Handbook on Strategic Public Management (Elgar Handbooks in Public Administration and Management) 1789907187, 9781789907186

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HANDBOOK ON STRATEGIC PUBLIC MANAGEMENT

ELGAR HANDBOOKS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT This series provides a comprehensive overview of recent research in all matters relating to public administration and management, serving as a definitive guide to the field. Covering a wide range of research areas including national and international methods of public administration, theories of public administration and management, and technological developments in public administration and management, the series produces influential works of lasting significance. Each Handbook will consist of original contributions by preeminent authors, selected by an esteemed editor internationally recognized as a leading scholar within the field. Taking an international approach, these Handbooks serve as an essential reference point for all students of public administration and management, emphasizing both the expansion of current debates, and an indication of the likely research agendas for the future. For a full list of Edward Elgar published titles, including the titles in this series, visit our website at www​.e​-elgar​.com​.

Handbook on Strategic Public Management Edited by

Carsten Greve Professor, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Tamyko Ysa Professor of Strategy and Public Management, ESADE Business School, Spain

ELGAR HANDBOOKS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© The Editors and Contributors Severally 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2023931495

This book is available electronically in the Political Science and Public Policy subject collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781789907193

ISBN 978 1 78990 718 6 (cased) ISBN 978 1 78990 719 3 (eBook)

EEP BoX

Contents

List of figuresvii List of tablesviii List of contributorsix PART I

THE FIELD: STRATEGY, PUBLIC VALUE AND THE STATE

1

Introduction to the Handbook on Strategic Public Management2 Carsten Greve and Tamyko Ysa

2

Strategic management and the study of public agencies: a historical overview Ewan Ferlie

10

3

Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management: a conceptual engineering approach Michael Barzelay

26

4

Strategy at the state level Alasdair Roberts

47

5

Is strategy possible in a federal system? Donald F. Kettl

63

6

The strategic state: a case study of devolved government in Scotland Ian C. Elliott

75

PART II

CHALLENGES, APPROACHES AND NEW SOLUTIONS

7

Public value governance and strategic public management John M. Bryson, Barbara C. Crosby and Bill Barberg

8

Strategic public management in crises Per Lægreid and Lise H. Rykkja

114

9

Cross-fertilisation of design labs and strategic public management Christian Bason

133

10

Magic PILs to cure the ills of public management? The rise of public innovation labs as design-for-policy entrepreneurs Emma Blomkamp and Jenny M. Lewis v

92

147

vi  Handbook on strategic public management

11

A public innovation strategy from the frontline: everyday innovation 165 Anne Reff Pedersen, Vibeke Kristine Scheller and Ditte Thøgersen

12

What a democratically anchored public administrator needs to understand about artificial intelligence and strategic management Christopher Koliba and Emma Spett

178

PART III REFLECTIONS ON THE WAY FORWARD: STRATEGICALLY ACTING PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS FOR VALUE CREATION SYSTEMS 13

Strategic planning: the way forward Bert George, Rowie Huijbregts, Maria Tiggelaar, Laure Vandersmissen, Sven Vanhengel and Bishoy Louis Zaki

196

14

Business model innovation and the financial dimension of strategy in the public sector Kuno Schedler

211

15

The individual public manager as a strategic actor in relation to the organizational environment Kurt Klaudi Klausen

227

16

Strategic public management and the role of senior executives: the case of Australia Linda Colley, Shelley Woods and Brian W. Head

238

17

Trust-based public management: conceptualization and lessons from the Swedish trust reform Louise Bringselius

260

18

Emerging ideas for strategic public management: strategizing collaborative governance Tamyko Ysa and Carsten Greve

280

Index301

Figures

3.1

A mind-map for SPM within a professional discipline

28

3.2

Introducing pentadic analysis of texts

31

3.3

The Moore–Burke pentagram for strategic management in government34

3.4

The Simon–Burke pentagram for design-oriented professional practice37

5.1

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people, among federal systems

64

5.2

Government systems by degree of decentralization

67

7.1

Adverse childhood experiences and resilience to advance hope and increased intergenerational health and well-being across the life span for all

102

7.2

Transform the Family Justice System by focusing on achieving family well-being

103

9.1

Overall framework that pinpoints the various organisational elements 139

12.1

Application of AI in U.S. federal government

184

13.1

Strategic planning: the way forward

199

14.1

Elements of business model innovation in the state

217

15.1

The public governance diamond classification of all the governance paradigms

234

17.1

The work of the Trust Commission (Tillitsdelegationen) in the main assignment 2016–18

269

17.2

The Swedish Trust reform and the work of the Trust Commission

271

18.1

Strategy map: strategizing collaborative governance

297

vii

Tables

7.1

Public value governance including public value management, service, and citizenship

7.2

From collecting evidence for adversarial use to supporting family well-being

105

7.3

From collaboration and participation within the justice system to broader sectoral and community involvement

105

9.1

First- and second-generation labs

138

9.2

Potential characteristics of third-generation labs

143

12.1

Machine learning techniques

181

12.2

Machine learning applications

181

12.3

National AI Research and Development strategic plan categories

182

12.4

Algorithmic governance: tools by use categories

188

13.1

Tensions underlying strategic planning

197

14.1

Examples of private business models that also exist in the state context215

14.2

Types of subsidies

17.1

Key literature underlying the concept trust-based public management 264

17.2

Selected debate articles criticizing the lack of professional autonomy during the period 2013–16

266

17.3

The research projects included in the work of the Trust Commission 2016–18

272

18.1

Selected public governance paradigms

282

18.2

Tensions and values conflict in strategy-making

287

18.3

Public and social innovation labs: three generations

293

94

221

viii

Contributors

Bill Barberg, Insight Formation Inc. Michael Barzelay, Professor of Public Management, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Christian Bason, PhD, CEO, Danish Design Center Emma Blomkamp, Honorary fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne Louise Bringselius, Associate Professor, Director at the Institute of Public Affairs, School of Economics and Management, Lund University John M. Bryson, Professor emeritus, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Linda Colley, University of Central Queensland Barbara C. Crosby, Professor emerita, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Ian C. Elliott, Associate Professor of Public Leadership and Management, Northumbria University Ewan Ferlie, Professor, King’s Business School, King’s College London Bert George, Associate Professor, Department of Public and International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong Carsten Greve, Professor of Public Management and Governance, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School Brian W. Head, Professor, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland Rowie Huijbregts, PhD candidate, Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University Donald F. Kettl, Professor emeritus, LBJ School, Texas, former Dean of the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland Kurt Klaudi Klausen, Professor of Public Management, Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark

ix

x  Handbook on strategic public management  

Christopher Koliba, PhD, Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor of Public Administration, Policy and Governance, School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Kansas Per Lægreid, Professor emeritus, University of Bergen Jenny M. Lewis, Professor of Public Policy, University of Melbourne Anne Reff Pedersen, Professor with special responsibilities, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School Alasdair Roberts, Professor of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst Lise H. Rykkja, Professor, University of Bergen Kuno Schedler, Professor of Public Management, University of St. Gallen Vibeke Kristine Scheller, post.doc, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School Emma Spett, PhD candidate, University of Vermont Ditte Thøgersen, PhD, Copenhagen Business School Maria Tiggelaar, PhD candidate, Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University Laure Vandersmissen, PhD candidate, Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University Sven Vanhengel, PhD candidate, Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University Shelley Woods, University of Queensland Tamyko Ysa, Professor of Strategy and Public Management, ESADE Business School Bishoy Louis Zaki, PhD candidate, Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University

PART I THE FIELD: STRATEGY, PUBLIC VALUE AND THE STATE

1. Introduction to the Handbook on Strategic Public Management Carsten Greve and Tamyko Ysa

INTRODUCTION This book focuses on strategic public management, including the aspirations and activities to develop public value. Recent years have seen a surge in the literature on strategy and public management. This involves more traditional thinking about strategy and planning in public organizations, taken further by the idea initiated by Mark Moore (1995, 2013) of Harvard University that public organizations act strategically to create public value and on to the idea that the strategies are pursued in inter-organizational networks and partnerships (Bryson & Crosby 2015). Currently, there is a renewed interest in how states make governing strategies that in some ways signals a return to earlier theories of the state that have been prevalent in political science and political economy. Additionally, there are more broad international policy movements in labs that promote certain concepts and ideas that are likely to have an appeal across countries. Among these concepts are “innovation” and “design” (Bason 2017; Barzelay 2019) which international organizations like the OECD are strategically promoting as concepts for forward-looking management and governance for public sector organizations. While the concept of strategy in public sector organizations has been known for some time, there is nevertheless a need to present the variety of approaches in the literature on how strategic public management is perceived. The following section sets out five ways to see strategic public management. The first way is to examine the individual public manager as a strategic actor. Mark Moore, in his seminal work on creating public value, focused his attention at first on how individual managers pursue and create public value that is recognized by political authorizers and other relevant stakeholders. The initial 1995 book from Mark Moore began with the town librarian as a public manager who found a way to create public value from the services her library was delivering to the citizens and the public. Zeger van der Wal (2017) has focused on the needs of the twenty-first-century public manager to be strategic in his or her actions. The second way to examine strategic public management is to look at how organizations formulate and implement formal strategy. This focus on strategic planning and strategy work at the organizational level is the most widespread notion of strategic public management, and the one where most books and articles have been published (Bryson, Edwards & Van Slyke 2018). Strategic public management has a firm place in public administration (Bryson & George 2022). It is a now a well-covered 2

Introduction  3

field with many textbooks and seminal works, including John M. Bryson’s (2018) Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations and UK scholar Paul Joyce’s various works that examine strategic action in the public sector (e.g. Joyce, Bryson & Holzer 2014; Joyce 2015; Joyce & Drumaux 2018). Mark Moore’s (1995, 2013) work also explicitly acknowledges the organizational context that public managers pursue their quest in which to create public value. A recent example is a study of how local governments’ strategies unfold (Jacobsen & Johnsen 2020). The third way to examine strategic public management is to look at inter-organizational relations, and the way public sector organizations collaborate with other public sector organizations, and with organizations in the private sector, including companies, NGOs, and other civil society organizations in governance networks (Klijn & Koppenjan 2015). Collaborative governance has long been a trend as works by Donahue and Zeckhauser (2012) and Emerson and Nabatchi (2015) have shown. Recently, attention on how public sectors create public value has also incorporated the collaborative perspective. Bryson and Crosby (2018) have shown how strategic public management must necessarily be collaborative in today’s complex world (see also Bryson, Barberg, Crosby & Patton 2021). The fourth way to examine strategic public management is to look at the systems level and focus on how states make strategy. The revived interest in state theory and strategies for governing at the central government level has been promoted most visibly by Alasdair Roberts (2018, 2019) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Roberts regrets the overwhelming focus on the micro-level of activities in the public sector, and fears that the macro-perspectives and states and how they make strategies are in danger of being lost. Roberts and others with him have therefore started a renewed discussion on state theory (Milward et al. 2016) and on how governments formulate longer-term strategies and respond to upheavals in the surrounding context. Roberts (2019) has formulated his position as Strategies for Governing (the title of his recent book ) while the political theorist Francis Fukuyama (2013) asked “What Is Governance?” in order to re-focus the field of public administration and public management on to the bigger questions of states and survival. John Campbell and John Hall (2015) published The World of States in which they examine the concept of the state today. The complexity of digitalized public services adds to that challenge of governing a state (Mergel 2017; Mergel, Rethemeyer & Isset 2017). And, of course, there is an extended literature on multi-level governance that deals with the perspective that states interact with other levels of government, including international organizations. The historical institutional literature talks about “the public administration of state building” as a separate line of inquiry within the broader political science literature of historical institutionalism (Fioteros et al. 2016). The fifth way to examine strategic public management is to focus on broader strategies that international organizations are trying to put forward and to promote vis-à-vis national governments and sub-national governments. These organizations act in some ways like international think tanks that work with ideas that might be generated from individual countries, but which they try to spread to a wider population of states and organizations through reports and other types of communication.

