Insights from local government managers: navigating crises through organizational capacities and perceptions

Recent years have shown that strategic responses to crises by local governments (LGs) depend on the type of crisis, the institutional environment, but also internal capacities and sensemaking processes. However, such relationships have not been tested widely yet. Based on a survey of managers (n=590) from cities with more than 15,000 inhabitants in France, Germany, Italy and the UK, this study explores the role played by specific organizational capacities (critical thinking, bricolage, financial capacities) and crisis perceptions (valence – i.e., threat vs opportunity; and controllability) in shaping adaptive or regressive response strategies. Results show that these capacities are associated with how LGs’ managers perceive crises and the type of responses adopted. Higher financial capacity, bricolage and critical thinking are associated with stronger sense of organizational controllability, but they have different relationships with threat and opportunity perceptions. The study confirms the importance of distinguishing valence (threat, opportunity) from controllability perceptions.