Private sector experience with strategic management: cautionary lates for public administration
By: Goldsmith, Arthur A.
Material type:
ArticlePublisher: 1997Description: p.25-40.Subject(s): Public administration
In:
International Review of Administrative SciencesSummary: Strategic management techniques can help managers organize information. They can promote disciplined habit of minds. Arriving at conclusions with consideration of the whole can be especially helpful in government bureaucracies, which tend more than other organizations to follow routines simply because that is what has always been done. The success or failure of formal strategy instruments, therefore, could be measured by their effects on managers' attitudes, not by their impact on the `bottom line' (whatever that might be in the public sector). Business executives who use the framework do attest that it sharpens their focus, improves their understanding of the environment and increases their willingness to change, according to one study (Wilson, 1994). These are proper outlooks for any manager. Thus that strategic management can sometimes aid managers to think more lucidly and act more decisively is a long way from saying it makes organizations do better - which is what most citizens and their representatives seem to be saying they expect from government. The private-sector experience is a warning to be suspicious of declarations that strategic management is a remedy for the public sector's many ailments. - Reproduced
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | Volume no: 63, Issue no: 1 | Available | AR35493 |
Strategic management techniques can help managers organize information. They can promote disciplined habit of minds. Arriving at conclusions with consideration of the whole can be especially helpful in government bureaucracies, which tend more than other organizations to follow routines simply because that is what has always been done. The success or failure of formal strategy instruments, therefore, could be measured by their effects on managers' attitudes, not by their impact on the `bottom line' (whatever that might be in the public sector). Business executives who use the framework do attest that it sharpens their focus, improves their understanding of the environment and increases their willingness to change, according to one study (Wilson, 1994). These are proper outlooks for any manager. Thus that strategic management can sometimes aid managers to think more lucidly and act more decisively is a long way from saying it makes organizations do better - which is what most citizens and their representatives seem to be saying they expect from government. The private-sector experience is a warning to be suspicious of declarations that strategic management is a remedy for the public sector's many ailments. - Reproduced
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