4  Handbook on strategic public management

The OECD is a well-known international organization that tries to process and spread international public management ideas that encourage national and sub-national governments to pursue certain strategies. An example of this is OECD’s “Observatory of Public Sector Innovation” (OECD 2019) that assembles ideas and practices about public sector innovation and then launches and promotes these ideas and practices to a wider audience. Another example could be how the European Union’s “Europe 2020 Strategy” has evolved and been evaluated (Drumaux and Joyce 2020). Some of these ways to examine strategic public management have held a more prominent place in the literature than have others. It seems abundantly clear that the focus on strategic work or strategic planning at the organizational level has achieved substantial interest over the years, and it is consequently a well-covered theme. The chapters in Part III therefore focus on pursuing recent additions to the literature. The less explored avenue is how the different ways to examine strategic public management are related to each other. We therefore present in our volume discussions between the different perspectives on strategic public management. As Roberts (2019) has indicated, the fields of public administration and public management can benefit from acknowledging that there are different levels of analysis, micro, meso and macro (and, we would add, an international one), and that consequently there is a need to discuss how activities in strategic public management relate to each other. This Handbook therefore aims to combine the different views on strategic public management by (a) giving consideration to each of the theoretical perspectives, and (b) discussing the relationship between them. The Handbook is divided into three parts. Part I considers the field (i.e. strategy, public value and the state); Part II explores the challenges, approaches and new solutions; Part III reflects on the way forward and examines strategically acting public organizations for value creation systems.

PART I: THE FIELD: STRATEGY, PUBLIC VALUE AND THE STATE Chapter 2 is by Ewan Ferlie: “Strategic management and the study of public agencies: a historical overview”. Ferlie guides the reader through a historical tour de force of various thinkers and approaches that have dealt with strategic thinking in government. Chapter 3 by Michael Barzelay explores “Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management: a conceptual engineering approach”. This is a very dense and tightly written chapter that goes to the core of the conceptual elements. Barzelay discusses the elements inherent in strategy, government and public organizations. Barzelay does this with great care and attention to detail and with reference to Moore’s public value concept. The conceptual deep dive provides the reader with a unique insight into the foundational questions related to putting the words strategy, government and public organizations in the same sentence. Chapter 4 by Alasdair Roberts is about strategy at the state level. Roberts elaborates on the view of his recent book Strategies for Governing and calls for a renewed need for

Introduction  5

examining strategies at the state/national level. Roberts notes that much of the recent decades’ research on public management has been neglecting the state in favour of analysis of decentralized public service delivery practices. Public management and administration scholars did not pay serious attention to the ways governments conduct their longer-term strategies, according to Roberts. The chapter builds on the analysis and also considers some of the implications for future analysis of how states’ strategies operate. Following on from that, in Chapter 5, Donald Kettl asks “Is strategy possible in a federal system?” How states make strategies is often seen from a unitary state’s perspective, but many states happen to be built on federalism, including the USA and Germany. With observations from the USA, Kettl examines how strategic thinking and action appear when a system is thoroughly federalized. An analysis of a concrete state strategy is provided by Ian Elliott in Chapter 6, “The strategic state: a case study of devolved government in Scotland”. Elliott examines how the Scottish government set out a purposeful and transparent strategy, and discusses how the state strategy was conceived and later implemented. Elliott also offers some important lessons for the future.

PART II: CHALLENGES, APPROACHES AND NEW SOLUTIONS John Bryson, Barbara Crosby and Bill Barberg write about “Public value governance and strategic public management” in Chapter 7. They unfold the story of how the concept of public value in the Mark Moore sense and the public values approach by Bozeman and Jorgensen became incorporated into their own thinking about their particular work on strategic planning and leadership for the common good. They argue that scholars now must consider strategy management-at-scale to capture the challenge of dealing with wicked problems and collaborative imperatives. The chapter also adds insights from the concept of collective impact to their strategic management-at-scale approach. Thereby, the authors construct a sophisticated theoretical framework that takes the research agenda on strategic public management to a more advanced level. In Chapter 8, Per Lægreid and Lise H. Rykkja examine the topical issue of “Strategic public management in crises”. The literature on crisis management has received more attention in recent years in light of many crises, including the climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors argue that strategic public management in crises differs from more long-term strategic public management at the state level in stable times. The chapter discusses how governments prepare for crises, aspire to prevent crises and how they respond to crises once they are here. The authors are in line with Alasdair Roberts in looking at the state/national level of crisis management and not the organizational and operational level in concrete crises. The authors provide working definitions of a crisis, crisis management, governance capacity and governance legitimacy. The authors note how strategic crisis management has several stages from preparation over response and recovery to learning. The

6  Handbook on strategic public management

theoretical inspiration to this chapter comes from a broad organizational institutional approach that the authors have been contributing to for years. The role of public innovation labs has been prominent since the early 2010s. Their continuing relevance is up for discussion as their impact is being debated. These new solutions to conducting strategic public management in practice are examined in two chapters by authors with both theoretical and practical backgrounds. The vocabulary for public innovation labs has shifted throughout the years from innovation to design. In Chapter 9, Christian Bason writes about the “Cross-fertilisation of design labs and strategic public management”. As a former director of the Danish Mindlab and a current director of the Danish Design Center, he has been at the forefront of these debates. Bason draws on his leadership experience with labs and compares the present design approach with the innovation approach, and the aspiration for governments to perform strategically in new ways. Emma Blomkamp and Jenny Lewis have experience as scholars and practitioners from Australia and New Zealand. In that part of the world, 52 public innovation labs existed in 2018. In Chapter 10, “Magic PILs to cure the ills of public management? The rise of public innovation labs as design-for-policy entrepreneurs”, Blomkamp and Lewis examine how public innovation labs function as policy entrepreneurs and design coalitions. They argue that public innovation labs can be considered design-for-policy entrepreneurs, which means public innovation labs are championing design solutions for public services. The actual work of making innovation succeed in practice in organizations is discussed by Anne Reff Pedersen, Vibeke Kristine Scheller and Ditte Thøgersen in Chapter 11, “A public innovation strategy from the frontline: everyday innovation”. Here they present two empirical case studies in the child care sector and the health sector that show how strategic public management can be conceived as a kind of strategy-in-practice perspective. The contrast lies in comparing a policy perspective with an organizational practice perspective. Artificial intelligence is a new solution that is put on the radar by Christopher Koliba and Emma Spett in Chapter 12, “What a democratically anchored public administrator needs to understand about artificial intelligence and strategic management”. Koliba and Spett examine the various meanings and aspects of artificial intelligence and how that is changing the very foundations under which strategic public management functions. As Koliba and Spett note, artificial intelligence presents both daunting challenges and a range of new possibilities for strategic public management. In addition, the authors give an overview of new policy documents from the USA, the European Union and the UK. The relationship between human interaction and artificial intelligence systems is discussed as well.

Introduction  7

PART III: REFLECTIONS ON THE WAY FORWARD: STRATEGICALLY ACTING PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS FOR VALUE CREATION SYSTEMS Chapter 13, “Strategic planning: the way forward”, by Bert George, Rowie Huijbregts, Maria Tiggelaar, Laure Vandersmissen, Sven Vanhengel and Bishoy Louis Zaki examines the well-known topic of strategic planning from a fresh angle. First, the authors discuss the many ways that strategic planning has been used in the literature. They go on to argue that strategic planning can be linked to many contemporary issues in organization and management, including public values, red tape, organizational change, public policy and transnational governance. By presenting this new way forward, the authors argue that strategic planning is here to stay. In Chapter 14, “Business model innovation and the financial dimension of strategy in the public sector”, Kuno Schedler writes on business model innovation and the financial dimension of strategy in the public sector. Schedler’s point is that the concept of a business model has been curiously overlooked in the literature on strategic public management so far, and that a business model concept has something very concrete to offer scholars and practitioners. Schedler notes that the concept of a business model is more than just labelling it “budgeting” as part of a strategic process. If actors understand not only their own business model, but also the business models of their partners, then public value creation can be achieved in a collaborative setting. How to act strategically as an individual public manager is the topic of Chapter 15, Kurt Klaudi Klausen’s “The individual public manager as a strategic actor in relation to the organizational environment”. Klausen emphasizes the importance of analysing the institutional environments in which public managers act. Klausen also places the public manager’s strategic actions in the realm of the current debate on competing and co-existing public governance paradigms. The strategic role of public managers at the top level of the public sector is the topic of Linda Colley, Shelley Woods and Brian Head’s chapter “Strategic public management and the role of senior executives: the case of Australia”. Chapter 16 documents several decades of public management reform in Australia and contemplates how new skill requirements and expectations of delivering outcomes was part of this process. They also voice a concern about politicization and lack of accountability associated with some of the reforms. In Chapter 17, “Trust-based public management: conceptualization and lessons from the Swedish trust reform”, Louise Bringselius conveys her experience with a recent Swedish public management reform, the trust reform. Brinselius was chairing a research-based part of the Trust Commission that produced the report, and has undertaken research on the Swedish reform effort herself. Her chapter explains the theory behind trust-based management and summarizes the lessons from 12 research projects conducted in relation to the Swedish trust reform. The chapter is important for understanding how a concept of trust can be linked to strategic public management activities.

8  Handbook on strategic public management

A final contemplation about the rest of the book. The reader will meet many definitions of what constitutes strategic public management. A grand definition that everyone agrees on is probably elusive as it has to take into account many theoretical and empirical developments over time. A basic understanding that we have used as a starting point in which to place our work is that strategic public management as a minimum concerns the way managers in organizations with a public purpose (which could be a state) plan, collaborate and deliver public value in relation to agreed aspirations over time, and the challenges they face.

REFERENCES Barzelay, M. (2019) Public Management as a Design-Oriented Discipline. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Bason, C. (2017) Leading Policy Design. Bristol: Policy Press. Bryson, J.M. (2018) Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations. 5th edn. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Bryson, J.M., B. Barberg, B.C. Crosby, and M.Q. Patton (2021) “Leading Social Transformations: Creating Public Value and Advancing the Common Good”, Journal of Change Management 21(2): 180–202. Bryson, J.M. and B. Crosby (eds) (2015) Public Value and Public Administration. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Bryson, J.M. and B. Crosby (2018) “Why Leadership of Public Leadership Research Matters: And What To Do About It”, Public Management Review 20(9): 1265–86. Bryson, J.M., L.-H. Edwards, and D.M. Van Slyke (2018) “Getting Strategic about Strategic Planning”, Public Management Review 20(3): 317–39. Bryson, J.M. and B. George (2022) “Strategic Management in Public Administration”, in B. Guy Peters and Ian Thynne (eds), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Public Administration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Campbell, J. and J. Hall (2015) The World of States. London: Bloomsbury. Donahue, J. and R. Zeckhauser (2012) Collaborative Governance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Drumaux, A. and P. Joyce (2020) “New Development: Implementing and Evaluating Government Strategic Plans: The Europe 2020 Strategy”, Public Money and Management 40(4): 294–8. Emerson, K. and T. Nabatchi (2015) Collaborative Governance Regimes. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Fioretos, K.O., T.G. Falleti, and A.D. Sheingate (eds) (2016) The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fukuyama, F. (2013) “What is Governance?”, Governance 26(3): 347–68. Jacobsen, D.I. and Å. Johnsen (2020) “Alignment of Strategy and Structure in Local Government”, Public Money and Management 40(4): 276–84. Joyce, P. (2015) Strategic Management in the Public Sector. London: Routledge. Joyce, P., J.M. Bryson, and M. Holzer (eds) (2014) Developments in Strategic and Public Management. London: Routledge. Joyce, P. and A. Drumaux (2018) Strategic Management in Public Organizations. London: Routledge. Klijn, E.-H. and J. Koppenjan (2015) Governance Networks in the Public Sector. London: Routledge.

