4.1 The Historical and Organizational Context of the Danish MCEO

This chapter utilizes historical and comparative perspectives to analyse the position of the municipal CEO (MCEO) (kommunaldirektør in Danish) in the context of Danish municipalities. The position of MCEO is integrated in contemporary Danish public administration, which is organized into a national administration, five regions (since 2007; there were 14 counties from 1970 to 2007), and 98 municipalities (since 2007; there were 271–275 municipalities from 1970 to 2007). With an average size exceeding 58,000 inhabitants and expending around one-third of Denmark’s GDP (OECD, 2017), measured by inhabitants, the average Danish municipality is the largest in the Nordic countries and among the largest in Europe (only Ireland and England have larger municipalities).

Danish municipalities employ around 18% of the Danish workforce and 58% of public employees, spend more than 60% of public consumption, and deliver most of the core services of the Danish welfare state (KL, 2023; Statistics-DK, 2010; Thijs et al., 2018, p. 61). What constitutes the Danish state has changed over time. The contemporary Kingdom of Denmark includes Denmark and the autonomous territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Until 1940, Iceland was part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and for centuries until 1814, Denmark-Norway was one country. The present analysis, however, focuses on the municipalities in Denmark after the Second World War and does not include the autonomous territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Geographically, Denmark is the smallest of the five Nordic countries, spanning a total area of around 43,000 km2 (16,580 sq. miles), including more than 400 islands. With a population of almost 5.9 million people (2022), it is the most densely populated of the Nordic countries (138/km2).

In what follows, first, an account is given of four long-term megatrends that have shaped the current Danish MCEO position. Second, the Danish local government reforms since the 1960s are discussed in the context of their implications for the MCEO position. Third, the importance of transnational governance models, such as new public management (NPM), to the role of the MCEO is analysed. Fourth, the implications of the multi-task organization around the Danish MCEO are briefly discussed. Fifth, the formal legal, political–administrative structure of Danish municipalities and its implications for the MCEO are analysed. Sixth, an analysis of stability and change relating to the collective profile of the Danish MCEO is presented through five dimensions. Finally, a concluding discussion of the major findings is presented along with implications for practice and future research.

4.1.1 Megatrends

Four long-term interdependent megatrends have shaped the evolution of Danish municipalities and the MCEO position in important ways. The first is an economic megatrend involving the long-term economic growth invested in a largely local welfare state in Denmark. Long-term economic growth has characterized the global capitalist economy in the last two centuries. Denmark has been deeply embedded in the expansion of the global economy and has gained substantial economic benefits from it. These benefits have largely been invested in the vision of a universal welfare state in which local government came to play a major role (Abel-Smith, 1992; Béland et al., 2022; Bredsdorff, 2000; Marshall, 1950; Olesen, 1991; Tanzi & Schuknecht, 2000).

The second is a political megatrend, characterized by the expansion of representative liberal democracy and political and civil rights. From 1660 to 1849, Denmark had a highly centralized state formation with an autocratic monarchy. In 1849, in the aftermath of the bourgeois revolutions in America and Europe, this was succeeded by a constitutional monarchy, accompanied by very limited but expanding political and civil rights for Danish citizens. In Denmark, the expansion of democratic rights was slow and gradual, with the mobilization of political movements among workers, farmers, and women in the last part of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century (Christiansen, 1990). This deep transformation from autocracy to an increasingly democratic society has become a cornerstone of Danish local government, and the position of MCEO crucially concerns the relations between democratically elected politicians and the municipal administration, as illustrated by this quote from an interview with a Danish MCEO:

respect for democracy and for the democratic element in the whole form of government we have. This certainly does not mean that I don’t see weaknesses in it, nor is there anything else in it but that I certainly don’t always agree with the decisions which the municipal council makes … but you just must have respect for the people who, after all, have been given a democratic mandate to make these decisions, either one likes them or not. (Danish MCEO, quoted in Hansen, 1997, p. 212)

The third is a geographical megatrend concerning regional dynamics and disparities and is important since the responsibility of municipal management is delimited to a certain locality. While global average long-term economic growth has been high, it has been unevenly distributed both within and between countries and regions (Iammarino et al., 2019; Pike et al., 2016). This trend has been evident from the primacy of farming to the dominance of the industrial sector, followed by today’s economy, where most of the working population is increasingly employed in the public and private services sectors in major cities. Because of this global trend, more than half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas (United Nations, 2018). In Denmark, this trend is most visible in the decline of the population in most of the more than 400 small Danish islands and the growth of the greater Copenhagen area and large cities such as Aarhus, Aalborg, and Odense. Thus, Danish municipal management in larger cities tends to be a ‘management of growth’, while in the rural areas, it tends to be a ‘management of stagnation or decline’.

