Organizational Slack in Municipal Governments: A Cost Variance Analysis

Abstract

Stack is a central theoretical concept for which we suggest original measurement procedures. Cost variance analysis is used to measure labor organizational slack (LOS) in a national sample of American municipal governments. National norms serve as standards. Positive slack occurs when actual costs exceed standard costs. Some cities experienced positive slack, others negative slack. Staffing and Compensation Indices are estimated and found to be negatively correlated. Implications for public policy and further research are discussed.When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.

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