Introduction  9

Mergel, I. (2017) “Building Holistic Evidence for Social Media Impact”, Public Administration Review 77(4): 489–95. Mergel, I., K. Rethemeyer, and K. Issett (2017) “Big Data in Public Affairs”, Public Administration Review 76(6): 928–37. Milward, H.B. et al. (2016) “Is Public Management Neglecting the State?”, Governance 29(3): 311–34. Moore, M. (1995) Creating Public Value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moore, M. (2013) Recognizing Public Value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. OECD (2019) “Observatory of Public Sector Innovation”, https://​oecd​-opsi​.org/​. Roberts, A. (2018) Can Government Do Anything Right? Cambridge: Polity. Roberts, A. (2019) Strategies for Governing. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Van der Wal, Z. (2017) The 21st Century Public Manager. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

2. Strategic management and the study of public agencies: a historical overview Ewan Ferlie

INTRODUCTION This chapter considers how the field of strategic management and its precursors has evolved over time, with particular application to the study of public agencies. Firstly, it considers the pre-history of the ‘design and planning’ school seen in Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) as the first school of strategic management historically and one dominant in the 1960s (although it has been challenged since) and also evident in government settings. This initial account very briefly mentioned a pre-history (p. 17) and that analysis is developed further here. A core contribution of the present chapter is to look in greater depth at the pre-1960s experience of long-term planning within various government settings internationally and so to broaden the awareness of historical antecedents. Secondly, the chapter considers more recent developments within the academic field of strategic management. This analysis suggests a pattern over time of pluralization and proliferation (Ferlie and Parrado, 2018) of different schools and approaches. The older models do not disappear but are supplemented by newer ones and they often migrate from private to public sector settings, albeit with adaptation. An influential handbook of strategic management (Pettigrew et al., 2001), for example, contains chapters on a diverse range of perspectives including a knowledge-based view of strategy; managing cognition; technology in corporate strategy; and the corporate social responsibility movement. A second handbook is dedicated entirely to the recent strategy as practice perspective (Golsorkhi et al., 2010). So, how is a historical perspective being deployed in this chapter? Some authors have characterized the history of the broad field of public administration (and so taking a much wider definition than the narrower focus here on strategic management in public service organizations) in an overview spanning many centuries: thus Lynn’s (2005) concise history goes back to ancient Imperial China (‘the field may have originated in ancient China’, p. 29). In such an expansive overview, Lynn does not have the space to consider developments in public management in America in the 1960s in any depth, despite it often being seen as a formative period. Friedmann’s (1987) history of ‘planning in the public domain’ goes back over two hundred years to consider (for example) the ideas of Jeremy Bentham as a formative influence on the broad field of social planning. Friedmann’s focus is more on planning for urban and regional development and less on strategic management within a public agency. However, his analysis usefully highlights the explosion of planning activity during 10

Strategic management and the study of public agencies  11

the American New Deal of the 1930s (p. 93) (a theme echoed here), and also draws attention to earlier more voluntary and associative forms of economic planning during the tenure of Herbert Hoover as US Secretary of State for Commerce (1921–29). Some important texts see the USA in the 1960s as a critical founding period for strategic management ideas and texts which is here defined as a narrower stream of activity than public administration or planning as a whole. This more contained focus on the history of strategic planning for public policy is considered further in the current chapter. For example, Mintzberg’s (1994) analysis of the rise and fall of (generic and originally private sector-based) strategic planning cites as its earliest ‘design school’ texts Learned et al. (1965) and also Selznick (1957). Early academic references cited in Ferlie and Ongaro (2015, pp. 13–15) were to private firm-orientated texts such as Chandler (1962), Ansoff (1965) and Andrews (1971). These key texts all appeared between 1962 and 1971 (see also Ministry of Health, 1962). Langley and Lasiani’s (2010, p. 547) account of strategic planning as practice similarly argues: ‘the first treatises on strategy in the 1960s hailed “strategic planning” as a critical corporate function’. The current chapter includes international material on early experiments with long-term planning (including very different approaches in the Soviet Union, the USA and France), going back to about 1930. The chapter pushes the period of analysis back by about 30 years when compared to other accounts of strategic management and planning which see strategic management schools (and applications to public service settings) as emerging in the early 1960s. But the time period considered is still much more contained than in Lynn (2005) or Friedmann (1987). The chapter reviews UK orientated material (the country with which the author is most familiar) on recent developments and trends, as well as important American and European case histories, exemplars and sources (e.g. Mark Moore’s 1995 work on public value).

1.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LONG-TERM PLANNING IN PUBLIC AGENCIES

In the beginning, there was the long-term plan. Strategic planning was not invented within private firms in the 1960s, as there are important precursors (not always happy) within government to consider. The USSR, Gosplan and the Five-Year Plans (1929 onwards) The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) created the first socialist economy in Russia after 1917, without markets or conventional price signals. Its dependence on top-down planning for resource allocation and target setting became increasingly important after the roll back of the early and relatively liberal New Economic Period. Government (and all other social spheres) was directed by the Communist Party as the ruling element and only legal political party, headed by its Politburo. After the

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struggle for power following Lenin’s death, the radical Stalin faction gained hegemony in the late 1920s. In the economic sphere, the USSR used target-driven five-year plans (from 1929 onwards) both at a national and sectoral level (e.g. setting targets for steel production), to drive through the primary economic goal of enforced and rapid state-led industrialization and the core political goal of creating a large industrial working class. One-year operational plans were derived from the five-year plans. A dedicated state bureau in Moscow – Gosplan (1921–91) – directed the national planning process, staffed by (often non-party) experts including economists and planners, themselves subject to ferocious political direction. The content of the first five year plan (1929–34) represented a key struggle for political control (Lewin, 1973, 1976). The plan set wholly unrealistic production targets (so called ‘Bacchanalian planning’) and was widely recognized as doing so by non-party experts in Gosplan (later purged) and rightist political leaders within the Communist Party, notably Bukharin (later purged and then executed). Stalinist pressure for ‘higher tempos’ – as expressed in the slogan ‘the tempos decide everything’ – forced Gosplan planners to comply, although the resulting plans lost any coherence or consistency (Lewin, 1973). Failures to meet targets were blamed on ‘sabotage’ which was then rooted out by terror. The plan created lasting dysfunctions and imbalances in the Soviet economy (Lewin, 1973). It is held up as a notorious example of the failures of rigid and unrealistic top-down state planning, in which non-party experts were subordinated to violent political direction and terror. Much later, Bevan and Hood (2006) suggested that (of course, in a much milder English style) a Soviet-style ‘targets and terror’ regime characterized the exacting performance management system imposed by New Labour governments on the National Health Service (NHS) in the 2000s. Highly ambitious targets were set for hospitals (which could be gamed just as in the Soviet system) and senior managers and whole boards faced summary dismissal for under-performance (although saboteurs and ‘right deviationists’ were not sent to the gulag). 1930s: the USA and the New Deal Planning had happier roots in some leading democratic governments. In America, the New Deal administrations of the 1930s supported a more interventionist government than evident before or since in what is generally a ‘small state’ political culture. Specifically, it set up the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as a pioneering agency with responsibility for upgrading the quality of land across a whole river basin (so beyond the jurisdiction of a single state). It was a relatively autonomous public corporation free from some conventional federal controls (Selznick, 1949), having strategic space in which to operate and armed with a broad vision of regional resource development across the river basin. Lilienthal’s (1944) book outlines the official TVA doctrine of ‘democratic planning’ and includes a chapter entitled ‘Plans and Planners’. The TVA is here characterized as an agency devoted to ‘democratic planning’ and active participation

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by local people (we might now call it co-creation). Democratic planning was enacted in practice rather than written down in a formal plan which was not available for consultation by students and researchers as a written text did not exist (p. 192): ‘the reason the TVA plan is not available is that there is no such document. Nor is there one separate department set off by itself, where planners exercise their brains.’ The enduring question of the relationship between specialist planners and line management was raised: Lilienthal was sceptical of planning separated out from practical managerial activity. More critically, Selznick’s (1949) pioneering work of organizational sociology found the TVA was less radical than thought as it engaged in a process of co-optation with powerful agricultural constituencies in the region. So, planning processes were influenced by the pre-existing distribution of power: the agency had to build up political support regionally to survive and to protect its mandate. Post-1945 France and Indicative Planning After liberation in 1945, France developed a distinctive system of so called indicative planning, involving both government and private firms. France displayed a mixed and also an open economy where decision-makers sought to ensure strong international competitiveness. This mode of planning was presented as an alternative to the top-down command planning favoured by the Communist Party (then a powerful political force). The French use of guidance more than direction was meant to support creative initiatives and promote economic growth (Cazes, 1990). The first plan covered the 1947–52 period and more followed. Cazes (1990) suggests that the French planning system displayed three main functions. The first was the conventional one of information gathering, assembling relevant data and research findings to support policymaking, over the short, medium and (especially) the longer term. The second function was to promote ‘concertation’ (‘dialogue’ is the nearest English word) between government and social partners within a form of dialogic economic planning. Initially, social partners were narrowly defined as employers, trade unions and farmers (critics might characterize this as narrow corporatism). The third function (Cazes, 1990, p. 612) was to advance greater consistency in economic and political decision-making, by acting as an ‘order-promoting’ agent. At a strategic level, planners could undertake a distinctive and useful ‘social pedagogy’ role in informing partners about the constraints of decision-making and how to alleviate them jointly. Cazes argued that planners could usefully coordinate the many bureaucratic players within government and lengthen the time scale of political decision-makers beyond the short-term electoral cycle. Cazes (1990) suggests that, in the 1960s and early 1970s, French plans tended to become a list of detailed projects with no overall theme. Long-term commitments became difficult due to economic and political shocks (see later). There was then a counter-reaction against dilution with a more focused move back to a smaller number of well-defined projects.

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In later plans, the French government tried to broaden the social partners in the room. Cazes (1990) notes that in drafting the 8th plan (1980), government asked that planning should involve more young people, women, inhabitants of the provinces, and consumers and public service users (not always easy to achieve). Here was an opening to new social movements beyond old producer interests. 1960s: the American Department of Defence, PPBS and Robert McNamara The defence sector is important in the history of strategic planning: indeed, war gaming (a precursor of scenario planning) was promoted by advisers to the Prussian army in the nineteenth century. More recently, major developments in new managerial thinking, tools and techniques took place in the American Department of Defense (DoD) under the important leadership of Robert McNamara (1961–68) (Kaplan et al., 2006) as Secretary of Defense. McNamara had served in the US air force in the Second World War and had briefly been president of Ford where he advocated more scientific approaches to management. In Defense, he led the introduction of a Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) which diffused later across USA government (arguably with poorer results than in the DoD; Wildavsky, 1969). PPBS aimed to provide an explicit systems-based framework which considered both long-term needs for forces and weapons but also associated costs. The Department had a major commissioning role in selecting between expensive new weapons technologies so such methods could potentially inform that choice. McNamara’s innovations reflected a particular context of well-developed research-orientated institutions that supplied relevant knowledge, tools and skilled personnel. Notably, the RAND Corporation (set up in 1948 in California) offered R&D expertise to the American armed forces (see https://​www​.rand​.org/​about/​history​.html). It had expertise in such fields as systems thinking, game theory and war gaming, drawing on mainly quantitative disciplines, including economics and the physical sciences. There was interchange of key personnel between RAND and the Department of Defense. Enthoven and Smith’s (2005) sympathetic account stresses the importance of McNamara’s leadership. McNamara hoped PPBS would provide an evidence-based overview of the whole weapons field and enable him to make centralized decisions. The key declared aims behind PPBS (Enthoven and Smith, 2005, p. 33) were (i) to promote decision-making on the basis of the national interest (as opposed to brokering compromises between various lobbies and services); (ii) to develop explicit decision criteria; (iii) to consider needs and costs at the same time; (iv) explicitly to consider alternatives; and (v) to make active use of an analytical staff function housed in a Systems Analytic office (popularly seen as populated by ‘whizz kids’). PPBS’s major tools (Enthoven and Smith, 2005, p. 48) included (i) a five-year defence plan with projected profiles of forces, costs and manpower with a consideration of costs and benefits as a basis for senior decision-making; (ii) using the draft presidential memo as a device for structuring debate and also acting as a central source of policy guidance; (iii) recourse to the development concept paper which