The fourth is a demographic megatrend, which concerns the demography of the Danish population. Danish municipal management is highly influenced by the demographic dynamics of the population, due to the responsibility to deliver welfare services such as childcare, primary education, and eldercare. Due to low fertility and low mortality, the elderly constitute the fastest growing part of the population, and this increase is unevenly distributed among municipalities (Houlberg & Ruge, 2019). The share of older people tends to rise in rural areas, while that of young people tends to rise in large cities.

4.1.2 Local Government Reforms

It is in the context of these four megatrends that the post-war history of Danish local government should be understood. Before the large municipal reform of 1970, Danish local governments were divided between parish municipalities (sognekommuner), ‘market towns’ (købstæder), and counties (amter).

Textbox 4.1 Changes in the Number of Local Government Units 1960–Present

  • 1960: 22 counties, 88 market towns, and around 1300 parish municipalities

  • 1970: 14 counties and 275 municipalities

  • 2003: 14 counties and 271 municipalities (five merged into one on Bornholm)

  • 2007–present: 5 regions and 98 municipalities

Denmark’s municipal structure around 1960 was largely a frozen relic from the mid-nineteenth century, with threads dating back to the Middle Ages due to its starting point in the parish structure (Dam, 2012). It was not suited to the large expansion of the impending welfare state (Blom-Hansen et al., 2012, p. 14; Hansen, 2013).

Thus, the municipal reform of 1970 marked a major change, creating the administrative preconditions for the expansion of the local welfare state, which took place from 1960 to 1980. The municipal reform of 1970 and the following years was in many ways a rational revolution compared to the previous system, and it created an administrative structure in local government, with 14 counties responsible for hospitals and several other tasks and 275 municipalities responsible for primary schools, elderly care, cultural institutions, and technical services, such as water supply, garbage collection, and park and road maintenance.

Throughout the 1970s, reform was followed by supplementary reforms, of which the budget and accounting reform was the most important, since it standardized and clarified the basic financial rules of the municipal system (Blom-Hansen et al., 2012). Around 1980, the basic system was in place in terms of task structure, legal governance structure, finance and budgeting, and the major organizations in the ‘municipal family’. Despite the broad reform of 2007, which created even larger municipalities and regions, the basic features of the system were pretty much in place around 1980.

The governance structure established in the 1970s has been remarkably resilient and has demonstrated the ability to adapt to the changes and crises of the decades since 1980, including the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis of 2020–2022. It has gradually been digitalized, with an increased task portfolio. Furthermore, the structural reform of 2007—increasing the size and reducing the number of municipalities to 98 and the 14 counties to five regions—was conceived as an economic and professional upgrade to the economic and professional sustainability of the Danish local government structure, although its democratic, distributive, and economic consequences are debated (Blom-Hansen et al., 2014; 2016).

4.1.3 New Public Management and Other Transnational Governance Models

This analysis of the Danish MCEO focuses on the decades from the 1980s to the present. These decades, especially from 1980 to the 2008 financial crisis, were strongly influenced by governance models under the framework of NPM (Hansen, 2011; Hood, 1991). From the 1980s onwards, there was a prevailing international agenda among the administrative and political elite in Western liberal democracies aimed at diminishing or reversing public sector growth by privatizing, rationalizing, and/or streamlining public sector activities. In Thatcher’s Britain, it took the form of radically privatizing or removing parts of the public sector. At the time, a more incremental slowdown and restructuring of public sector growth characterized Danish modernization programmes (Ejersbo & Greve, 2014).

The Danish version of NPM was an attempt to provide managerial answers to the basic question of how to enhance a more rational and efficient production of welfare state services. From the 1980s onwards, the proposed management models to answer this question were tighter budget control, management by objectives (MBO), better management through delegation and education, and an introduction of different forms of market-type mechanisms, such as private providers, competition between public and private providers, and free choice for users between different providers (Hansen, 2011).

