INTRODUCTION
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH : WHY ARE WE HERE?
- Understand
o We want to understand the realities of government, strategy, governance and
policy.
o Why does the world look like this?
o Why do people and organizations in the public sector do what they do?
o Why do certain events happen, and how?
o How can we forecast future scenarios?
- Improve
o When we solve parts of these puzzles, we try to make things better
o Making recommendations on how to improve the “way” the public sector does
things.
o Sharing better understandings of how things work with people
I.e., learners, government employees, politicians, etc.
- Why interested in strategy?
o Academic motivation
o Practice-oriented motivation
- What’s in it for you?
o Strategizing is a life skill good strategies can better achieve their goals
o Understanding and practicing strategic management helps you perform better
at work
o Significantly improves your career prospects.
What kind of skills/ resources do i have?
And how do I use them to my advantage?
WHAT IS STRATEGY?
Defining the concept
- Definition 1
“Strategy is what links capabilities and aspirations” (Gaddis, 2018)
- Definition 2
Strategy may be defined as a concrete approach to aligning the aspirations and the
capabilities of public organizations or other entities in order to achieve goals and
create public value. (Bryson & George, 2020)
o Concrete = a deliberate approach, it’s something well-defined, you do it on
purpose
o Aspirations = goals, things you want to achieve, desired state you want to get
to in the future
o Capability = resources you have now, but also those you can develop in the
future
- Definition 3
“Strategizing implies the deliberate as well as emergent (re) alignment of aspirations
and capabilities, thus making sure that aspirations can actually be achieved—or need
to be changed—by taking into account current capabilities and the possible need to
develop new ones.” (Bryson & George, 2020)
o Emergent = a plan is made in a specific kind of way, but a plan does not
remain intact, along the way things change so you need to change your
strategy over time to realign the vision and to achieve the objectives
, o ↔ deliberate : something from the start
- Capabilities depend on resources of public organizations :
o Money / financing :
An organization sends budget to ministry which then goes to the central
government (political discussion), in many countries you have to use all
the money you received from a government, so towards the ending of a
year you get a spending rush, they don’t give it back out of fear to
receive less in the following year because the government assumes
that you don’t know how to budget yourself
Ex. In practice you need 500 but you ask for 1000 and finally receive
800
o People : partners, stakeholders…
o Infrastructure
o Stakeholders you work with (they can be political = political capital)
- Goal of public sector : deliver public value = create something the people want
o Ex. NMBS offers transportation = public value
o Ex. Hospital offers healthcare of good quality in a decent amount of time, if
you have to wait too long to get a scan you have a problem of public value
delivery
The strategic zigzagging rabbit
- Have you ever seen a rabbit zigzagging fast through a field, running away from
something or towards something?
o Public sector work is like a rabbit constantly changing directions
o It knows its own capabilities and those of the thing chasing the rabbit
Many approaches to strategy
- Strategic planning
“A deliberate approach to strategy formulation and typically includes such
elements as analyzing the mandate, defining a mission and values, analyzing
the internal and external environment, identifying strategic issues,
formulating strategies to address issues, and often articulating a vision for the
future.”
- Strategic management
“Strategic management includes strategic planning but also links it to strategy
implementation through, for instance, organizational design, resource
management, performance measurement, and change management.”
Historical roots
- We have not only been watching rabbits.
- Evident throughout human history, particularly in military conflicts, and national
movements
- More contemporarily, businesses and enterprises have brought forward several
improvements and accelerated research on strategy, albeit with more attention to
competitiveness and business value.
,- Focus on strategy in public sector since 1960s : borrowing a lot from the private
sector
Key considerations
- Strategies are needed and emerge in any context with alignment of aspirations and
capabilities
- In public organizations strategy is about providing optimal public value (public value
maximalisation)
o Strategy in private sector : competition / profit maximalisation
- The quality of strategy can be judged by the nature of aspirations, the capabilities
needed to achieve them, and how capabilities and achievements are linked within
the actor’s context
Remember
- Strategy is not something you are, not only something you have
- It is first and foremost something you do
- Strategy is a social process
o Strategy is in most cases implemented top-down, which results in a strategy
that is not carried throughout the organization
UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT : WHERE DOES STRATEGY HAPPEN?