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provided early information on possible new weapon systems to inform early-stage decisions; (iv) the production of readiness, information and control tables at an operational level; and (v) setting up a strong systems analysis office familiar with numerically informed knowledge (e.g. economics, operations research and game theory), although it is noted (p. 45) that analysis was often simpler as it was enacted in practice in the DoD. Enthoven was senior in the Systems Analysis Office and later joined the Business School at Stanford (Amadae, 2003, p. 71); this exemplifies the close links between RAND, the new ‘scientific’ departments of public policy (as opposed to the old departments of public administration) and some American Business Schools. Amadae’s (2003) unsympathetic account highlights the pivotal role of RAND in supplying new ‘decision technologies’ and personnel to the DoD after Kennedy’s victory in the 1960 election which opened up a more favourable political climate. RAND experts claimed to be pursuing scientific methods of decision-making, but their methods also usefully centralized decision-making over key procurement decisions in the hands of the Secretary of State for Defence and turned away from senior officers (Amadae, 2003, p. 46): ‘in the turf battle for control over the US armed forces, the civilian defence rationalists won a decisive victory’. In 1965, President L.B. Johnson mandated that PPBS should become the new Standard Operating Procedure for procurement decisions in all federal agencies, but this policy was abandoned in 1969 (Amadae, 2003, p. 71). Critics pointed out that its technocratic approach marginalized traditional political debate and approval (e.g. appropriation decisions in Congress), including in areas of high political controversy. Nevertheless, PPBS still seems well embedded in the DoD today, although it was renamed in 2003 as PPBE (Planning, Programming, Budgetary and Execution Process) (Congressional Research Service, 2020), to emphasize the management of the execution of the budgetary authority provided by Congress. While one influential academic view of new management ideas and tools is that they are mere ‘fads and fashions’ (Abrahamson, 1991, 1996), which achieve only superficial and short-lived impact, PPBS appears to have institutionalized itself in the DoD, though not more widely across American government. Discussion The pre-history of strategic management in government is one of attempts at developing long-term planning, with radically different forms in different societies. There was a primitive top-down and control-based system in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, linked to the political terror. By contrast, the American New Deal agency of the TVA in the same decade espoused an ideal of democratic planning. Post-1945 France rejected top-down control-led planning and espoused a novel form of indicative planning with social partners. The DoD in America in the 1960s brought new modes of systems-orientated management knowledge into government and created an enduring legacy.

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2.

THE GROWTH OF ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC AGENCIES

So the 1960s and early 1970s marked the period of dominance in the literature of the classic design-and-planning school of strategy. The previous section considered the pre-history to this influential period; this section analyses the sequel. The overall argument is that, since the 1980s, there has been a proliferation of different schools of strategic management: the field has become more pluralist, albeit with variation internationally (the American literature is more conventional, the European and especially the Scandinavian literature is more heterodox; Ferlie and Parrado, 2018). Different theoretical traditions and associated methods now complement traditional design and planning. New journals represent this turn: for example, Strategic Organization (founded in 2003) brings together an interest in strategy linked to the organizational contexts in which it occurs. Of course, similar pluralization was evident from the 1980s onwards in various social sciences (see Oakley 2000 on ‘paradigm wars’ in social research, with the rise of feminist and other qualitative approaches contesting the prior positivistic paradigm) so is part of a broader intellectual movement within the social sciences. In terms of inter-sectoral diffusion, the pattern is that newer models of strategic management migrate from the initial analysis of private sector settings to the study of government agency settings, although sometimes with significant adaptation (Moore, 1995; Vining, 2011). The High-level Turn to Emergent, Learning-based and Processual Approaches Complementary strategic management literatures developed in the 1980s and 1990s which reflected on the failure of earlier rational exercises in long-term strategic planning. Implementation was now recast as a problematic process and not one to proceed with lightly. The extreme uncertainty of political and economic environments in the late 1970s (the oil price shock; stagflation or high inflation and high unemployment at the same time; a wave of public sector strikes) meant that traditional assumptions underpinning long-term planning for public services were radically undermined as these settings were highly exposed to such economic or political influences. The newer literatures moved beyond assuming strategy-making was a rational, technocratic (à la PPBS) or neutral process. The operation of intense organizational politics meant that strategy-making could be contested within large and complex organizations, so strategic planning could be seen as a struggle for power and resources more than a purely rational process. There were limits to top-down control: junior staff or professionals could, for instance, ignore or resist top-down and managerially led strategies that they had no part in formulating or which could jeopardise their interests. The pervasive non-implementation of strategic plans reflected in part organizational power balances and the dominance of professional groups or institutions

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in some public service agencies which influenced or even captured the strategic planning process. In Scottish health care, Hunter (1979) examined the power of acute sector-orientated interest groups that were able to block or slow down a proclaimed policy-level shift for the development of community care. Denis et al.’s (1991) analysis of strategic plans in Canadian health care settings revealed the pervasive bottom-up influence of clinical lobbies. We now briefly review three important streams of literature within this higher-level turn. The Cultural School of Strategy One important but perhaps surprising development was the rise of the ‘soft’ cultural school of strategy in the 1980s (Pettigrew, 1979; Pascale and Athos, 1981; Deal and Kennedy 1982; Peters and Waterman, 1982), drawing on distinctively anthropological thinking and concepts. The switch of interest from the conventional emphasis on formal structure to the novel domain of intangible culture was fuelled, firstly, by a growing disappointment of the modest effects of many earlier structural reorganizations within both firms and public agencies. There was, secondly, a growing Western interest in the apparent success of Japanese firms (such as Toyota) that did not appear to be technologically innovative but were nevertheless successful in part because they appeared to display strong and positive collective cultures. As the then fashionable slogan put it: ‘culture eats strategy for lunch’. Japanese-inspired quality management programmes were imported into Western firms and also public agencies to dilute traditional bureaucratic and producer-centric behaviours. So, the fundamental level of organizational culture was seen as more important than formal structure or strategy (Peters and Waterman (1982) put it at the centre of their heuristic). A change-resistant culture could be a major change blocker; yet a positive and energized culture could be a major asset for an organization. Culture creation could also be a major task for a transformational leader: Pettigrew’s (1979) case study of Gordonstoun school in Scotland suggested its founder successfully created a distinctive and enduring culture (albeit in a remote and isolated locale). Peters and Waterman’s (1982) major text popularized the insights of the cultural school and became a best-selling blockbuster text which crossed over to public agencies in the mid-1980s. One implication was that strategic change may require a cultural shift, albeit difficult to achieve. Managerial practice in this perspective involved the management of meaning more than limited transactional approaches, involving more cognitive and symbolic perspectives. From the 1980s onwards, there was continuing interest in Japanese style, value-led and collective quality management programmes in public agencies as well as in private firms: we see Total Quality Management (TQM), then Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and now Lean. For example, Hughes’ (1996) case-based study analysed the behaviours of (newly appointed) senior general managers in one Welsh NHS district. The wider NHS context was one of increasing interest in culture management as the Peters and

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Waterman (1982) text crossed over into NHS management (characterized as: ‘the best-selling business book of all time, a de rigueur addition to the ambitious NHS manager’s bookshelf’; Hughes, 1996, p. 292). The new NHS general managers were expected to act as leaders rather than merely as administrators. There was some evidence here that senior managers were trying to manage collective meaning through creating a new rhetoric and discourse, for example by deliberately constructing a ‘high-risk strategy’ which conveyed some glamour and excitement rather than supporting conventional low-risk options. Strategy as Process The process school of strategy developed by Andrew Pettigrew with colleagues at the Centre for Corporate Strategy and Change (CCSC) at the University of Warwick in the 1980s and 1990s suggested an analytic focus on the tracing of a strategic management process (‘catching reality in flight’) rather than the one-off production of a strategic plan: in other words that a temporal and longitudinal perspective could explain patterns of strategy development and especially implementation (Pettigrew, 1987, 2012) (the author should declare an interest – he worked at CCSC between 1986 and 1997). A second assertion was that both action within the organization but also the wider context were important and indeed could interact (within a form of structuration). The key heuristic of the ‘change triangle’ (Pettigrew, 1987) drew attention to the content of change, the process of change and the context (both inner and outer) of change. The outer context would include the wider political economy. Here was a counterpoint to subjectivist and wholly leadership-focused approaches to transformative organizational change fashionable at the time, although leadership could play some role in the change process. Processual analysis operates over the long duration. As such, it could highlight the possibility of long periods of organizational continuity interspersed with rare bursts of radical change (Pettigrew, 1985) which needed to be tracked over time. This perspective varied from alternative presumptions of continuous but incremental change. So, organizational politics and bargaining were important informal forces to be considered in strategy-making, as well as data collection and rational analysis. Highlighting the role of the outer context outside the single organization fitted well (at least in the UK) with studying the high change decade of the 1980s during which a decisive and politically endorsed shift took place from traditional industries in the economic sphere (Pettigrew, 1985) and during which major public services were subjected to top-down New Public Management (NPM) reforms to make them more ‘business like’ (Ferlie et al., 1996). The process school was relatively unusual in its strong interest in public as well as private organizations. The method employed was typically that of longitudinal and comparative case studies, bringing in the perspective and skills of the historian as archival sources became important, as did retrospective interviews with long-serving or retired members of staff. This work is, in the end, management rather than sociological

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research, however, as there is typically an interest in identifying and explaining variable levels of organizational performance, explored in a comparative pair-wise design. For example, Pettigrew et al.’s (1992) large-scale and process-based study examined whether a set of eight English District Health Authorities (DHAs) (four matched pairs) succeeded in implementing aspects of national health policy after introducing new general management roles in the mid-1980s (such as the concentration of acute sector hospitals or the reprovision of mental health services). Could, in other words, general management really manage? Such policies had existed for some time, but implementation had been patchy. Strategic change shifts might take years or even decades to be achieved so that the eight cases presented contained important longitudinal elements. They derived from the cases a model of ‘receptive contexts for change’ which contained eight interacting factors of which leadership was but only one. Contextual elements were also seen as important. What was also curious was the local variability found in strategic change capacity, reflecting the presence or absence of such factors. Strategy as Practice A recent, heterodox, and increasingly influential school is strategy as practice which takes a more decentralized, practice-led and micro-level approach: it suggests strategy is what actors within an organization do rather than what it formally has. This school looks at what activities actors engage in within concrete work settings to create strategy, such as at away days or conferences. It has an interest in human activity or ‘strategizing’, replicating the wider turn to an interest in practice apparent in various social sciences. Johnson et al. (2007, ch. 1) set out an early manifesto. They argued (p. 12) that ‘given our focus on the importance of people – the way they interact in the development of strategy – it follows there is a need to shift the research agenda from a preoccupation with the firm and its performance to include a concern for people, the tools they use and their practices and performance in the development of strategy’. This analytical stance implies moving away from a unitary focus and interest in formally declared strategy and towards one which is pluralist and multi-level. Golsorkhi et al. (2010, p. 1) similarly assert: ‘strategy as practice can be regarded as an alternative to the mainstream strategy research via its attempt to shift attention from a “mere” focus on the effects of strategy on performance alone to a more comprehensive, in depth, analysis of what actually takes place in strategy formulation, planning and implementation and other activities that deal with the thinking and doing of strategy’. There have been various applications of this practice perspective to public services and not-for-profit settings. Johnson et al.’s (2007) edition includes (reprinted) chapters (with a commentary) by Gioia and Chittpeddi and Oakes et al. Gioia and Chittpeddi (2007) use a sense-making and sense-giving perspective to explore a strategic process of reorientation in an American university with the appointment of a new president from outside, including developing and transmitting a vision.

