractive job opportunities, young families with children, etc. The main challenges of the MCEO and other leaders in the political–administrative system of these municipalities can be characterized as a management of enrichment and progress, a situation that influences the most urgent municipal policy problems and response strategies. We often find this type of municipality in the capital regions of the Nordic countries.

Between these two extremes, we find other types of municipalities. Some are characterized by high crime rates, while others are in the process of transformation from an old industrial city to a modern high-tech city, etc. The main point here is that the policy problems faced by MCEOs vary substantially due to the varying regional dynamics and disparities and that these differences have implications for the demands, constraints, and choices faced by MCEOs.

2.3 The Local Municipal Environment of the MCEO

In this section, we present the last four contextual conditions in our model (Fig. 2.1). These conditions are related to the municipal organization and its political–administrative management structure, including rules for entering and leaving the MCEO position.

2.3.1 Political–Administrative Organization

In Chap. 1, we presented the basic formal political–administrative structure of Nordic municipalities, and in Chap. 3, we will compare this structure to those of other types of local government. Here, we take a broader theoretical perspective. An important factor for the MCEO is how the municipality functions as an organization. In almost all large organizations, top managers are partly situated between the principal and the agents and partly situated as the head of the agents. In several respects, MCEOs work between two very different types of organizations. The principal is represented by the political sphere in the municipality, while the agents are the municipality’s employees who work in the administration. The political sphere in the municipality has one type of logic, while the administration has another type of logic, which is quite different (Weber, 1946). This section draws inspiration from Brunsson’s (1985, 1991) and Weber’s (1946) seminal discussions on the relations between politics and administration.

Selection of Employees: In a pure form, the organization of politics is characterized by aspects of representative democracy. It is through public elections, mediated by political party organizations, that decisions are made regarding who will sit on leading bodies. The consequence is that there are competing interests and norms among politicians. In the administration, it is the meritocratic professional characteristics of the career system that shape who enters administrative management positions. One implication is that the political organization tends to be characterized by disagreement and competing ideologies. In contrast, the administration tends to be characterized by professional unity, although this may be challenged by competing managerial logics of governance.

The Procedure: The political organization lives by and for discussion, debate, and argumentation. If there is no room for debate, it is not a politically interesting issue. If you live by discussion, problems are a valuable raw material, especially difficult problems. The administration is action-oriented and, therefore, is focused on solutions to be implemented.

Decision-making: From an external point of view, the political organization is engaged in rational decision-making. Problems are placed on the agenda, various alternatives are highlighted, and choices are made by counting votes. Administration is more like ordinary decision-making. Simon (1947) called this satisficing and coined the term bounded rationality, while Brunsson (1985) called it irrational.

Ability to Change: When an organization is characterized by discussion and debate, it is difficult to manoeuvre. The problems need to be anchored, and it takes time to form alliances, thereby making it an insightful organization. The administration is manoeuvrable but, due to the absence of alternatives, finds it difficult to realize when there are problems, thereby lacking in insight.

The MCEO, more than anyone else, exists in both logics but, above all, between them. It is theoretically interesting to study the practice of MCEOs. What does the MCEO’s work look like in their relations with politicians? How often do MCEOs and politicians meet? What do MCEOs and politicians do together? We shall return to what they do separately in the context of leadership expectations. Nevertheless, these questions provide an opportunity to explain the empirical phenomenon that constitutes the role of the MCEO. While the comparative literature is extensive, in this book, we employ longitudinal data to compare the Nordic countries and the changes within each country.

The basic properties of the political–administrative system analysed above have implications for the distribution of power among actors within the system and, thus, for the demands, constraints, and choices faced by MCEOs. From a formal legal perspective, decision-making power is situated in the political system, but at least five models for the relative influence of the actors within the two systems can be deduced from the literature: formal–legal, village life, functional, adversarial, and administrative (Peters, 1988, Chap. 5). In this book, we use survey items from the UDiTE study (Klausen & Magnier, 1998; Mouritzen & Svara, 2002b) to examine how MCEOs perceive the relative influence of the actors within and around the Nordic municipal administrative system. Do they perceive politicians to be in power, as in the formal–legal model? Alternatively, do they perceive the top administrators to have the most influence, as in the administrative model? To what extent do these perceptions remain stable or change over time? To what extent do they vary between countries and types of municipalities.

2.3.2 Leadership Expectations

MCEOs are responsible for the management and leadership of large multi-task organizations. In this section, we briefly discuss generic theories of efficient leadership of relevance to understanding the MCEO. One way to understand these theories is in the context of the current state of knowledge on efficient leadership. This knowledge may be challenged and changed over time. Currently, however, these theories are taught at leadership seminars around the world and, thus, are understood in relation to important characteristics of efficient leadership.

