John M. Bryson

What to do when Stakeholders matter

This article focuses specifically on how and why managers might go about using stakeholder identification and analysis techniques in order to help their organizations meet their mandates, fulfill their missions and create public value. A range of stakeholder identification and analysis techniques is reviewed. The techniques cover: organizing participation; creating ideas for strategic interventions, including problem formulation and solution search; building a winning coalition around proposal development, review and adoption; and implementing, monitoring and evaluating strategic interventions. The article argues that wise use of stakeholder analyses can help frame issues that are solvable in ways that are technically feasible and politically acceptable and that advance the common good. The article concludes with a number of recommendations for management research, education and practice.

Applying Private-Sector Strategic Planning in the Public Sector

Abstract Strategic planning is important and probably will become a standard part of the repertoire of public planners. Nevertheless, strategic planning approaches developed in the private sector must be applied with care and caution to public purposes. The authors compare and contrast six approaches to private-sector strategic planning within the context of a public-sector strategic planning process. They discuss the public-sector applicability of each of the private-sector approaches and explore the contingencies or conditions that govern its successful use in the public sector.

The State of Public Strategic Management Research: A Selective Literature Review and Set of Future Directions

Strategic planning and related strategic management elements have become ubiquitous practices at all levels of U.S. government and many nonprofit organizations over the past 25 years. The authors review strategic planning and management research over that time period using the premises of practice theory to guide the discussion. The review is organized according to 10 research directions proposed by Bryson, Freeman, and Roering (1986). Important gains have been made in a number of areas, but much more remains to be done. The authors also propose four new research directions, including the need to (1) attend more fully to the nature of strategic management practice, (2) focus on learning and knowledge management generally as part of strategic management, (3) focus specifically on how strategy knowledge develops and is used, and (4) understand how information and communication technologies can be best integrated into strategic management. The fruits of further concentrated research can be improved public strategic management practice, including enhanced organizational capacity for addressing current and future challenges and improvements in long-term performance.

A leadership framework for cross-sector collaboration

This article presents an approach to collaborative leadership – the Leadership for the Common Good Framework. The framework includes the following elements: attention to the dynamics of a shared-power world; the design and use of forums, arenas, and courts, the main settings in which leaders and constituents foster policy change in a shared-power world; effective navigation of the policy change cycle; and the exercise of a range of leadership capabilities. The framework can provide useful guidance for public officials and managers who seek to meet complex social needs in an era of stringency in public service budgets and of skepticism about governments problem-solving ability. Beyond that, however, more research is needed on how best to pursue leadership in shared-power, cross-sector settings.

A Contingent Approach to Strategy and Tactics in Project Planning

Abstract A contingent approach to strategic and tactical choices in project planning is presented. Choices regarding planning phases and tactics are seen as dependent on planning goals and contextual variables. A simulation was designed to pool the judgments of experienced planners on how planning strategy and tactics should change as a situation changes so as to increase the likelihood of planning success. Eight panels were formulated to examine eight different situations. The next step in the research is to determine whether following the pooled judgments does lead to greater planning success.

Integrating modes of policy analysis and strategic management practice : requisite elements and dilemmas

There is a need to bring methods to bear on public problems that are inclusive, analytic, and quick. This paper describes the efforts of three pairs of academics working from three different though complementary theoretical foundations and intervention backgrounds (ie ways of working) who set out together to meet this challenge. Each of the three pairs had conducted dozens of interventions that had been regarded as successful or very successful by the client groups in dealing with complex policy and strategic problems. One approach focused on leadership issues and stakeholders, another on negotiating competitive strategic intent with attention to stakeholder responses, and the third on analysis of feedback ramifications in developing policies. This paper describes the 10-year longitudinal research project designed to address the above challenge. The important outcomes are reported: the requisite elements of a general integrated approach and the enduring puzzles and tensions that arose from seeking to design a wide-ranging multi-method approach.

Policy Planning and the Design and Use of Forums, Arenas, and Courts

In complex, shared-power settings, planners are unlikely to have much direct impact on action or underlying ‘bedrock’ social structures. What they can influence is the ideas, rules, modes, media, and methods that link action and structure in shared-power settings. In turn, these links will have a dramatic effect on which decisions, issues, conflicts, and policy preferences are discussed, decided, and sanctioned. The characteristic shared-power settings are forums for discussion, arenas for decisions, and courts for management of residual conflicts and enforcement of the underlying norms in the system. Policy planning thus can be seen as the intentional design and use of forums, arenas, and courts in order to produce desired symbolic and substantive policy outcomes.

Strategic planning: Big wins and small wins

Strategic planning is often associated with radical organizational shifts. Sometimes, these are in response to rapid changes in the environment. Frequently, however, they are a result of changes in management values and style. There may, however, be circumstances when going for a series of small wins is a more appropriate strategy than going for one big win.

A contingent approach to strategy and tactics in formative and summative evaluations

Abstract A contingent approach to strategic and tactical choices in formative and summative evaluations is presented. Choices regarding evaluation phases and tactics were found to be dependent on evaluation goals (e.g., whether the evaluation has a formative or summative purpose) and contextual variables. A simulation was designed to pool the judgments of evaluators and users of evaluations to see how they felt evaluation strategy and tactics should change as the situation changes so as to increase the likelihood of evaluation success. Eight panels were constructed to examine eight different situations. The next step in this research is to determine whether following the pooled judgments does lead to greater evaluation success.

A transaction-based approach to policy intervention

A transaction-based approach to policy intervention is presented. The approach overcomes a number of weaknesses in current approaches to policy intervention. The approach involves three main conceptual elements: transactions, transaction governance mechanisms, and governance principles. The transaction is taken to be the basic unit of analysis. Profiles of transactions vary along a number of transaction dimensions. Transaction governance mechanisms - such as, for example, government service, regulation, contracts, vouchers, markets, taxes, and self-service - are each suitable for governing transactions having particular profiles. A mechanism will fail when used to govern transactions not fitting the profile. Governance principles are criteria or expectations - for example, efficiency, justice and liberty - used to judge how well a mechanism fulfills or achieves important societal goals. Specific choices of governance mechanisms (from the set that are technically feasible) therefore should be made according to how well they satisfy these governance principles. Public high school education is used as an example to illustrate the approach. A number of conclusions are offered.