- Issue in current public administration research and practice is understanding the
context
- = the environment in which a certain process or phenomenon takes place
- 3 different levels of of context: micro, meso and macro
o Micro-context : individuals, who am i as a person? thinking, biases, limitations
of the mind
o Meso-context: what about organization? Resources? Historical?
o Macro-context: what about society? norms, traditions
Context of Public Strategy
- Contemporary contexts are fast evolving
- The situations where strategy is exercised highly influence processes and outcomes
- Some of the hallmarks of current public sector contexts include:
o Complex, transboundary, wicked, fuzzy, issues
Ex. COVID as a wicked transboundry issue
It started as a healthcare issue, that turned into an economic
issue, that then turned into a social issue, afterwards a legal and
constitutional issue
o Political contestation, divisions, democratic decay and post truth politics
Today there is a lot of politization
Current political contested issues in Flandres : stikstof-issue,
imigration, …
If a public organization is handling one of those topics, it is rather tricky
because everyone looks at you
In different sectors of society what public organization you work
with? Is there a lot of resistance or does no one really care about
this topic?
Ex. How many information can a government have over its citizens?
, o Multistakeholder settings, and am amplified public space
Work with different kinds of people
Amplified public space
= people have a lot of public space to talk in, things get spread
rather fast
What will people think of the things we put out?
o Competing Public Values
People have different values, expectations and preferences
Expectations of government : efficiency, democratic decision-making,
equity, safety,
Ex. competing values : fast public service delivery vs. being
helped and an approachable government
o Shifting political landscapes
Policy process as a context
- Characteristics of Public Policy can be (Birkland, 2011):
o It is a conscious and deliberate decision.
o A response to some sort of problem or challenge. Made on behalf of the public.
o Oriented towards a goal or desired state.
o Made by governments
! Even if formulation of policy or its triggers are from outside formal
body of GOV
- Policy = trying to solve a problem
- Policy process exists in high degrees of sociopolitical and socioeconomic
embeddedness with different forces pushing and pulling along the different phases of
the policy process.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH : WHY ARE WE HERE?
- Understand
o We want to understand the realities of government, strategy, governance and
policy.
o Why does the world look like this?
o Why do people and organizations in the public sector do what they do?
o Why do certain events happen, and how?
o How can we forecast future scenarios?
- Improve
o When we solve parts of these puzzles, we try to make things better
o Making recommendations on how to improve the “way” the public sector does
things.
o Sharing better understandings of how things work with people
I.e., learners, government employees, politicians, etc.
- Why interested in strategy?
o Academic motivation
o Practice-oriented motivation
- What’s in it for you?
o Strategizing is a life skill good strategies can better achieve their goals
o Understanding and practicing strategic management helps you perform better
at work
o Significantly improves your career prospects.
What kind of skills/ resources do i have?
And how do I use them to my advantage?
WHAT IS STRATEGY?
Defining the concept
- Definition 1
“Strategy is what links capabilities and aspirations” (Gaddis, 2018)
- Definition 2
Strategy may be defined as a concrete approach to aligning the aspirations and the
capabilities of public organizations or other entities in order to achieve goals and
create public value. (Bryson & George, 2020)
o Concrete = a deliberate approach, it’s something well-defined, you do it on
purpose
o Aspirations = goals, things you want to achieve, desired state you want to get
to in the future
o Capability = resources you have now, but also those you can develop in the
future
- Definition 3
“Strategizing implies the deliberate as well as emergent (re) alignment of aspirations
and capabilities, thus making sure that aspirations can actually be achieved—or need
to be changed—by taking into account current capabilities and the possible need to
develop new ones.” (Bryson & George, 2020)
o Emergent = a plan is made in a specific kind of way, but a plan does not
remain intact, along the way things change so you need to change your
strategy over time to realign the vision and to achieve the objectives
, o ↔ deliberate : something from the start
- Capabilities depend on resources of public organizations :
o Money / financing :
An organization sends budget to ministry which then goes to the central
government (political discussion), in many countries you have to use all
the money you received from a government, so towards the ending of a
year you get a spending rush, they don’t give it back out of fear to
receive less in the following year because the government assumes
that you don’t know how to budget yourself
Ex. In practice you need 500 but you ask for 1000 and finally receive
800
o People : partners, stakeholders…
o Infrastructure
o Stakeholders you work with (they can be political = political capital)
- Goal of public sector : deliver public value = create something the people want
o Ex. NMBS offers transportation = public value
o Ex. Hospital offers healthcare of good quality in a decent amount of time, if
you have to wait too long to get a scan you have a problem of public value
delivery
The strategic zigzagging rabbit
- Have you ever seen a rabbit zigzagging fast through a field, running away from
something or towards something?