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Oakes et al. (2007) explore the impact of NPM-orientated business practices affecting curators (a group of public service professionals working in culture not previously exposed to such changes) in museums in Alberta, Canada, specifically new business planning systems. They see these practices as ‘pedagogy in action’, attempting to teach curators new business-like skills. This paper effectively combines an awareness of micro practices with wider changes in the political economy: here a provincial government with a strong commitment to reforming public services organizations on NPM lines. This multi-level focus suggests that the criticism that practice studies are too micro and divorced from an awareness of the wider macro political and institutional environment is not always valid. Langley and Lasiani (2010) specifically examine the field of strategic planning from a practice perspective. They analyse the strategic plan documents produced as texts in their own right. They suggest that the strategic plan should be seen as a distinctive ‘genre’ of communication, adopting an approach close to literary criticism interested in exploring the production of rhetoric and the construction of narratives. Strategic plans may well fulfil informal or implicit objectives as well as formal rational ones. Langley has co-authored various significant publications on the real-world operation of strategic planning in the Canadian health care sector which are also drawn on here. One question is whether strategic plans are indeed closed and selective (thereby helping to force choice by top managers) or more open and ambiguous. Denis et al. (1991) studied the content of the strategic plans of Canadian hospitals, finding they were, by contrast, often general, inclusive and growth orientated, thereby usefully absorbing internal conflict and gathering support from powerful internal stakeholders, notably including senior doctors. Planning was thus a conflict-avoiding and political process as much as a rational analytic one (see also Denis et al., 2011). Some studies combine a use of novel schools in their analyses of public service settings: Pettigrew (1979) took both a cultural and process perspective in his analysis of the founding of an innovative educational setting. Jarzabkowski and Wilson (2002) used both process and practice perspectives in exploring localized patterns of action and routines of the top management team in Warwick University in England as it engaged in strategic behaviour.

3.

A FORWARD LOOK

We here briefly identify and discuss two newer approaches which appear to be of growing interest and importance in the study of strategy in public agencies. Network Governance and Cooperative Strategy So called Network Governance (NG) reforms to public management have been increasingly important in the UK and some other jurisdictions from the 1990s onwards (other countries such as the Netherlands have always had a strong strand of

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network governance; Kickert, 1997). These reforms were associated with centre left governments such as New Labour in the UK 1997–2010. There was a (admittedly partial and contested) reaction against the fragmenting and pro-marketization effects of earlier NPM reforms. NG ideas were developed by such authors as Newman (2001), Rhodes (2007) and Osborne (2010). The focus now shifted from the single public agency (characteristic of third-party administration (TPA) and NPM) method of delivering services to more complex partnerships and networks. Governance approaches were seen as well suited to many and major ‘wicked problems’, outside the control of a single agency, including aspects of health care (e.g. obesity/diabetes); the environment (climate change; flooding; river and sea management) and criminal justice (social and spatial patterns of crime). Various public agencies might be involved in such arenas, along with partners from the private and third sectors. Recent writing on cooperative strategy in the private sector-orientated strategic management may be helpful here, although it may require strong adaptation to the public sector. Child et al. (2019) note the recent growth of more cooperative forms of strategy between firms, including partnerships and strategic alliances. Benefits may include (p. 3) access to complementary skills and assets; reduced costs and risks in new product development; easier access to new markets; and opportunities for synergy and learning. Strategic alliances often produce hybrid governance structures between markets and hierarchies which pose challenges of their own. In a later chapter, Child et al. (2019) take an interesting and concrete example of a UK public– private partnership which crossed usual sectoral boundaries. Within the public sector (specifically, in the study of health and social care settings that need to work together to provide good-quality services), Huxham and Vangen (2013) write about what they term the development of ‘collaborative advantage’. This term echoes but also goes beyond the competitive advantage doctrine famously found in key private sector management texts (Porter, 1990). Managing such a complex process in public management settings became a major theme in its own right. Klijn and Koppenjan’s (2015) analysis of governance networks often aimed at responding to ‘wicked problems’ contains a specific chapter (Chapter 7) on issues arising from managing the high interdependence of many public policy arenas, given that one party cannot simply impose its will: ‘thus the managerial challenge is to bring actors and resources together to search for common interests and mutual agreements with other parties’ (p. 152). Explicit thought about process management (even a designated process manager) was one way of stimulating joint inter-agency collaboration and stewardship. How might the state steer such complex networks? The idea of ‘meta-governance’ (Sørensen and Torfing, 2009) suggests that public managers may play a role in ensuring that complex policy networks are both effective and democratic. An implication might be, for example, that meta-governance seeks to give more voice to groups that are presently voiceless (as public policy networks can also be dominated by narrow cliques). The idea implies that public ‘meta-governors’ (e.g. those tasked with chairing managed networks) need to develop skills and core competences in steering.

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Public Value Moore’s (1995) ‘public value’-based approach has proved increasingly influential (see also Benington and Moore, 2010). This school is unusual in being developed within public agency settings rather than representing a model imported from private firms (Moore is based at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard rather than its Business School). The core notion of the pursuit of ‘public value’ by public managers echoes but also challenges the mantra of ‘shareholder value’ found in some private sector-orientated strategy literature. Moore (1995, p. 20) challenges the conventional politics/administration split found in American public administration and adopts a more private sector-style view of them as strategic managers and innovators: ‘public managers are seen as explorers who, with others, seek to discover, define and produce public value. Instead of simply devising the means for achieving mandated purposes, they become important agents in helping to discover and define what would be valuable to do …’. The production of public value outcomes is more likely when supported by good operational management capability within the public agency and a favourable political authorizing environment. Moore’s (1995) key heuristic is this so called strategic triangle of public value (see also Benington and Moore, 2010, p. 5) which incorporates these dimensions. In relation to strategic management, Moore takes a hybrid position as he incorporates some concepts from the generic strategic management literature but also adapts them to public agency settings. His work has indeed been criticized for being too close to generic strategic management models by political scientists such as Rhodes and Wanna (2007) who are also suspicious of too much discretion being accorded to public managers as opposed to political principals. Certainly, public value ideas received some high-level support in the UK in the New Labour period (1997–2010) as a possible post-NPM model of organizing in the public services. Within national government, the Cabinet Office was interested, as were some agencies of the NHS which commissioned literature review work (Williams and Shearer, 2011) to explore its potential. The approach appears as attractive and legitimate to many public managers as it redirects their focus from narrow cost savings to a wider concern with social innovation and public value. It will be interesting to see whether this work continues to exert ongoing influence in the field of public management, even under centre right administrations.

4.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

This chapter has taken a historically informed approach to the analysis of different approaches to strategic planning and strategic management in public agencies. Pushing the time period back from the classic period of the design and planning school that flourished in the 1960s, it firstly explored earlier attempts at long-range planning from the 1920s onwards, finding strong variation by country.

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It then briefly illustrated three alternative schools of strategic management more recently applied to the study of strategy in public agencies. They all go beyond narrow reliance on the classic school of design and planning, although that early school still remains important today. These newer schools creatively bring new ideas from different disciplines (anthropology, history, practice studies) into the field. Finally, two emergent approaches (cooperative strategy and public value) were discussed as promising foci for future work.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I acknowledge with thanks the help of Robyn Ferguson in supplying references to material on the American Department of Defense, both under Robert McNamara and more recently. I am second supervising her PhD at King’s examining the importing and adapting of managerial knowledge in the American Department of Defense.

REFERENCES Abrahamson, E. (1991) ‘Managerial Fads and Fashions: The Diffusion and Rejection of Innovations’, Academy of Management Review, 16(3): 586–612. Abrahamson, E. (1996) ‘Management Fashions’, Academy of Management Review, 21(1): 254–85. Amadae, S.M. (2003) Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy, London: University of Chicago Press. Andrews, K. (1971) The Concept of Corporate Strategy, New York: Dow Jones-Irwin. Ansoff, H. (1965) Corporate Strategy, Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin. Benington, J. and M. Moore (eds) (2010) Public Value: Theory and Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bevan, G. and C. Hood (2006) ‘What’s Measured Is What Matters: Targets and Gaming in the English Public Health Care System’, Public Administration, 84(3): 517–38. Cazes, B. (1990) ‘Indicative Planning in France’, Journal of Comparative Economics, 14: 607–20. Chandler, A. (1962) Strategy and Structure, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Child, J., D. Faulkner, S. Tallman, and L. Hsieh (2019) Cooperative Strategy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edn. Congressional Research Service (2020) ‘Defense Primer – Planning, Programming, Budgetary and Execution Process’, Washington DC: Congress, 27 January 2020. Deal, T. and A. Kennedy (1982) Corporate Cultures, Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Denis, J.-L., A. Langley, and D. Lozeau (1991) ‘Formal Strategy in Public Hospitals’, Long Range Planning, 24(1): 71–82. Denis, J.-L., G. Dompierre, A. Langley, and L. Rouleau (2011) ‘Escalating Indecision: Between Reification and Strategic Ambiguity’, Organization Science, 22(1): 225–44. Enthoven, A. and K.W. Smith (2005) How Much is Enough?, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation [reprint, first edition 1971]. Ferlie, E., L. Ashburner, L. Fitzgerald, and A. Pettigrew (1996) The New Public Management in Action, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ferlie, E. and E. Ongaro (2015) Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations, Abingdon: Routledge.

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Ferlie, E. and S. Parrado (2018) ‘Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations: Developing a European Perspective’, in E. Ongaro and S. van Thiel (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration and Management in Europe (pp. 101–19). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Friedmann, J. (1987) Planning in the Public Domain, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gioia, D. and K. Chittipeddi (2007) ‘Sensemaking and Sensegiving in Strategic Change Initiation’, in G. Johnson, A. Langley, I. Melin, and R. Whittington (eds), Strategy as Practice (pp. 137–51), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Golsorkhi, D., L. Rouleau, D. Seidl, and E. Vaara, (2010) ‘Introduction: What Is Strategy as Practice?’, in D. Golsorkhi, L. Rouleau, D. Seidl, and E. Vaara (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice (pp. 1–29), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn. Hughes, D. (1996) ‘NHS Managers as Rhetoricians: A Case of Culture Management?’, Sociology of Health & Illness, 18(3): 291–314. Hunter, D. (1979) ‘Coping With Uncertainty’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 1(1): 40–68. Huxham, C. and S. Vangen (2013) Managing to Collaborate: The Theory and Practice of Collaborative Advantage, London: Routledge. Jarzabkowski, P. and D.C. Wilson (2002) ‘Top Teams and Strategy in a UK University’, Journal of Management Studies, 39(3): 355–81. Johnson, G., A. Langley, I. Melin, and R. Whittington (eds) (2007) Strategy as Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaplan, L.S., R.D. Landa, and E.J. Drea (2006) ‘The McNamara Ascendancy, 1961–1965’, OSD Series Number 5, Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Department of Defense. Kickert, W.J. (1997). ‘Public Governance in The Netherlands: An Alternative to Anglo-​ American “Managerialism”’, Public Administration, 75(4): 731–52. Klijn, E.H. and J. Koppenjan (2015) Governance Networks in the Public Sector, London: Routledge. Langley, A. and M. Lasiani (2010) ‘Strategic Planning as Practice’, in D. Golsorkhi, L. Rouleau, D. Seidl, and E. Vaara (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice (pp. 547–63), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn. Learned, E.P., C.R. Christensen, K.R. Andrews, and W.D. Guth (1965) Business Policy: Text and Cases, Homewood, IL: Irwin. Lewin, M. (1973) ‘The Disappearance of Planning in the Plan’, Slavic Review, 32(2): 271–87. Lewin, M. (1976) ‘Society and the Stalinist State in the Period of the Five Year Plan’, Social History, 1(2): 139–75. Lilienthal, D.E. (1944) TVA – Democracy on the March, New York: Harper & Row. Lynn, L.E (2005) ‘A Concise History of the Field’, in E. Ferlie, L. Lynn, and C. Pollitt (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Public Management (pp. 27–49), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ministry of Health (1962) A Hospital Plan for England and Wales, London: HMSO. Mintzberg, H. (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, New York: Free Press. Moore, M. (1995) Creating Public Value, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Newman, J. (2001) Modernising Governance, London: Sage. Oakes, L., B. Townley, and D. Cooper (2007) ‘Business Planning as Pedagogy: Language and Control in a Changing Institutional Field’, in G. Johnson, A. Langley, I. Melin, and R. Whittington (eds), Strategy as Practice (pp. 152–64), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oakley, A. (2000) Experiments in Knowing: Gender and Method in the Social Sciences, Cambridge: Polity. Osborne, S. (2010) ‘The (New) Public Governance: A Suitable Case for Treatment?’, in S. Osborne (ed.), The New Public Governance (pp. 1–16), London: Routledge.

