000 01699pab a2200157 454500
008 180718b1997 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100 _aGoldsmith, Arthur A.
245 _aPrivate sector experience with strategic management: cautionary lates for public administration
260 _c1997
300 _ap.25-40
362 _aMar
520 _aStrategic 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
650 _aPublic administration
773 _aInternational Review of Administrative Sciences
909 _a35249
999 _c35249
_d35249