Local government competitiveness analysis using the perspective of organizational excellence: Evidence from Indonesia

Local government competitiveness is an intriguing contemporary issue that has not been discussed extensively in prior studies on the evolution of the structure and scope of government. This study aims to explore how local government management processes can enhance regional competitiveness for the benefit of citizens. Using an analytical hierarchy of paired comparisons and indicator aggregation, this study analyzes several components of the local government managerial process by quantifying the degree of importance of each component. Data were collected from 38 regions in Indonesia and 34 government experts. The results of the analysis show that there are three components of the local government managerial process that contribute significantly to regional competitiveness: the quality of customer/citizen management with an eigenvector value of 0.187, strategic planning with an eigenvector value of 0.169, and the effectiveness of the integrity system with an eigenvector value of 0.136. Other results show that the resultant eigenvector values for other components are less than 0.100 or 10%, so these components are not classified as strong. Furthermore, the p-value of the intercoder reliability test using the t-test was greater than the significance level of 0.05, implying that there was no difference between the test results of the first and second expert groups. This study concludes that customer/citizen satisfaction with government products and services, the effectiveness of strategic planning that focuses on socio-economic development, and legal and ethical compliance of organizational actors are the primary determinants of enhancing regional competitiveness.