Both the managerial and marketization components of NPM had significant implications for the interactions between the municipal politicians and their administration and became an important part of the job of the MCEO in enhancing new means of collaboration between the political and administrative system to preserve the basic trust between politicians and administrators (Berg, 2000; Hansen, 1997).

Since its introduction, NPM has had a major but also controversial impact on Danish public administration, and many NPM models are now an integral part of Danish public sector management. MBO has been developed into sophisticated performance management systems, with several key performance indicators (KPIs) within sectors such as education, eldercare, and public health. In some sectors, especially technical service provision such as park and road maintenance (2020a, 2020b; Hansen & Lindholst, 2016), MBO has been replaced by management by contract to enhance contracting and competition between service providers.

Several paradoxes and difficulties related to NPM have been identified in recent decades (Hood, 1991; Hood & Peters, 2004), and alternative management models have been suggested and tried out (Hansen et al., 2020b; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017; Torfing et al., 2020). However, in the Danish municipal context, NPM models of marketization and management have been embedded in the organizational routines of the municipalities and have become part of the everyday life of the municipal political–administrative management system. NPM is not new, however, and the managerial discourse of today has had greater influence from other models.

One long-term trend has been the focus on digital-era governance to get the most out of digitalization (Dunleavy et al., 2008; Hansen & Vedung, 2005). Another more recent trend involves notions of network governance, co-creation, and co-production in enhancing collaboration across organizational boundaries and reconceptualizing public service provision as co-creation (Brandsen et al., 2018; Cottam, 2018).

At the strategic level, Danish MCEOs are both influenced by and influence the diffusion of these transnational models (Hansen, 2011). In particular, the managerial part of NPM has shaped the modern MCEO role in important ways by introducing a new layer of leadership expectations regarding old norms around loyal public servants to local citizens, their elected politicians, and the Danish state. Along with the mayor and other actors in the municipal political–administrative management structure (see Fig. 4.1), MCEOs have significant leeway to reject, adapt, or copy specific management models, including the timing and strength of their adaptation.

Fig. 4.1
A model of the Danish municipal political-administrative structure has interconnected political and administrative management structure. Former includes elected part-time politicians and executive and standing committees and latter includes sector C E Os and municipal C E O.

The Danish municipal political–administrative structure since 1970. Note: Dotted arrows from the municipal council indicate that the actors (mayor and chairs) and committees (executive and standing) in the political management structure are appointed by the majority of the municipal council. Two-way arrows indicate triangles of frequent interaction. One-way arrows indicate the typical decision-making process

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4.2 The Tasks of Contemporary Danish Municipalities

As in the other Nordic countries, municipalities have become the primary service providers in the Danish welfare state. They are multi-task organizations responsible for organizing the provision of public services such as childcare, primary schools, elder- and health care, culture, city planning, and park and road maintenance and construction.Footnote 1 Most public services are delivered by municipal employees, but private providers of public services are also widely used in, for instance, kindergartens, primary schools, and eldercare.

An expanding area of responsibility is public health care. This is because of the demographic change towards more elderly people and that the responsibility for most training and rehabilitation of patients after hospital treatment has increasingly been transferred from regional hospitals to municipal health care.

Each year, the municipal political–administrative governance system makes decisions concerning how to prioritize future municipal expenses. Contrary to the American system, for instance, politicians are responsible for all public activities within the municipality. Thus, there is often a great deal of politics involved in prioritizing among the many activities. Demographic change also implies the need for new priorities, naturally engendering heated debates concerning the implications. Politicians may choose to close primary schools to enhance eldercare provision or vice versa, and they often do so in decision-making processes involving fierce political battles.

Danish MCEOs both influence and are highly influenced by these debates. Their administration provides input to the political process (e.g. the interpretation of facts and their implications) before politicians decide, and their administration is responsible for implementing decisions by politicians.