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Pascale, R. and A. Athos (1981) The Art of Japanese Management: Applications for American Executives, New York: Simon and Shuster. Peters, T. and R. Waterman (1982) In Search of Excellence, New York: Warner Books. Pettigrew, A.M. (1979) ‘On Studying Organizational Cultures’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(4): 570–81. Pettigrew, A.M. (1985) The Awakening Giant, Oxford: Blackwell. Pettigrew, A.M. (1987) ‘Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm’, Journal of Management Studies, 24(6): 649–70. Pettigrew, A.M. (2012) ‘Context and Action in the Transformation of the Firm: A Reprise’, Journal of Management Studies, 49(7): 1304–28. Pettigrew, A.M., E. Ferlie, and L. McKee (1992) Shaping Strategic Change, London: Sage. Pettigrew, A.M., H. Thomas, and R. Whittington (eds) (2001) Handbook of Strategy and Management, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Porter, M.E. (1990) ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’, Harvard Business Review, 68(2): 73–93. Rhodes, R.A. (2007) ‘Understanding Governance: Ten Years On’, Organization Studies, 28(8): 1243–64. Rhodes, R.A. and J. Wanna (2007) ‘The Limits to Public Value, or Rescuing Responsible Government from the Platonic Guardians’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 66(4): 406–21. Selznick, P. (1949) TVA and the Grass Roots, Berkeley: University of California Press. Selznick, P. (1957) Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation, Evanston, IL: Rose Peterson. Sørensen, E. and J. Torfing (2009) ‘Making Governance Networks Effective and Democratic through Metagovernance’, Public Administration, 87(2): 234–58. Vining, A. (2011) ‘Public Agency External Analysis Using a Modified “Five Forces” Framework’, International Public Management Journal, 14(1): 63–105. Wildavsky, A. (1969) ‘Rescuing Policy Analysis from PPBS’, Public Administration Review, 29(2): 189–202. Williams, I. and H. Shearer (2011) ‘Appraising Public Value: Past, Present and Futures’, Public Administration, 89(4): 1367–84.

3. Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management: a conceptual engineering approach Michael Barzelay

If you were asked to explain why some concepts are rather devilish to define, you’d have to use examples in presenting the requisite theories about language (Murphy, 2002). Two good examples of definitionally devilish concepts are Strategic Management and Public Management. You might consider using the hybrid idea of Strategic Public Management (SPM) as such an example, especially if you’d like to illustrate a nightmarishly difficult concept to define. The first order of business in this chapter is to come to appreciate the conceptual frames that give the idea of SPM an identifiable meaning. Without creating that substitute for definitions, it’s hard to state and answer meaningful questions about SPM. Fortunately, appreciating those frames (once created) requires only a few minutes of abstract, relational thinking – especially for who have already been introduced to Strategic Management, Public Management, Strategic Public Management, or all three. The price of admission is the will to disbelieve that all concepts worth understanding can be defined.

STRATEGIC PUBLIC MANAGEMENT’S DEFINITION: A SENSE-GIVING EXERCISE Consider the following definitional statements about Strategic Public Management as such: (1) SPM is a theory within the policy sciences that is specifically concerned with implementing policy interventions. (2) SPM is a theory within the management field that is specifically concerned with public organizations. (3) SPM is an orientation within the public administration field that is specifically concerned with public managers creating public value. (4) SPM is a thematic approach to developing a curriculum about public management. My expectation is that you will recall a time and place where you read or heard statements similar to the ones you just viewed. As you attended to the ones above, you may have rewritten some or of them in your head. But once having toyed with them, I suspect that no single statement gives you cause to stop reading further. And, yet, as you reflect on the whole collection, you may well feel slightly disoriented or uneasy, as each statement sends your mind sailing along its own stream of 26

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associations (Buzan, 2018). Depending on its severity, the resulting uneasiness may definitely move you towards the exit. An option for alleviating the unpleasantness is to cancel one or another of these statements. For example, you could cancel the final one that presents SPM as a theme expressed in curriculum development and teaching, as distinct from a theory concerned with policy interventions and/or public organizations. But this preventative treatment wouldn’t work that well and side-effects could appear. If the theme-based statement were cancelled (say, for reasons of elusiveness1), then you’d likely swallow involuntarily before consciously attempting to present strategic public management as theory. If the statement studded with public managers and public value were cancelled (say, for reasons of cultural-normativity), then you might also feel a need to exclude the statement associating SPM with curriculum and teaching, thereby putting even more weight on SPM’s being cast as academically significant in a scene whose circumference includes academic institutions where theoretical and applied social sciences enjoy more than comfortable status. The most compelling net assessment would be that SPM’s endemic identity-dissonance is just something for its community to live and cope with (much like the Covid-19 virus). A superior option, however, begins to develop by framing the task of defining SPM as one of sense-giving. The issue is what would be an apt performance where strategic management is being defined. A pragmatic constraint on the performance is that none of the four statements made above are to be cancelled or even treated in a clearly backhanded manner. As such, the full range of verbal symbols – public organizations, curriculum, public managers, policy interventions, theory and public value – will have to be present. Finally, the performance as a whole has to make enough sense for you to stick around as the rest of this chapter is delivered. In solving this practical puzzle, you should let your thinking be channelled by a few design-references for sense-giving tasks. Consider the sticky message formula of SUCCESs, the acronym for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Stories (Heath and Heath, 2008). Focus simply on Simple at this stage. Simple means “express the core idea compactly”. According to Heath and Heath, implementing this principle is not simple, because core ideas about human endeavours, being practical arguments, are inherently expansive. How can inherently expansive practical arguments about human endeavours be made compact? The general answer involves framing, such that the compactly expressed core ideas radiate outwards, much as what is meant to happen when beholding a well-done mind-map (Buzan, 2018). Heath and Heath’s more specific answer is to use metaphor, in the technical sense of structural or conceptual metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Metaphor in this sense puts into play rather specific neural networks with the effect being to unfold countless inferences about the human endeavour in question (Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). With these design references in mind, consider Figure 3.1 – glancing first at the bold-faced terms: policy interventions, public value, public organizations, strategic management, theories, curriculum, and public managers. The point is that Figure 3.1 meets the spec. Now, bring to mind Figure 3.1’s characteristic

Figure 3.1

A mind-map for SPM within a professional discipline

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Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management  29

root-trunk-and-branch relational pattern (Buzan, 2018). Its root, in its most compact expression, is public management. The longer expression is professional discipline of public management. The two trunks are reflections of an archetypal concept of professional discipline, associated with Herbert Simon’s book, Sciences of the Artificial (Simon, 1996). Simon characterized professional disciplines as being similar when theorized functionally; for example, they all educate practitioners for professional practice to tackle practical challenges, including ones that span fields of knowledge and practice. Simon’s archetype of professional disciplines related to sciences of the artificial didn’t carry a compact title, but one can be given: namely, design-oriented professional disciplines. Simon theorized such disciplines as being differentiated by their domain. A case illustration is one titled as architecture. Architecture’s domain involves a relation between no fewer than two verbal symbols: architectural design and buildings. The relation is given by the archetype of design-oriented professional disciplines, within which two closely related terms are professional practice and artificial systems. The complex relation between the case of architecture and the archetype of design-oriented professional disciplines is as follows: architectural design is to professional practice, as buildings are to artificial systems. Cases of this professional-discipline archetype thus involve a purposive relation (such as creation) between a professional practice-type (such as architectural design) and an artificial system-type (such as buildings). Public management’s characterization in the mind-map aligns with Simon’s archetype of design-oriented professional disciplines, as can be seen by the two trunks: domain and functions. As per the laws of mind-mapping, the trunks subdivide into branches. The verbal symbol, strategic management, is slotted into the professional practice aspect of the design-oriented professional disciplines archetype. As this move calls for elaboration, three pegs are inserted into this thick branch: developing strategy, developing practices and systems, and leading/managing execution, each being an archetypal functional imperative within mainstream strategic management theorizing (Hamel and Prahalad, 1996). Another branch corresponds to the verbal symbol of artificial systems in Simon’s main archetype, and it is titled public organizations.2 A third branch includes policy interventions and creating public value and it introduces the idea of a professional discipline’s purposive realm.3 So, what is Strategic Public Management? SPM is an aspect of the professional discipline of public management. Its main definitional role lies in titling this discipline’s specific type of professional practice. Strategic public management’s other definitional role is in titling the discipline’s cumulative and growing riches of professional knowledge about public organizations and their management.4 Assuming the proverbial reader was not long ago swept out to sea by this abstract discussion, they can consider whether the definitional statement is Simple in being core and compact. In making the assessment, consider the starting point where the following statements (slightly amended) were put on the table: (1) SPM is a (collection of purposive) theory within the policy sciences that is specifically concerned with (shaping and) implementing policy interventions (so they create public value).

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(2) SPM is a (collection of purposive) theory within the management field that is specifically concerned with public organizations. (3) SPM is an orientation within the public administration field that is specifically concerned with public managers creating public value (by creating practical means – practices, systems, and the like – intended to fulfil this teleology). (4) SPM is a thematic approach to developing a curriculum about public management (as part of performing the discipline’s teaching and learning function for professional practitioners titled as public managers). While more questions may be raised than settled by this, the result, hopefully, is a sticky definition that meets the need to provide a verbal context for the more substantive discussions to follow. Before moving ahead, let us digress briefly to examine what was just stated in a reflective way, for the sake of your being able to give precise reasons for whatever attitude you take towards it. Accordingly, you might want to know what the discussion just completed means, from my perspective. To keep the digression brief, I apply a method for analysing symbolic action (and for rhetorical criticism) which grows out of intellectual and practical concern for how sense-giving works. The method originated with writings by Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) and it is generally known as Burke’s pentad. You can find out much more about the method of rhetorical criticism (and Burke) with an open internet browser and a few mouse clicks.5 Note: I will be using this method to analyse SPM and design-oriented professional practice later in the chapter, so this is presented partly as a way to familiarize you with it. Figure 3.2 exhibits an application of Burke’s pentadic method of analysis to the section you just read. You can understand the overall thrust of the text in terms of the relation between Agent, Barzelay, and Purpose, strengthening disciplinary identity.6 That is a prime motive – see Barzelay (2019), especially chapters 1 and 8. This chapter’s specific motive is to attract allies to recasting public management as a design-oriented professional discipline. That motive figures into the specific character of the Handbook chapter, as a sense-giving endeavour. That’s indicated by the titles involving the pentodes (vertices) of Act, Scene and Purpose as well as the pentadic “ratios” of Act–Scene and Act–Purpose (presented graphically by the interior vertex-connecting lines). The sense-giving task is carried out, in significant measure, by two characteristics of the earlier discussion, both involving the pentode that Burke curiously titled Agency, to point to the role of symbolically encoded orientations and expertise in giving particular meaning to a given situation, consistent with the Agent’s purpose. One characteristic, given by the interior, upward sloping Scene–Agency ratio, is to widen the circumference of references in discussing the character of (strategic) public management. The broadening involves Simon’s idea titled here as design-oriented professional disciplines, where the locus classicus is his Sciences of the Artificial, specifically chapter 5. There’s a further broadening, which is to expand the repertoire for examining discussions beyond that of tracking arguments to that of engaging with them as symbolic action (for which Burke is a key source).7 Accordingly, Simon and Burke join Moore in playing the role of the Agency within this pentad’s overall configuration. The earlier discussion’s other key characteristic, indicated by the exterior

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Figure 3.2

Introducing pentadic analysis of texts

Agency–Act ratio, titled as transcending the orientations, is weaving these references together into a new “whole” that accords with the pentad’s Agent–Purpose and Agent–Act ratios as stated above. The titling of the lower-right exterior ratio between Agency and Purpose as re-imagining public management does more than any other pentode or ratio title in revealing the goal to which this exercise in sense-making is meant to make a causal contribution.

