Purpose

Municipal amalgamation (or merger or consolidation) is commonly employed in countries around the world to improve efficiency in public service. While mergers occur among jurisdictions of all sizes, the municipal amalgamation discourse is typically limited to one national setting and a focus on mergers of larger local jurisdictions. The existing municipal amalgamation literature pays little attention to predicate conditions for successful mergers. This study seeks to address these deficiencies by examining the premerger conditions and effects of municipal amalgamations that recently took place in four small jurisdictions of similar size in Thailand and the United States.

Design/methodology/approach

A holistic multiple case study approach was employed. These two cases share a geographical attribute: one municipal jurisdiction encircled by another.

Findings

The evidence indicates that factors associated with what the researchers refer to as “familiarity” facilitated both successful approval of and outcomes resulting from the amalgamation actions. While the study's findings align with international research regarding the potential for reducing administrative support costs through consolidation, its findings diverge from existing international evidence in that the evidence indicates operating effectiveness and efficiency improvements. Economies of scope and marginal economies of scale are in evidence. Although findings from this study indicate that there might be problematic effects regarding political representation and participation, in that the consolidated jurisdictions remain small in size, negative citizen engagement and participation consequences may be less than that evidenced in larger consolidated jurisdictions.

Originality/value

The study introduces the “familiarity” theorem as a theoretical lens to assist in understanding the cases.

中文翻译：

---

影响小型地方政府合并成功的因素：泰国和美国的案例比较

目的

世界各国普遍采用市政合并（或合并或合并）来提高公共服务效率。虽然合并发生在各种规模的司法管辖区之间，但市政合并的讨论通常仅限于一个国家环境，并侧重于较大的地方司法管辖区的合并。现有的市政合并文献很少关注成功合并的前提条件。本研究旨在通过检查最近在泰国和美国四个规模相似的小司法管辖区进行的市政合并的合并前条件和影响来解决这些缺陷。

设计/方法/方法

采用了整体多案例研究方法。这两个案例共享一个地理属性：一个市辖区被另一个市辖区包围。

发现

证据表明，与研究人员所说的“熟悉度”相关的因素促进了合并行动的成功批准和结果。虽然该研究的结果与关于通过整合降低行政支持成本的潜力的国际研究一致，但其结果与现有的国际证据不同，因为证据表明运营有效性和效率有所提高。范围经济和边际规模经济是显而易见的。尽管这项研究的结果表明，在政治代表和参与方面可能存在问题，因为合并后的司法管辖区规模仍然很小，

原创性/价值

该研究引入了“熟悉度”定理作为理论视角来帮助理解案例。