4.3 The Municipal Political–Administrative Governance Structure Since 1970

Legally speaking, it has been an enduring feature of Danish municipalities since 1970 that only the political part of the municipal political–administrative system is described in the local government statute (Den kommunale styrelseslov), while the MCEO and the entire municipal administration manage only by delegation from the political system (Christensen et al., 2017; Ejersbo et al., 1998). Figure 4.1 summarizes the generic structural characteristics of the municipal system since 1970. What has varied over time and between municipalities is the number of standing committees, their chairs, and the number and status of the sector CEOs. A few of the rules concerning the interaction of the categories of actors have also been changed, but by and large, the system of the 2020s is remarkably similar to that established in the 1970s.

According to the local government statutes of both 1970 and 2020, municipal affairs are governed by the municipal council; since the 2007 reform, the municipal council has been composed of between nine and 55 elected politicians, with 31 members being the most common size. At its first meeting after the municipal election, which is held every four years, the council elects the mayor and members of the standing committees. The number of standing committees and their tasks have varied considerably among municipalities and over time (Ejersbo, 1998). Each standing committee (typically 5–7 elected politicians) is responsible for the ‘immediate administration’ of affairs defined by the council via the municipal ordinance, and the number of committees varies among municipalities.

Cases brought to the political system by the administration (see arrow) will typically be decided by a standing committee. Cases to be decided by the council are prepared by the relevant committee. The finance committee, chaired by the mayor, has a special status. All municipalities are obliged by law to assemble a finance committee, which supervises all financial and administrative matters (Sørensen, 2009). It prepares the annual budget proposal and handles all cases with financial or administrative consequences. The appointment of personnel rests with the finance committee, except when it comes to the appointment and dismissal of the MCEO and sector CEOs. In these cases, the decision rests with the municipal council.

The mayoral position is a full-time job, contrary to that of ordinary municipal council members. The mayor is the chairman of both the city council and the finance committee, convenes the council, prepares the agenda, and is responsible for the minutes. In contrast to the other Nordic countries, the mayor is ‘the head of and daily leader of the municipal administration’. While the mayoral position is legally the most powerful, there is no doubt that the decision-making authority in Danish local government rests with the city council.

The legal standing of the executive function is more ambiguous. It is partly shared among the city council, the standing committees, the finance committee, and the mayor. This complex system has been called the committee–leader system (Mouritzen & Svara, 2002a, 2002b, p. 60), and its basic features and relations to the administrative system are indicated in Fig. 4.1 (adapted from Hansen, 2002). While the administrative part of the system is not mentioned in the local government statute, municipal administration has grown over the years. It is currently inhabited by full-time professional career civil servants, many of whom have a university degree at the master’s level in economics, law, public administration, or other social sciences. This is in stark contrast to municipal politicians, who, except for the mayors and a few other full-time politicians in the largest cities, are part-time politicians and make a living from other occupations or are students or retirees. They are in the best sense of the word amateurs whose only and crucial qualification is that they have been democratically elected by people in the municipality to serve as politicians for a four-year term.

Thus, while the direct legal power to make decisions is clearly in the political part of the system, the indirect power (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962) to prepare and implement decisions, in terms of professional knowledge, resources, and time, rests with the administrative system. They provide information and suggestions for the political decision-makers and are responsible for implementing political decisions.

It is in this context that the present position of Danish MCEO should be understood. It emerged in the 1970s from the previous system, with much smaller municipalities and fewer tasks to handle. Previously, in the 1950s and early 1960s, there were very few, if any, administrative employees in the small country-side municipalities. Furthermore, in the larger municipalities, the position could probably best be described as a kind of bookkeeper and servant to the municipal council. However, the major changes in Danish society and the rise of the modern local welfare state propelled the need for a modern professional administration and a modern MCEO.

4.4 Stability and Change in the Collective Profile of MCEOs

The analyses in this section are primarily based on survey data from 1980, 1992, 1995, 2006, 2008, 2016, 2020, and 2022, supplemented with Internet searches in 2023 and previously published research (Bertelsen & Hansen, 2016; Hansen, 2009; Hansen et al., 2013; Hansen & Eriksen, 2006; Klausen & Magnier, 1998; Mouritzen et al., 1993; Riiskjær, 1982; Storgaard & Hansen, 2021; Agerbo et al., 2022). See also book appendix for the Nordic MCEO survey questions.

The analysis of Danish MCEOs focuses on stability and change in five dimensions since the late 1970s. The following five dimensions are analysed:

  • The age and gender of the MCEO.

  • The education and career trajectories of the MCEO.

