International Seminar on Strategic Management in the Public Sector

Michael Barzelay

Professor of Public Management

London School of Economics and Political Science

Strategic Management, and its (Qualified) Significance for Public Management

• Discuss strategic management and its significance for public management

Ideas about the role and action profiles of general managers

The implementation and delivery of public

programs

The administration of the public sector and its parts

The staffing of political executives

Say something worth listening to

Make an assessment

Clarify this concept and the content of established views about it, from an academic’s perspective

Interpreting the Brief for the Session

Idealized lines of action (practices) of public executives

Consider opposing arguments

• Biographical sources of a positive, committed attitude– Early indoctrination

– Broad framework for most of my teaching over 30 years

– Research• Book: Gestión Publica Estratégica (1986)

• Book: Breaking Through Bureaucracy (1992)

• Book: Preparing for the Future: Strategic Planning in the U.S. Air Force (2003)

• Articles: Brazil in Action, Strategic Planning and Programming in the European Commission

– Using the ideas• Consulting (Center for Transformation & Strategic Initiatives)

• Being a “general manager” of a $20 million business

What Influences My Response to a Discussion of Strategic Management

• Intellectual reasons for a positive attitude

– General management posts have a certain uniformity in role imperatives (common problems)

– The form of viable responses to these imperatives exhibits a pattern (common solutions)

• Example: Diplomatic maneuvering helps to coordinate resources and efforts when an organization has diverse power centers

• Example: The exercise of executive authority needs to be seen as systematic in process and based on meaningful information

– The literature associated with strategic management is a living tradition, open to reconceptualization and elaboration

What Influences My Response to a Discussion of Strategic Management

• Sources of a sceptical, indifferent attitude– Has turned into something of a buzzword, or even “magic words”

– Difficult to identify the topics and content, with any definitiveness

• What is strategic management for the “accounting and control” profession is not for the “strategy” and “entrepreneurship”

– Multiple, unintegrated perspectives on what it means to solve problems

• Individual judgment on the balance of reasons given a perceptive reading of a situation

• Creating solutions through inventive problem-solving through a series of steps, each with its own imperatives

What Influences My Response to a Discussion of Strategic Management

• Discuss strategic management and its significance for public management

Ideas about the role and action profiles of general managers

Say something worth listening to

Clarify this concept and the content of established views about it, from an academic’s perspective

Interpreting the Brief for the Session

Consider opposing arguments

Scholarly Accounts of Strategic Managementas it has Evolved

Mintzberg Guillen

Steps in the Genealogy of Strategic Management

Lewin(Planned Organizational

Change) Henri Fayol

(Principles of Administration)

Herbert A. Simon(Administrative Analysis)

Differing Focuses within Strategic Management

Industry competition

Technology competition

Regulatory shifts

Organization

Enterprise

Transition

Strategic Management: Types of Field Problems

Strategy Development

Creating Capabilities for Future Delivery

Controlling the Delivery Process

Production

Start up

Scaling up

Successsustaining

Realignment

Turnaround

Genealogy of Strategic Public Management

Machiavelli(Leadership and Governing)

Neustadt(Leadership in Public Elective Office)

Clausewitz(Strategy & Planning)

Moore(Strategy & General Management)

Bryson

My own Work

Strategy Development

Creating Capabilities for Future Delivery

Controlling the Delivery Process

Production

Start up

Scaling up

Successsustaining

Realignment

Turnaround

• Discuss strategic management and its significance for public management

Ideas about the role and action profiles of general managers

The implementation and delivery of public

programs

The administration of the public sector and its parts

The staffing of political executives

Say something worth listening to

Make an assessment

Clarify this concept and the content of established views about it, from an academic’s perspective

Recapping

Idealized lines of action (practices) of public executives

Consider opposing arguments

• Absolutely yes

– Public sector organizations have a certain similarity in imperatives: obtain and sustain authorization (active or passive), deliver (programs) in the present, prepare for the future

– Responding adequately to these imperatives taken in combination is difficult, due to• Division of labor (specialization) within an organization creates coordination challenges as

imperatives cannot be wholly broken down into separate ‘domains’ are matched to organizational units

• The complexity of institutional structure within the authorizing environment creates ‘diplomatic’ challenges

– This standard predicament creates requirements for coordination and diplomacy, whose intended fulfilment has implications for attention and action by public managers

– Strategic management ideas, as adapted to the public sector, recognize the predicament and provide some guidance as to how to handle it

Is Strategic Management Significantfor Public Management?

• Yes, with qualifications

– Representing the predicament – particularly the diplomatic aspects -- requires theory and knowledge from political science, not just from management

• No, with qualifications

– The solutions to this predicament that have taken shape and been used in the past are often analyzed in a shallow way, even in hindsight

– Strategic management can be used as a proverb of administration, one that can result in much attention and expenditure being allocated to showcase the organization’s maturity in administration, irrespective of whether it contributes to handling the predicaments of public management

Is Strategic Management Significantfor Public Management?

Implications for this Seminar and the Wider Pursuit