Key individuals of community collective action and their network roles: the case of neighborhood council in the city of Los Angeles

2011-11-17This study examines community leadership as the factors that effectively achieve community collective action. Despite the free riders, small number of exceptionally enthusiastic individuals willingly dedicates themselves to collective goals and lead collective action. Those exceptional few are not just motivated by material benefits, but by satisfaction of fulfilling ideology, social or civic gratification, or emotional gains from influencing collective policy. From the idea that small number of key individuals is critical in collective action process, this study aims to answer the research questions of “who are those key individuals of community collective action?” and “how do they affect the effectiveness of community collective action?” ❧ Particularly, the roles of key individuals are identified in the context of their communication network. With an alternative way of defining community leaders based upon the brokerage concept, this study captured the uniqueness of community leadership. With the case of Neighborhood Council (NC) in the City of Los Angeles, which was created to increase citizen participation in urban governance, the research questions are statistically tested through the standard multiple regression models. The main dataset is 2006 NC board member survey conducted by Neighborhood Participation Project (NPP) at University of Southern California (USC). Missing data analysis and factor analyses are conducted prior to regression analyses for methodological purpose. ❧ As a result, first, previous experiences in civil society and interests in local politics are critical to take key roles in community action. In addition, formally designated leaders of community organizations are active in taking the brokerage network roles, which implies that their willingness and commitment are strong enough to overcome their structural constraints as strong ties. Second, those with high socioeconomic status (at an individual level) and strong political efficacy (at both individual and board levels) affect significantly the effectiveness of community action. Among network roles, the internal network role is the most critical brokerage role, which infers that the internalization of communication inside the group is crucial, and that organizational capacity that facilitates effective internal communication is expected for effective community action. Lastly, the issues that are affected by the network roles vary. From the individual-level analysis, key individuals who play network roles have a notable impact on NC activities associated with the community action process, whereas no significant relationship exists between active network roles and an NC’s contribution to enhancing civic values. ❧ In sum, this study confirms the uniqueness of community leadership by verifying the characteristics of community leaders that are current and expected for effective community action. This study also assures the importance of managerial capacity that facilitates effective internal communication in community organizations. As limitations of this study, the inconsistency of format in network data, single-dimensional performance data, and low R squares and small sample size (at a board level) are addressed. Qualitative analyses, such as in-depth interview or case study can be considered to supplement statistical analyses. This study concludes with policy recommendations; to provide more opportunities for citizens to train their civic skills and stimulate interest in their own community, to promote NC’s achievement to increase citizens’ external political efficacy and effectively outreach to community, to develop community leadership and induce more people to act as leaders in NC activities, and lastly to provide training and administrative support that improve NC’s organizational capacity