o Public sector work is like a rabbit constantly changing directions
o It knows its own capabilities and those of the thing chasing the rabbit
Many approaches to strategy
- Strategic planning
“A deliberate approach to strategy formulation and typically includes such
elements as analyzing the mandate, defining a mission and values, analyzing
the internal and external environment, identifying strategic issues,
formulating strategies to address issues, and often articulating a vision for the
future.”
- Strategic management
“Strategic management includes strategic planning but also links it to strategy
implementation through, for instance, organizational design, resource
management, performance measurement, and change management.”
Historical roots
- We have not only been watching rabbits.
- Evident throughout human history, particularly in military conflicts, and national
movements
- More contemporarily, businesses and enterprises have brought forward several
improvements and accelerated research on strategy, albeit with more attention to
competitiveness and business value.
,- Focus on strategy in public sector since 1960s : borrowing a lot from the private
sector
Key considerations
- Strategies are needed and emerge in any context with alignment of aspirations and
capabilities
- In public organizations strategy is about providing optimal public value (public value
maximalisation)
o Strategy in private sector : competition / profit maximalisation
- The quality of strategy can be judged by the nature of aspirations, the capabilities
needed to achieve them, and how capabilities and achievements are linked within
the actor’s context
Remember
- Strategy is not something you are, not only something you have
- It is first and foremost something you do
- Strategy is a social process
o Strategy is in most cases implemented top-down, which results in a strategy
that is not carried throughout the organization
UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT : WHERE DOES STRATEGY HAPPEN?
- Issue in current public administration research and practice is understanding the
context
- = the environment in which a certain process or phenomenon takes place
- 3 different levels of of context: micro, meso and macro
o Micro-context : individuals, who am i as a person? thinking, biases, limitations
of the mind
o Meso-context: what about organization? Resources? Historical?
o Macro-context: what about society? norms, traditions
Context of Public Strategy
- Contemporary contexts are fast evolving
- The situations where strategy is exercised highly influence processes and outcomes
- Some of the hallmarks of current public sector contexts include:
o Complex, transboundary, wicked, fuzzy, issues
Ex. COVID as a wicked transboundry issue
It started as a healthcare issue, that turned into an economic
issue, that then turned into a social issue, afterwards a legal and
constitutional issue
o Political contestation, divisions, democratic decay and post truth politics
Today there is a lot of politization
Current political contested issues in Flandres : stikstof-issue,
imigration, …
If a public organization is handling one of those topics, it is rather tricky
because everyone looks at you
In different sectors of society what public organization you work
with? Is there a lot of resistance or does no one really care about
this topic?
Ex. How many information can a government have over its citizens?
, o Multistakeholder settings, and am amplified public space
Work with different kinds of people
Amplified public space
= people have a lot of public space to talk in, things get spread
rather fast
What will people think of the things we put out?
o Competing Public Values
People have different values, expectations and preferences
Expectations of government : efficiency, democratic decision-making,
equity, safety,
Ex. competing values : fast public service delivery vs. being
helped and an approachable government
o Shifting political landscapes
Policy process as a context
- Characteristics of Public Policy can be (Birkland, 2011):
o It is a conscious and deliberate decision.
o A response to some sort of problem or challenge. Made on behalf of the public.
o Oriented towards a goal or desired state.
o Made by governments
! Even if formulation of policy or its triggers are from outside formal
body of GOV
- Policy = trying to solve a problem
- Policy process exists in high degrees of sociopolitical and socioeconomic
embeddedness with different forces pushing and pulling along the different phases of
the policy process.