  • The ideal politician according to the MCEO.

  • Relative power in the political–administrative system according to the MCEO.

  • The leadership priorities of the MCEO.

The analysis is descriptive and based on means and standard deviations. First, however, two basic characteristics of the Danish MCEO position should be emphasized:

  1. 1.

    Due to the post-war local government reforms, important changes in the number of MCEO positions occurred in 1970 (from +1000 pre-MCEO positions to 275 MCEOs), 2003 (from 275 to 271 MCEOs), and 2007 (from 271 to 98 MCEOs).

  2. 2.

    The position is not mandated by law, and a few municipalities have occasionally experimented with alternative arrangements without an MCEO.

4.4.1 Age and Gender of the MCEO: Stability and Very Slow Change

Age is a classical variable in social science research and is usually theorized as important for three reasons: life stages, generations, and biology. In terms of life stages, age indicates where you are in your career and private life. Generations were famously theorized by Mannheim (Mannheim, 1929) as important due to the notion of formative years. The average age of MCEOs in available surveys has been stable through the decades 1980–2023 at around 50–56 years, except for 1992 when a new generation of primarily academic MCEOs entered the position, with an average age of 43. Thus, in this decade, those who grew up during the Great Depression and the Second World War were substituted by those who grew up during the 1960s.

As in the case of age, the gender variable has biological as well as socio-cultural components and has been subject to numerous studies in elite and leadership research (Hansen, 2012). At least since the 1960s, the gender issue has been politically potent, mobilizing support for more women in elite positions. As an explanatory variable, gender often shows significant relations to variations in norms and leadership priorities. Available surveys and yearbooks (Hansen et al., 2013, Tables 2 and 3) show that women were almost entirely absent from the MCEO position until 1985, then gradually but slowly increased their presence to around 10% from 1995 to 2005, 18% in 2020, and the most recent data from 2023 show that 21% of Danish MCEOs are women—the highest percentage ever in Denmark but the lowest percentage among the Nordic countries (see Hlynsdottir et al., Chap. 9).

4.4.2 Education and Career Trajectories of the MCEO: Incremental but Radical Change

As indicated by the average MCEO age, MCEOs tend to have rather long careers within the municipal sector before entering the position, with an average of more than 20 years of experience from municipalities and regions/counties. It is rare to enter the job from another sector without any municipal experience. The mean has decreased significantly since 1980 but was still above 21 years in 2016.

Basic MCEO education and training have witnessed an incremental change, although radical over time, from having municipal apprenticeship as their primary educational background in 1980 to a university degree in social science in 2023. As the incremental character of these changes indicates, they have not been the consequence of one national top-down reform. We still observe a few MCEOs doing rather well, starting with basic education and a trainee job in the municipality at around the age of 17; however, these individuals are the exception.

A second major change has been an expansion of post-education mid-career master’s programmes, which did not exist in the 1980s. Around one-third of Danish MCEOs had completed a Master of Public Administration or similar in 2016, while no one had such training in the 1980s and early 1990s.

A third important change is the increasing insecurity of the MCEO position, as indicated by the decreasing mean relating to the number of years in the present position—from a permanent position, where MCEOs usually left the position only for retirement in 1980 to a less secure position, often on a contract basis for four years, with the possibility of extension. An empirical analysis of top civil servants in Denmark based on yearbooks (Christensen et al., 2013) and covering 1970–2005 for MCEOs (the decades before the 2007 reform) found that the risk of being replaced had increased. MCEOs risk of replacement increased both with new mayors representing another party and holding an absolute majority and mayoral shifts within the same party.

These changes are substantial and may be seen as dysfunctional. A web search conducted in August 2023 indicates that around 30% of MCEOs were hired within the same year or the year before, while the corresponding percentage in 1980 was 5%! These numbers require deeper analysis, but since it takes time to build networks and trust to work efficiently as an MCEO, they indicate serious challenges in the interaction between the political and administrative parts of Danish municipal leadership.

4.4.3 The Ideal Politician According to Danish MCEOs: Almost 30 Years of Stable Norms

How should the ideal politician prioritize their activities according to the MCEO? What norms concerning good political behaviour do MCEOs express? In Table 4.1, the MCEOs’ responses are organized through a typology adapted from Mouritzen and Svara (2002a, 2002b, Chap. 7). In the table a distinction is made between governmental roles (Governor, Stabilizer, and Administrator) and linkage roles (Ambassador and Representative).

