Citizens’ Involvement in Local Governance Processes: Its Influence to Organizational Culture and Climate

Abstract

Citizens’ involvement is the key cornerstone of good governance. It makes governance transparent and its inherent accountability spread evenly among the players that directly participate in the governing process. Governance structures and demands are compelling government agencies to expand public consultations, implement participatory governance practices at the local level, encourage popular participation and develop new partnerships with civil society organizations. Considering the importance of citizen involvement in local governance processes, the study was conducted, primarily, to determine the level of involvement of the citizen group in the local governance process of Dipolog and Dapitan Cities as well as the selected municipalities of the province of Zamboanga del Norte and its influence on organizational culture and climate of the LGU’s. The preliminary results of the research showed that citizens group manifest positive involvement on the four aspects of governance, namely: administrative, social, economic and environmental. Citizens’ involvement in governance influences organizational culture and climate by their group as members operate to achieve their group task. The environmental governance is reflective of the type of organization, length of its existence, and number of members and no significant difference on the other three aspects of governance. A high correlation exists between governance and organizational climate and contrary to organizational culture. The conclusion can be drawn that as more citizens participate in governance, the more favorable their organizational culture and climate are developed.