As more people with no political experience win office and major crises grow more frequent, new research published in Organization Science tells voters and governments that an outsider's effectiveness isn't fixed by their résumé.
The journal article, "Outsiders at the Helm: When Institutional Outsiderness Helps or Hurts Public Leaders’ Crisis Management Performance," examines how politically inexperienced leaders (i.e., outsiders) responded during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lin Jiang
Specifically, the study, co-authored by Lin Jiang, associate professor of management at the University of South Florida, analyzed U.S. state governors to determine whether their outsider status hindered or aided their crisis management.
One of the study's most important findings is that whether a leader's outsider status serves as a liability or a strength depends on the following circumstances: the institutional environment, prior crisis experience, and pre-crisis public approval.
The findings suggest that outsider governors performed worse when states had heavy bureaucracy or they hadn't personally managed a similar crisis before during the governor term. In the case of COVID-19 pandemic, outsiders also performed worse when having lower pre-pandemic social approval. However, when these obstacles were absent, outsiders did just as well; in the case of COVID-19 pandemic, outsiders performed better in states with lighter bureaucracy.
The rational for these findings is that the heavy bureaucracy makes it harder for outsiders to navigate the political institution and create a prompt, cohesive response, whereas their prior crisis experience and strong public approval alleviate those challenges.
Authors: Lin Jiang, University of South Florida; Dong Liu, Georgia Institute of Technology; Yan Yu, Renmin University of China.