As leaders, it is the job of the MCEO, along with other important actors in the political–administrative system, to enhance both short-term efficiency in accomplishing the tasks of the municipality (e.g. provision of childcare, primary education, and eldercare) and enhancing long-term adaptation through innovation and local community development (Hansen, 2013; Yukl, 2013).

Hales (1986, 1999), for example, conducted a review of the early generic leadership literature on managerial behaviour. Most of the studies we now call classics in leadership research were included, such as Taylor (1911), Carlson (1951), Stewart (1967, 1991), Mintzberg (1973, 1991), Kotter (1982), and Burns (1978).

More recent reviews of the generic leadership literature (Van Wart, 2017; Yukl, 2013; Yukl & Gardner, 2018) by and large confirm Hales’ (1986, 1999) findings but also include findings regarding effective leadership. According to this literature, effective leaders tend to have a direct and indirect focus on three related dimensions: a short-term focus on the administration and delivery of output (productivity in the delivery of products, services, etc.), a medium-term attention to relations (employee satisfaction, important internal and external networks, etc.), and a long-term strategy for innovation and adaptation to changing environments (Van Wart, 2017; Yukl, 2012).

The most crucial network relations of the MCEOs are those with the local elected politicians; however, these relations are omitted from the generic leadership literature, though not in political science, public administration, and local government studies (Aberbach et al., 1981; Hansen, 1997; Klausen & Magnier, 1998; Mouritzen & Svara, 2002b; Putnam, 1976; Svara, 2001; Weber, 1946). Elected politicians in the municipal council hire and fire MCEOs (Christensen et al., 2014; Cregård & Solli, 2019; Hansen et al., 2013), and the most important decisions in the municipality must be approved by decisions made by the majority in the municipal council. Thus, in a very real sense, the demands, constraints, and choices (Stewart, 1982a) of the MCEO position evolve in the interaction between the MCEO and local elected politicians within the framework of national legislation.

The four roles used in this book were discussed in the UDiTE studies headed by Mouritzen (1995), among others, and combine insights from the generic leadership and public administration literature. Classical administrative functions (guide subordinates, fiscal management, enforcement of rules, and establishment of new routines) are roles related to the focus on tasks and outputs, very much in the tradition of Taylor, Weber, and Fayol discussed above. The political adviser (technical and political advice to the mayor, establishing norms of relations between politicians and administration, influencing decision-making) is a role from the public administration literature inspired by a long tradition of enriching our understanding of this relation going back to Wilson (1887) and Weber (1946, 1968), with significant recent contributions by Svara (1999, 2001, 2008).

The organizational integrator (solves problems and conflicts of human relations, stimulates cooperation, informs about employee viewpoints) is a role related to the network dimension of effective leadership from the generic leadership tradition. Enhancing cooperation and facilitating good employee relations are core functions of leadership in all organizations; however, although included, this part of the job of the MCEO did not feature in the UDiTE studies (Dahler-Larsen, 2002; Klausen & Magnier, 1998; Mouritzen & Svara, 2002b).

The policy innovator (formulates visions, attracts external resources, informs about citizen viewpoints, improves efficiency) is a role inspired by the generic leadership literature and the strategic focus on adaptation and innovation and challenges to the rigid politics–administration dichotomy in political science and public administration (Aberbach et al., 1981; Hansen & Ejersbo, 2002; Svara, 2008).

The four roles of classical administrator, political adviser, organizational integrator, and policy innovator are used in our empirical analyses in the country chapters. They were also used in the UDiTE studies of the 1990s, and we will be able to demonstrate stability and change in leadership priorities since the 1990s.

2.3.3 Public Servant

Some MCEO tasks involve acting as public servants of the local government. This involves serving upwards to politicians, downwards in relation to employees, and outwards in relation to citizens. Integrity, honesty, impartiality, and objectivity are qualities that public servants are often expected to possess. The characteristics relate largely to Weber’s (1946, 1968) discussion on the bureaucratic organization and the relations between politics and administration. While the public servant is expected to follow the law and be sensitive to political intentions, they must also safeguard more general values and norms (Lundquist, 1993, 1998). Striking a delicate balance among politics, jurisprudence, and managerial efficiency, as emphasized earlier by Rosenbloom (1983), captures an important part of the public service ethos implied by the notion of the public servant.

The properties are questioned individually and collectively (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017). However, the increasingly blurred boundary between politicians and public servants becomes a type of problematization (Frederickson et al., 2012; Mouritzen & Svara, 2002b), and there is a lack of clarity in both directions. On the one hand, managers create more room for manoeuvre with a growing and professionalized sector (Jönsson, 1982; Olsson, 2016). On the other hand, there are also clearer efforts by politicians to influence the administration more directly (Karlsson & Olsson, 2018).

