WHAT DO ADMINISTRATORS THINK CITIZENS THINK - ADMINISTRATOR PREDICTIONS AS AN ADJUNCT TO CITIZEN SURVEYS

Should we care whether administrators can predict citizen perceptions This paper examines whether administrator predictions of citizen views could be a useful adjunct to citizen surveys Where previous research on citizen satisfaction has addressed principally the citizen viewpoin t the authors argue that asking administrators to predict citizen pers pectives can have a number of benefits, ranging from showing administr ators where their perceptions of the public are accurate or inaccurate to improving employee morale (if, as expected administrators are pess imistic about citizen opinions). To assess these possible benefits, th is paper compares findings from two surveys in the City of Atlanta: (I ) a first survey that asked a sample of city residents about a broad r ange of city services and facilities and (2) a second survey that aske d administrators from a number of municipal departments to predict cit izen responses on selected questions. Findings show that municipal adm inistrators tend to be pessimistic about citizen ratings, expecting mo re negative evaluations than citizens actually report Those tendencies vary among departments, however for a variety of reasons. Overall, th e results suggest that administrator predictions are worth considering as an additional component to citizen surveys.