3 - Professional careers

Safe Drinking Water Act: The Next Fifty Years 💻

A new book aims to shape the national conversation Now available from Palgrave MacmillanIn December 2024, the La Follette School at UW-Madison and the Water & Health Advisory Council gathered researchers, regulators, water sector executives, and community leaders

Safe Drinking Water Act: The Next Fifty Years 📖

Palgrave MacmillanManuel P. Teodoro, EditorIn this open access book, contributors explore current challenges and opportunities to improve drinking water regulation, governance, management, environmental justice, and more. In 2024, the United States marked the 50th

Why PFAS Policymakers Should Read Past the Abstract 📰

WATER ONLINEManny Teodoro, Chad Seidel, and Joe CotruvoWhen it comes to drinking water, sound public policy requires sound scientific research. Publication in a prestigious, peer-reviewed journal helps establish legitimacy for scientific claims in public

Insufferable 💻

Maybe engineers really are better at managing water utilities*if Hogwarts had an engineering schoolDoes a utility leader’s education matter for the performance of his/her utility? Recently I wrote about the academic backgrounds of the chief

From Cap & Gown to Corner Office 💻

Exploring the diverse academic backgrounds of water’s top leadersSchool’s out for summer, so I finally have a bit more time to blog about… school.🙃This post continues an occasional series on water utility chief executive

The Slow Flow of Progress💻

Racial diversity in water leadershipAI's idea of diverse water utility leaders. Creepy, I know.Long ignored, racial and ethnic diversity are now high priorities for the water sector.* Diversity is especially important in leadership posts,

2024 La Follette School Commencement Address 💻

On May 12, at the invitation of the graduating MPA/MIPA candidates, I shared remarks at the 2024 graduation ceremony in the Wisconsin State Assembly chambers. Here’s what I had to say - or you

Reading the Tea Leaves 💻

Notes on the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Part II*The Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act is 1,039 pages long. That’s a lot of tea.The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, better known as the Bipartisan

Boys Will Be Superintendents 🎓

School leadership as a gendered professionPDK: Phi Delta KappanRobert Maranto, Kristen Carroll, Albert Cheng, and Manuel P. TeodoroEven though the teaching profession is dominated by women, men hold more superintendent positions. The authors examine

Gendered Ambition 🎓

Men’s and Women’s Career Advancement in Public AdministrationARPA: The American Review of Public AdministrationRobert Maranto, Manuel P. Teodoro, Kristen Carroll, and Albert ChengMy kids. Clinton, NY. 2009We explore the relationships between gender, career ambition,

Human Capital as Infrastructure 💻

This is the fourth in my series of posts on the recently released White House infrastructure plan.Release of the White House infrastructure plan triggered a flurry of news about the nation’s ports, dams, water

Presidents, Baseball, and Wins above Expectations 🎓

What Can Sabermetrics Tell Us about Presidential Success?PS: Political Science & PoliticsManuel P. Teodoro & Jon R. BondWhy Ronald Reagan is like Bobby Cox and Lyndon Johnson is like Joe TorrePresidential scholars and baseball writers

Contingent Technocracy 🎓

Bureaucratic independence in developing countriesJournal of Public PolicyManuel P. Teodoro & M. Anne PitcherThis study investigates the effects of formal bureaucratic independence under varying democratic conditions. Conventional accounts predict that greater formal independence of

Drinking from the Talent Pool 🎓

A Resource Endowment Theory of Human Capital and Agency PerformancePAR: Public Administration ReviewManuel P. Teodoro & David SwitzerThis article advances a resource endowment theory of human capital and performance in government organizations. Building on

When Professionals Lead: Executive Management, Normative Isomorphism, and Policy Implementation🎓

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2014If professionalism shapes executive behavior significantly, then agencies whose executives belong to a particular profession ought to manage differently from similarly situated executives who do not, and

Water Utility Executive Leadership for the 21st Century 📜

Water Research FoundationManuel Teodoro & Linda ReekieThis study developed a summary of the drinking water community executive ranks, including their demographics, educational qualifications, professional backgrounds, skills, career paths, and personalities. This information reveals who

Moving In, Managing Up 🎓

Executive job formation and political behaviourJournal of Public PolicyManuel P. TeodoroPublic agency executive jobs are temporary matches of individual bureaucrats with government employers. Together, the buyers and sellers of executive labour form jobs in

Bureaucratic Ambition 📖

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011 Careers, Motives, and the Innovative Administrator Teodoro explains the systems that foster or frustrate entrepreneurship among public executives. Through case studies and quantitative analysis of original data, he shows

Bureaucratic Job Mobility & the Diffusion of Innovations 🎓

AJPS: American Journal of Political ScienceManuel P. TeodoroIn studies of innovation, policy entrepreneurs recognize latent demand for new policies and then expend resources to promote them. But studies of policy entrepreneurs have generally focused