As a civil servant, the MCEO is highly dependent on the local political system and the role of locally elected politicians. What do ideal political roles look like from the point of view of MCEOs? In the UDiTE studies (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002a, 2002b, pp. 175–178), which we have replicated in this study, a distinction was made between the governmental and linkage roles of the ideal politician. Governmental roles include the three roles of governor (decides major principles), stabilizer (decides stable and clear goals), and administrator (decides administrative routines). Linkage roles include the two roles of ambassador (explains municipal decisions) and representative (spokesperson). Some of our datasets also allow for discussion around the differences between ideals and how they work in practice.

2.3.4 Career System

Career development involves one’s whole life, not just occupation. As such, it concerns the whole person—needs and wants, capacities and potentials, excitements and anxieties, insights and blind spots, warts and all. More than that, it concerns him/her in ever-changing contexts of his/her life. (Wolfe & Kolb, 1984, p. 124)

Local CEOs are a status group whose professionalization is based on specific resources such as an academic background (relatively often in law) and a know-how acquired in many loci within the world of public bodies and public services. CEOs are ‘local’ mainly in the sense that their work histories tie them to the world of local government, but they have few roots in the local community. … Through their jobs, CEOs are socialized into a municipal world not to a specific community. (Magnier, 2002, p. 56, emphasis in original)

As in other organizations, municipalities make decisions concerning membership (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011). When, how, and who to hire and fire for a specific job are some of the most important decisions in organizations. Especially for high-ranking managers, such as MCEOs, such decisions can have important consequences for the entire municipality. The notion of a career system suggests that norms and rules concerning who to hire and fire tend to be institutionalized across the sector of local government. Over time, the basic rules and norms concerning the characteristics of those allowed to enter a specific job may change. Some trajectories of the job of MCEO may be opened, while others may be closed.

Important background variables include education, gender, age, and previous experience, among other factors, which are heavily influenced by the career system—that is, the long-term formal and informal rules concerning how you enter and leave a specific position. In fact, these variables can be seen as indicators of the basic characteristics of the career system. The concept of system here suggests that there are many, often interconnected indicators of importance to the career. The degree of formalization of career systems varies between countries and sectors and is heavily influenced by the evolution of the national education system (Hansen et al., in press, 2013). In some countries, very specific educational requirements regulate who enters the MCEO position, while in others, this is less formalized (Klausen & Magnier, 1998; Magnier, 2002).

Education plays a role in a person’s career choices or outcomes (Weick, 1996). It is reasonable to believe that an administrative education leads to an administrative job. However, once a career is underway, there are strong indications that actions and attitudes are formed in practice. Kolb (1984) used his theory of experiential learning to discuss how learning works (Hayden & Osborn, 2020), where practical experience becomes the basis for learning, which can then be abstracted and shaped into rules of action. If you, as a leader, have a recipe for how to solve a problem, it is easy to use the same recipe in another situation.

Kolb (1984) drew a significant portion of his reasoning from Lewin’s (1943) reasoning on active learning and field theory. It is not entirely farfetched to take the reasoning further towards actor network theory (Latour, 2005) and action-nets (Czarniawska, 2014). Documents and actors are shaped by the available institutional arrangements. The introductory quote from the section shows the importance of actors’ careers in terms of how they act. At the empirical level, it would be interesting to study variables such as background and education as well as how MCEO networks emerge and how they have changed over time.

2.4 The MCEO Position as an Embedded Demands–Constraints–Choices Model

The seven contextual factors analysed above influence the job of the Nordic MCEO in important ways. We suggest that a useful model to think about and analyse managerial positions, such as that of the MCEO, is the demands-constraints-choices model suggested by the management researcher Stewart (1982a, 1982b; Stewart & Fondas, 1994). Managers are faced with both demands and constraints, which leave them some room for choices (see Fig. 2.2).

Fig. 2.2
A model of the M C E O position. It has demands, choices, and constraints in 3 concentric rings from center to the margin in order at the center. 7 contextual conditions influencing the M C E O position are given around it. They include governance models, leadership expectations, and career system.

The embedded demands–constraints–choices model of the MCEO position

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Demands are the obligations and requirements that the MCEO needs to fulfil to get the job and stay in it. For instance, Nordic MCEOs need a basic understanding of the formal and informal rules of local liberal democracy as well as to act accordingly. Perhaps for this reason, most of them amass several years of experience from local government before they are hired as MCEOs. Constraints are activities and norms not acceptable to get the job or stay in it. Nordic MCEOs should, for instance, only allow public spending in accordance with the politically decided budget. Demands and constraints leave room for choices—the managerial priorities, strategies, and ethics that a person may bring to the job and try to pursue while fulfilling their obligations. In the short run, for instance, there is room for administrative choices within the decided budget, and in the long run, the administration can somewhat influence the size and composition of the budget (Solli, 2023).