Table 4.1 The ideal politician according to Danish MCEOs: 1995–2022
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The overall impression from Table 4.1 is a remarkable stability regarding the roles of the ideal politician according to the MCEOs.

Concerning the governmental roles, the ideal politician should give high priority to the governor roles by having a long-term vision for the municipality and decide on major policy principles. Of medium importance is the stabilizer roles to create stability for the administration and formulate exact unambiguous goals. Of low importance is the administrator roles to lay down rules and routines for the administration and take decisions concerning specific cases.

However, the high standard deviation scores of the stabilizer role measures indicate that the MCEOs tend to disagree about this role. It is especially interesting that the item ‘Formulate exact and unambiguous goals for the administration’ generates disagreement among the MCEOs, since it has been one of the strong recommendations from the NPM movement.

Concerning the linkages roles, the MCEOs perceptions of the ideal politician is less neatly captured by the categories of ambassador and representative. Since the 1990s, the MCEOs maintain that the ideal politician should give high priority to defend decisions and policies externally (ambassador role) and be informed about citizens views (representative role) and that they should give low priority to be a spokesperson to local groups or individuals (representative role).

Summing up the MCEOs perspective, good politicians should decide on major policy principles, have a vision of the way in which the municipality should develop in the long run (governor), defend decisions and policies externally (ambassador), and be informed about citizens’ views (representative). Good politicians should not lay down rules and routines for the administration or take decisions concerning specific cases (administrator). These functions should be delegated to the administration.

4.4.4 Influence in the Danish Municipal Political–Administrative System: The Strong Mayor

In Table 4.2, the MCEOs’ perceptions of the influence of core actors are given as means and standard deviations. These questions were asked between 1995 and 2016, spanning 21 years of perceptions regarding the influence of actors. As expected from a formal legal perspective, the mayor was perceived as the most powerful actor throughout the two decades, and the position seems to have become more powerful in recent years. The influence of the standing committee chairs and the financial committee also seemed to be resiliently high over the years, in accordance with the formal legal model. However, the influence of the municipal council members was perceived as consistently low. Since these actors are formally responsible for the activities of the municipality, their apparent low level of influence can be seen as problematic. It has been a challenge to revitalize the roles of ordinary members of municipal city councils. The changes from 2008 to 2016 may indicate that, from the perspective of the MCEOs, some of the attempts to make the role more attractive had succeeded.

Table 4.2 The Danish MCEO perceptions of actor influence selected years 1995–2016
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If we turn to the administrative system, the formal model breaks down. On average, MCEOs perceived themselves as the second-most influential actor in the municipality after the mayor. There is an interesting change in their perceptions of their influence compared to the department heads. In 1995, they perceived the department heads as almost as influential as themselves, but since the 2007 reform, they have perceived their position as more powerful. Another interesting change is the increasing perceived influence of the state; however, in this case, the consistently high standard deviation is remarkable. The influence of the state tended to cause the most variation in responses, indicating considerable disagreement among the MCEOs.

4.4.5 The Leadership Priorities of Danish MCEOs: Stable Priorities with Two Exceptions

Table 4.3 presents the Danish MCEOs’ responses regarding their leadership priorities in 1995, 2006, 2008, 2016, and 2022. The MCEOs were asked to ‘… consider how much importance you attach to the task in your daily work’. In Table 4.3, the 15 items are organized by means of the typology suggested by Mouritzen and Svara (2002a, 2002b), which broadly corresponds to other typologies in the leadership literature (Van Wart, 2017; Yukl, 2013). The main purpose of the table is to visualize stability and change in the context of the MCEOs’ responses.

Table 4.3 The Danish MCEO leadership priorities: selected years 1995–2022
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There is a remarkable stability in the priorities of the MCEOs. Of the 15 items, most remained within the range of being high, medium, or low importance. Guiding subordinates was consistently awarded low priority. Providing technical advice (legal and economic), influencing decision-making, and formulating visions were consistently awarded high priority.