As indicated earlier, the demands–constraints–choices model (see Fig. 2.2) should be understood as dynamic, enacted, and embedded: dynamic because demands, constraints, and choices often change over time; enacted because the precise meaning of demands, constraints, and choices are negotiated among the people within and around the position; and embedded because their meanings are entangled in the larger webs of meaning that we call institutions. It is difficult to understand the Nordic MCEO position without some notion of local representative democracy and the meaning of the politics–administration dichotomy in the Nordic context (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002a).

The bold arrows in the model in Fig. 2.2 indicate that the seven proposed themes are expected to influence the demands, constraints, and choices faced by MCEOs in significant ways. The thin arrows from the MCEO to the contextual conditions indicate that, especially in the long run, MCEOs may influence the meaning and implications of the contextual conditions. The model is intended as a device for understanding and exploring the conditions for managing Nordic municipalities. We will use the model as an analytical tool in the following country chapters and the concluding chapter of the book. Here, we will examine two cross-cutting aspects of the model: (1) the arrows and (2) the relations between the contextual elements of the model.

  1. 1.

    How do the seven contextual elements influence the job of MCEO (the nature of the arrows)?

    The seven contextual conditions are related to the job of MCEO in different ways. We presented the first three elements (a, b, and c) under the heading of ‘the external environment’. They are not directly related to the position of MCEO but more generally to the functions and meaning of Nordic municipalities in the Nordic welfare state. Thus, they frame the challenges that the MCEO faces and introduce complexity, trade-offs, and paradoxes in the choices that the municipal political–administrative leadership—including the MCEO—needs to make.

    The final four elements (d, e, f, and g) were presented under the heading of ‘local municipal environment’ and are more directly related to the job of the Nordic MCEO. The political–administrative organization (d) of Nordic municipalities embodies the formal hierarchical rules concerning the functions and hierarchical decision-making power of the actors—including the MCEO—at the apex of the Nordic municipalities. The MCEO needs to understand and follow these rules, and there is limited room to change them. Leadership expectations (e) can be seen as formal and primarily informal rules and norms concerning how leaders should act. They are a consequence of the large multi-task organizations that Nordic municipalities have become. There is also plenty of room for choices and different types of leadership styles in relation to these norms. The public servant (f) element is a group of informal norms related to democratic norms of government for the people and by the people. It shapes the MCEO role in important ways but also leaves plenty of room for choices. Finally, the career system (g) includes basic rules of membership—the basic formal and informal rules concerning those who are allowed to enter the position of MCEO.

  2. 2.

    How are the seven contextual elements related to each other?

    In the model, there are no arrows between the seven elements, but they are in many ways related. A few of these relations will be examined here for illustration. The element of (a) the local–national welfare state has direct implications for coping with (c) regional dynamics, since differences in regional dynamics and disparities make it difficult to ensure universal welfare services.

    Differences in the choices concerning the mix of governance models (b) may imply different formal rules and informal norms concerning how to organize the local–national welfare state (a), and they are also likely to imply different leadership expectations (e). The career system (g) may tend to enhance factors relating to gender, age, experience, and education at the expense of others. These trends are likely to influence the choices of the MCEO concerning the adoption of governance models (b), adaptation to leadership expectations (e), and norms relating to public servants (f).

2.5 Conclusion: Synthesizing the Conceptual Framework/Model

The purpose of this chapter was to theorize the MCEO position and to elaborate conceptual tools to analyse the history, emergence, and embeddedness of the contemporary position. Figure 2.2 summarizes our discussion in the embedded demands–constraints–choices. The model integrates our seven theoretical lenses in a conceptual model and relates them to the demands–constraints–choices model from leadership research. The model is heuristic and are used to organize the empirical analyses in the forthcoming chapters of the book. The model provides a meso-level actor-structure perspective to the analyses of the MCEOs and combines several perspectives from public administration, political science and organization studies.

We do not claim that the model is exhaustive, all-inclusive, or the only useful model to analyse the Nordic MCEOs. Both more complex models including more perspectives and more simple models focusing exclusively on for instance the impact of the formal political-administrative structure on the role of the Nordic MCEO have their merits. Our hope is that the model we have elaborated enhance a reasonably holistic and nuanced understanding of the Nordic MCEO and the municipal organizations they are managing.