Two items shifted in terms of priority. Not surprisingly, given the 2008 financial crisis, financial management has had increasing importance, shifting from low to medium priority. However, it is also an item with a high standard deviation (SD), indicating different views among the MCEOs. The item regarding giving political advice shifted between medium and high priority, and the high standard deviation in this case indicates disagreements among the MCEOs concerning the priority of this task.

4.5 Concluding Discussion

The MCEO is the highest-ranking public servant in Danish municipalities, but the exact demands, constraints, and choices vary among municipalities due to lack of formal legal national standards. The contemporary MCEO position was established in the 1970s and was shaped by four megatrends in the twentieth century: (1) high economic growth, which was invested in the local welfare state; (2) the local version of representative liberal democracy and the resulting political–administrative system; (3) the geographical megatrend, which tended to divide municipalities in rural entities characterized by decline or stagnation and urban entities characterized by growth; and (4) the related demographic megatrend, with an aging population especially in rural areas. In recent decades, the MCEO position was further shaped by transnational reform trends, such as NPM, as well as by the 2007 local government reform, which reduced the number of municipalities and consequently the number of MCEOs to 98.

Danish MCEOs manage some of the largest organizational entities in the country in terms of turnover and number of employees. Municipalities are multi-task organizations that deliver welfare state services such as childcare, eldercare, elementary schools, and technical services. MCEOs are part of a complex political–administrative system, and their most important collaborators are the mayor, other top public servants, the finance committee, and the municipal council, the majority of whom approve their employment and dismissal. Danish MCEOs tend to be highly experienced, with an average age of 50–56 years and decades of experience in public administration. In the past, they were almost uniformly male, but the percentage of females has slowly increased, surpassing 20% in 2023.

The education and career trajectories of the MCEO have changed significantly since the 1970s: from a primarily municipal apprenticeship in the 1970s to a primarily academic social science education since the 1990s and from a permanent position in the 1970s to an increasingly insecure position with frequent dismissals. Salaries have also increased significantly, and MCEOs are among the highest-paid public servants in Denmark.

According to Danish MCEOs, the ideal politician should focus on major policy principles and visions, defend policies externally, be well informed about citizens’ viewpoints but should not interfere in the administration. These norms concerning the good politician have remained stable across five surveys since the 1990s. MCEOs have also consistently perceived the mayor as the most influential municipal actor, after whom they have consistently ranked themselves, then the committee chairs, followed by the economic committee.

Among the daily leadership priorities, MCEOs consistently give a high ranking to the following tasks: technical (legal and economic) advice to politicians, influencing decision-making, stimulating cooperation between departments, formulating visions, and improving efficiency. In contrast, the classical administrative functions of guiding subordinates, enforcing rules, and establishing new routines were consistently awarded low priority.

The above account of the main findings concerning the evolution of the position of the Danish MCEO from 1970 to 2023 raises several questions and puzzles for further enquiry and future research. First, it is an analysis based on descriptive statistics, and no multivariate statistics were applied, nor did we analyse how the descriptive statistics covary. Furthermore, several interesting relations could be examined through multivariate statistics in future research. For instance, some previous research has indicated that the increasing number of women MCEOs may lead to a slightly different approach to the role (Hansen, 2010).

Second, the formal political–administrative management structure implies at least two tensions and potential conflicts that Danish MCEOs must cope with, one of which is balancing and communicating between politics and administration and the other balancing between acknowledging the needs of each of the multiple public services (e.g. decent quality kindergartens, primary schools, and eldercare) and ensuring a sustainable short- and long-term economy for the entire municipality. Both tensions merit further examination in future research.

Third, previous research has tended to focus on specific positions, such as that of the mayor or the MCEO. Few studies have applied a holistic approach and analysed management systems. This could involve a pair of public managers, such as the MCEO and the mayor, or the characteristics of the entire municipal political–administrative management system (see Fig. 4.1).

Fourth, studies of the linkages between managers, management systems, and reasonable indicators of performance are rare at the strategic level, such as that of the municipality. It is not easy to construct valid research designs, but more knowledge of these relations is needed.

Finally, qualitative case-studies examining either everyday managerial work or long-term decision-making processes within the local political-administrative system are still rare and findings from such studies are not adequately reviewed. As in most leadership research (Yukl, 2013), the findings in this chapter primarily rely on survey data and various types of quantitative variation analysis. Qualitative case-studies are rare and highly needed to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of these important institutions in contemporary society.