ESSENTIALIZING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN GOVERNMENT This section takes a step back to establish an interpretation of Moore’s discussion of strategic management of government (SMG) that can then be augmented by ideas recruited from Simon and other sources concerned with design-oriented professional disciplines and professional knowledge in them. First, I characterize SMG in its entirety, using perspectives that are contextual in respect to Moore’s book. Second, I give an interpretation of SMG’s conceptual frame in relation to which its hallmark terms (such as “public managers” and “creating public value”) play a role. In doing so, I propose that the verbal symbol SPM, as well as that of the “strategic triangle”, be employed to title the idea of professional knowledge about public organizations and their management. That move allows for pursuing the idea that SMG (as a professional practice) can be enhanced by augmenting its SPM-centred professional

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knowledge, by way of recruiting ideas from design-oriented professional disciplines along with other sources (such as New Rhetoric). The most essential characteristic of Moore’s text is that it is theoretical. To say that, however, is to invoke context (Murphy, 2002). Moore’s theoretical discussion is broadly consonant with the idea of practical argumentation, whose hallmark is concern for the practical (and moral) aptness of discrete action or courses of action within a human community (Vickers, 1965; White, 1985; Hood and Jackson, 1991; March and Olsen, 2011). By contrast, it would be misleading (even a category error) to say that Moore’s theoretical discussion is an empirical theory, whether concerned with populations or conceptual entities (Ragin, 1987; Yin, 2017). Now, practical argumentation, in the central sense of the term (Lakoff, 1987), is about the aptness of action in actual situations (Quintilian, 1920). Theories concerned with apt action within a human community are not practical arguments in this colloquial, central sense of the term. A theoretical discussion concerned with practical argumentation consists in statements about action (in some domain) considered archetypally. I like to refer to such theories about apt action as purposive theories (Barzelay, 2019), where the main contrast category, as far as social science is concerned, is empirical theory.8 Accordingly, Moore’s text is a theoretical discussion of apt action – professional practice – directed at public organizations and especially their management. In form, Moore’s discussion is an archetype of public management, considered as a professional practice. In content, SMG is a specific archetype of the professional practice of public management. If you associate Moore’s purposive theory of public management with the strategic triangle, as is natural, then you might ruminate over how it relates to the terminology just introduced. By way of review, the strategic triangle is the title of the idea that the purpose of policy interventions, considered archetypally, is to create public value, while the role of public organizations, also considered archetypally, is to make “causal contributions” (Boorse, 2002) to the fulfilment of this teleology. Accordingly, the teleology of public organizations, considered archetypally, is to meet two strategic imperatives attendant on creating public value, namely (a) securing authorizers’ support – in governance and financial terms – for performing their role as implementors of apt policy interventions and (b) furnishing the operational capacity required for the apt implementation of policy interventions. How does the strategic triangle relate to SMG considered as an archetype of professional practice? It’s similar in that it’s theoretical and about the same domain. However, it’s different in that it is a statement of an idea about public organizations, considered archetypally, that should be used as a reference when a public manager, considered archetypally, is doing professional practice. As a reference, the strategic triangle is imagined as being a source of implications concerning apt courses of action, by public managers engaged in professional practice, for meeting a public organization’s strategic imperatives of securing support and furnishing operational capacity and, accordingly, for creating public value. Thus, the strategic triangle is an aspect of SMG, considered as an archetypal professional practice – with its role being that of a reference.

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As a slight digression, if public management is considered as a professional discipline, in the way discussed in the previous section, then the strategic triangle, considered as a reference for the professional practice of public management, is aptly associated with the idea of professional knowledge. That association raises a question as to whether some, but not all, statements about SMG belong with the idea of professional knowledge, while others don’t. Consider, for example, Moore’s idea that public managers, considered archetypally, are strategists, entrepreneurs, and small-scale statespeople. As strategists, they act to effectuate (Sarasvathy, 2001) the fulfilment of the strategic imperatives of support and capacity as they relate to creating public value. As entrepreneurs, they exhibit a positive attitude towards the creation of novelty in public organizations’ practices and systems as well as strategy content. As small-scale statespeople, they embrace the challenge of navigating within a public organization’s institutionally fragmented authorizing environment with the aim of reaching a stretch of water where the organization’s strategic imperatives can be met through practical means. Compared with the strategic triangle, this band of ideas has more in keeping with cultural schema for agents in public life and in other settings than with ideas – like the strategic triangle – that are specifically about public organizations and their management. I prefer to think of the strategic triangle (and related ideas) – but not the ideas of strategist, entrepreneur and small-scale statesperson – as professional knowledge. Admittedly, the aptness of the distinction is due to the commitment to frame public management as a design-oriented professional discipline – an idea that requires associating some theoretical ideas about a professional practice with the concept of professional knowledge. As a further step in the same digression, it is worth stressing that Moore didn’t adopt the frame of a design-oriented – or any type of – professional discipline. For that reason, the distinction made here between the idea of professional practice and that of professional knowledge wasn’t needed – either to make the theory clear as an argument or as a way to foster favourable attitudes towards what Moore was putting on display. It would have been useless, and perhaps even seen as out-of-place if it had been added in. By contrast, without the verbal symbol of professional knowledge being enunciated, the idea of public management being a professional discipline cannot be sufficiently dramatized. That is a motive for associating the strategic triangle with the idea of professional knowledge; and because professional knowledge should be analogous to the idea of domain knowledge in design-oriented professional disciplines, the notions of strategist, entrepreneur and small-scale statesperson need to be cast in a different role than professional knowledge. Having argued that Moore’s ideas about SMG are consonant with theories about apt courses of action in a particular domain, while having further suggested that professional knowledge is aptly associated with a professional discipline’s domain knowledge, I wish to proceed to characterize Moore’s text in more detail – but still holistically. For this purpose, it’s highly advantageous to use a method that is designed to do just that with literary and other texts. That method has already been introduced: it’s Burke’s dramatistic method and its graphical manifestation as Burke’s pentad.9 Accordingly, I’ll now talk you through Figure 3.3.

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Figure 3.3

The Moore–Burke pentagram for strategic management in government

The pentagram exhibited in Figure 3.3 assigns pentadic roles to public manager, authorizing environment, creating public value, and the strategic triangle. Public manager is assigned to the Agent role. Creating public value is assigned to the Purpose role. The strategic triangle is assigned to the Agency role. While none of these three pentadic assignments should trigger any notable feeling of conceptual dissonance, the assignment of the strategic triangle to Agency will seem terminologically strange, because agency’s meaning within Burke’s dramatistic method is unrelated to its meaning in Sociology as a categorically distinct source of social process than social structure. Indeed, the idea of socially recognized practical knowledge is associated with Agency in Burke’s writings; accordingly, any idea from Moore’s text that is analogous to that specific sense of Agency is aptly assigned to that pentode. Before discussing other features of the Moore/Burke (M/B) pentagram, I’d like to explain the absence of terms assigned to the Act and Scene pentodes. The general reason is that Moore’s strategic public management archetype treats these aspects of situations as specific to time and place in a way that’s not true of the concepts of public manager, creating public value, and the strategic triangle. Public manager and creating public value, in relation to one another, define Moore’s theory of strategic management in government, while the strategic triangle gives it a measure of content. In this theory, what would get assigned to the Act pentode is the actions that professional practice calls for. As such, what can be said theoretically about the Act pentode can only be inferred from the rest of the M/B pentagram’s features. The Scene pentode is somewhat different in that a wide variety of theoretical ideas about public administration, including some of Moore’s, can be assigned to it. An example is the idea of sub-government or policy subsystem (Baumgartner and Jones,

Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management  35

1993), which is fairly closely analogous with Moore’s concept of a public organization’s authorizing environment. Other examples are networks (Lecy, Mergel and Schmitz, 2014), professions (Fitzgerald and Ferlie, 2000) and stakeholder interest groups (Bryson, 2004). Finally, one could certainly add any variety of classification of roles within the same organization where a public manager holds office, such as the technostructure and operating core (Mintzberg, 1980). Up to this point, pentadic analysis is mainly helpful in providing a compact representation of an inevitably sprawling text. Matters get a bit more interesting when assigning Moore’s concepts to the pentadic ratios, which operate as sources of wholeness in this characterization of strategic management in government. Earlier, I mentioned the schemas of strategist, entrepreneur and small-scale statesperson that feature in Moore’s discussion. I assign these schemas to the Agent–Purpose ratio, as they indicate what cultural ideas about agent-roles are to serve as a reference for agents as they effectuate public value creation. It is worth noting that Moore’s own discussion of what is here characterized as the Agent–Purpose ratio served to position strategic public management in a discourse field that included what he regarded as orthodoxies of traditional public administration; moreover, it’s difficult to discern any other feature of the pentagram that could be seen as discursively incompatible with the latter. Consistent with the strategic triangle, a public organization’s twin strategic imperatives of securing support and furnishing capacity to implement policy interventions can be assigned to the pentagram’s Act–Purpose ratio. This statement means that actions by public managers are meant to fulfil these imperatives, because the ultimate teleological purpose of creating public value will be far from achieved if there are deep deficits in support for a public organization and/or if there are significant inadequacies in the use of a public organization’s assets and resources, considering what’s necessitated by policy interventions’ implementation. The conceptual point is that any idea about the functional teleology of public organizations, where public value creation is the ultimate purpose, is aptly assigned to the pentagram’s Act–Purpose ratio. The assignment of “a manager’s intervention” to the Act–Scene ratio is attuned to the discussion of cases in Moore’s book. As a matter of narration, the event-happenings that involve actions by the determinate public managers in the cases cohere together to make the cases followable stories. They are consistent with what the literature on narratology calls central subjects (Hull, 1975). Some central subjects are social entities, like groups or organizations, while other central subjects are temporal entities, like campaigns or careers (Abbott, 2001). A manager’s intervention is a temporal entity, whose beginning occurs near the time of appointment to a role and whose ending occurs when the determinate individual moves on for one reason or another. Of course, a manager’s intervention is more than a matter of narration: it’s also the focus of Moore’s case commentaries, which – unlike the stories – contribute directly to elaborating Moore’s theoretical argument about the professional practice of strategic management in government.10 In this fashion, a manager’s intervention holds greater practical significance than any discrete action or event-happening. Indeed,

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within Moore’s theory, a manager’s intervention is the main practical means by which public managers effectuate the fulfilment of a public organization’s strategic imperatives of securing support and furnishing operational capability and, thereby, effectuate public value creation. As can be seen by now, the pentadic analysis is indeed holistic while at the same time being fine-grained in its working out of the elements of a theory of a professional practice. Brief mention will now be made of other features of Figure 3.3 before moving on. First, the Agent–Act ratio suggests that public managers’ actions might well communicate the idea of the strategic triangle, as features of a manager’s intervention. Doing so may be for justificatory purposes or rather to frame a discussion of matters for consideration. When that is done, as per Burke’s dramatism, the public manager is using a specific idea about the functional teleology of public organizations as means of action. Second, the Agent–Agency ratio suggests that strategic public management will be meaningful as an aspect of the manager’s intervention if those witnessing or otherwise concerned with it believe that the manager’s reflective understanding of these ideas about public organizations lie behind it. The question of how the public manager’s intervention will be seen in this light rises to the surface if one views Moore’s theory in these Burkean terms. Third, the Agency–Scene ratio suggests that a practical answer to this question is for public managers to role model the ideas of strategic public management as they communicate and otherwise act throughout their interventions. By way of synthesis, the following statements have a role to play in characterizing strategic management in government. The purpose of strategic management in government is to create public value within a terministic realm related to implemented policy interventions. The purpose is pursued through organizationally situated interventions in which persons holding office endowed with managerial authority – referred to as public managers – play a variety of roles, as do others in some capacity or another. A hallmark of interventions is for public managers to give form to discussions of what courses of action would effectuate public value creation. As public managers participate in such discussions, their deliberations are broadly directed towards determining how well such courses of action would contribute to fulfilling two strategic imperatives for public value creation: securing support (authority, resources, leeway) and furnishing operational capacity for policy delivery. As for the cultural schemas that serve as frames for the situated action of public managers as they exercise office, three fit with the professional practice of strategic management in government: strategist, entrepreneur and small-scale statesperson. As they gain reputation for the appropriateness and practicality of their participation in such situations of professional practice, public managers make a mark in establishing strategic public management as a recognizable and valued professional practice.

Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management  37

ESSENTIALIZING DESIGN-ORIENTED PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE I begin this section by using Burke’s pentadic method of rhetorical criticism to essentialize Herbert Simon’s character-sketch of design-oriented professional practice, as discussed in his Sciences of the Artificial, chapter 5 (Simon, 1996). The graphical summary of this analysis is presented in Figure 3.4. As you have become acclimated to my use of this method, I will move quickly through a discussion of this figure. I hope that as I do so, you will be seeing analogies and disanalogies between it and the earlier discussion of Moore’s strategic management in government.

Figure 3.4

The Simon–Burke pentagram for design-oriented professional practice

I begin by assigning concepts to the design (for short) pentagram’s pentodes. To the Agent pentode, I assign professional practitioner, which is the term Simon uses for people who enter situations as professionals who have received an education in a design-oriented professional discipline (such as architecture or engineering). Simon’s characterization of professional practice, centring on agents, plays up their skilful use of professional knowledge. Echoing artificial intelligence terminology (Dym, 1994), Simon used the term “domain knowledge” to title knowledge that is specific to an area of specialization; by way of contrast, he used the term “design knowledge” to title knowledge that is apt for use in professional practice no matter what the practitioner’s area of specialization is – or what the situation is. These two terms – domain knowledge and design knowledge – are assigned to Figure 3.4’s Agency pentode. (They can be assimilated to professional knowledge.)

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The other two pentode assignments reflect what I see as context for Simon’s text.11 The Scene includes collections of individuals who have an interest in a particular undertaking where design-oriented professional practice has a contribution to make. The descriptive categories for such collections of individuals assigned to the Scene pentode are clients for the work, stakeholders in the situation, and colleagues of the practitioner in question. Other terms appropriate to the Scene pentode can be added as stakeholders is a capacious category. Turning now to Purpose, the chosen verbal symbol assigned to this pentode is ideal final results, which is a key concept in TRIZ, that is, the theory of inventive problem-solving (Terninko, Zusman and Zlotin, 1998), which is widely known, especially in circles connected to mechanical engineering and product development. Within TRIZ’s purposive theory of problem-solving, an ideal final result is a characterization of an ideal outcome of a specific design activity where all the functions of what Simon called an artificial system are achieved without causing any problem – and where ideally (but unattainably) no cost is involved (Mishra, 2013). While other terms could be aptly assigned to the Purpose role, ideal final results seems ideal! As with the Moore pentagram (and in Burke’s commentary on his method), the rubber hits the road once the pentadic ratios come up for discussion. Let’s begin with the Act–Purpose ratio. Now, the Act is a placeholder for an agent’s symbolic action within a situation. Accordingly, the Act–Purpose ratio is generally a way of conceptualizing the purposive nature of any such symbolic action, one that has some relation with the other aspects of a situation, such as the Scene. Simon’s phrasing of purposive action within the situations he characterized archetypally involved the creating of artificial systems. Nonetheless, it was understood that artificial systems are practical means to achieve a purposeful result in what Burke called a terministic realm (Burke, 1968), such as a governmental research and development programme (like the Manhattan Project)12 or a business, as is evident from the outset of Sciences of the Artificial. Given that ideal final results are assigned to the Purpose pentode, the Act–Purpose ratio is aptly titled as creating practical means to approximate ideal final results. Moving slightly to the left, I’ve titled the Act–Scene ratio as participating in a design project. I have used “design project” to title what Simon’s text suggested is the archetypal site (in a sociological sense) for the work of professional practitioners in creating novel artificial systems (Barzelay, 2019). Simon’s text made clear that creating such systems was archetypically a collective effort in an organizational context of some variety. The idea that design-projects are the site for creating artificial systems fits with the assignment of colleagues and clients to Scene. Given that the ratio is about the relation of Scene to Act, it makes sense to title it as design-project participation. Accelerating further, the Agent–Purpose ratio is aptly titled by role-based cultural schemas. Simon’s discussion of why the professional schools serving as sites for educating would-be professional practitioners should develop their design competence (including creativity) reflects cultural schemas centred on ingenious problem-solvers, for example, characters whose creativity and analytical abilities are instrumental in

Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management  39

creating apt artificial systems as practical means to attain results in terministic realms. The Agent–Purpose ratio title of creative/ingenious problem-solver reflects role-based cultural schemas of this variety. Rounding out the Simon–Burke pentagram, consider the titles for the Agent– Agency ratio.13 It’s a characteristic of pentadic analysis that the titles of these ratios (and the ideas they name) correlate with the Agency pentode, which has been titled as domain knowledge and design knowledge (or professional knowledge). I have opted for the title of a knowledge-using professional. Given this broad-gauged title, it must be emphasized that the Agent–Agency ratio’s meaning stems partly from what’s assigned to the pentagram’s Agency pentode. The overarching concept assigned to this role is professional knowledge, which, viewed as a conceptual frame includes “slots” in relation to which domain knowledge and design knowledge are “values” (Minsky, 1981; Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). Accordingly, the meaning of the Agent–Agency ratio’s title becomes progressively thicker as specific content is assigned to domain knowledge and design knowledge.14 Context is relevant to the meaning of “knowledge-using professional”. In literature on the design-oriented professional practice, focusing on architecture (Lawson, 2004; Younés, 2016), product engineering (Cross, 2008), programme evaluation and management (Tranfield, Huff and Van Aken, 2006; Augier and March, 2011), a designer is seen, archetypally, as being knowledgeable, resourceful, anchored, imaginative, playful, articulate, and measured in bringing domain or design knowledge into the circumference of situations of professional practice. This characterization – with its emphasized relation to knowledge-use – signifies a distancing between design and craft, as the latter is characterized as being centred squarely on the use of know-how, whereas design-oriented professional practice is characterized as being much less so (Heskett, 2005). The other big contrast is with abstract cases, such as evidence-based medicine, where professional practice is characterized as centred squarely on the application of technological rules (Bunge, 1966; van Aken, 2004) and, as such, the role-concept of “expert” is aptly assigned to the Agent–Purpose ratio.15 You will have gathered by now that nothing cuts to the identity of the archetype of design-oriented professional practice more than its Agent–Agency ratio of a knowledge-using professional. By way of synthesis, the following statements have a role to play in characterizing design-oriented professional practice, as a step towards bringing it into contact with SPM. The purpose of design-oriented professional practice is to create practical means to effectuate ideal final results for a terministic realm. That purpose is pursued through organizationally situated design projects to which professional practitioners belong, as do colleagues, clients and stakeholders in their varying capacities. A hallmark of design projects is for professional practitioners to bring items of professional knowledge into the circumference of the situation, such that they are accorded the status of design-references. In such situations, what is said and done by a professional practitioner acquires meaning from the role they play as a colleague, from the professional knowledge they are seen to be using, and from evolving characteristics of the design project, such as alterations in ideal final results to be effectuate and

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evolving representations of would-be artificial systems. Professional practitioners role-model their professional practice as they engage in it, giving a certain meaning to the situations where they pursue purposes within the cultural frame that includes a designer-role.16

CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING FOR PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AS DESIGN-ORIENTED PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINE We have now used Burke’s dramatism and pentadic method of analysing texts (and their contexts) to characterize two archetypes of professional practice that fall within the circumference of the design-oriented professional discipline of public management: (a) strategic management in government and (b) design-oriented professional practice. In deliberating on how to perform the developmental and delivery functions of this discipline, it’s an apt exercise to use (b) to gain perspective on (a). Doing so is not a commonplace in the Academy, although publications by leading figures in public management can be mentioned for reasons of inspiration and precedent, such as Bardach (1998) and Crosby and Bryson (2005). I made a go at this in my 2019 book, but I wasn’t equipped with Burke’s method when I tried to do it.17 The task might be stated as characterizing frame similarity (or consonance) and dissimilarity (or dissonance). A good place to start is with the Act–Purpose ratios. For (a), it’s courses of action whose paths and outcomes are instrumental to fulfilling the imperatives of securing support and furnishing capacity to effectuate public value creation, while for (b), it’s creating practical means, centrally artificial systems, that make causal contributions to achieving ideal final results in a terministic realm.18 The contrast between the SMG and design archetypes’ Act–Purpose ratio titles has distinct sources. The readily apparent one is that the design archetype is not specific to any terministic realm, whereas SMG is specific to that of implemented policy interventions. The less apparent source is history of thought. SMG’s genealogical lineages lie in purposive theorizing of policy interventions (Dunn, 2019), while the design archetype’s lineages lie in the history of theorizing artificial systems (Simon, 1996; Kroes, 2002) and inventive or otherwise creative problem-solving (Terninko, Zusman and Zlotin, 1998; Goldratt and Cox, 2016; Lawson, 2019). These are distinctly different traditions of practical argumentation, each with their own variants. That poses a challenge for sense-giving if one is to pursue the idea of a design-oriented professional discipline of public management. However, there are practical means for tackling it effectively, including learning about the history of thought behind the two archetypes and using “equipment” from the field of rhetorical criticism – like Burke’s – to sort through it. Let’s now turn to the Act–Scene ratios. For (a), it’s an intervention whose functional teleology is given by the SMG archetype’s Act–Purpose ratio, whose protagonists are public managers whose purposive role-orientations are given by the SMG archetype’s Agent–Purpose ratio, and whose path and outcome involves

Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management  41

symbolic action by agents comprising the situation–Scene (including organization members and office-holders in the authorizing environment). For (b), it’s a design project whose functional teleology is given by the design archetype’s Act–Purpose ratio, whose situation–Agents are professional practitioners whose purposive role-orientations are given by that archetype’s Agent–Purpose ratio, and whose path and outcome involves symbolic action by agents comprising the situation–Scene (including clients, colleagues and stakeholders). The contrast between the SMG and design archetypes’ Act–Scene ratios also reflects differences in genealogical lineage. For (a), the lineage includes the management field’s long-standing concern with executive-led transitions that organizations undergo (Kotter, 1996), with Selznick (1957) being a historically major influence (Rumelt, Schendel and Teece, 1994). For (b), it’s more of an interest of design-oriented professional disciplines in management (Simon, 1996). While there is something of a challenge in bridging these lineages, a variety of publications have already gone quite a distance in this respect. We can look quickly at the Agent–Purpose ratios. For (a), it’s the role-schemas of strategist, entrepreneur and small-scale statesperson. For (b), it’s the role-schema of an ingenious/creative designer. The contrast is intriguing. As a matter of cultural schema, there’s no dissonance between entrepreneur in (a) and ingenious creative/ designer in (b) (Isaacson, 2012). As for strategist and ingenious/creative designer, there’s substantial consonance (Mintzberg, 1994), with the caveat that since the meanings of these role-schemas are tied to the Act–Purpose ratios of the pentagrams to which they belong, and as the latter have rather different lineages, there’s some measure of incongruity between the former. That’s not a bad thing, however (Watson, 2020)! Finally, as for small-scale statesperson, there’s no obvious connection to the design archetype, which suggests a significant opportunity for transcending lineages, as is well recognized (Sharp, 2011; Andrews, 2013). I conclude this round of archetype-comparisons by discussing (the very important) Agent–Agency ratios. For (a), it’s exhibiting a reflective understanding of strategic public management by showing an ability to relate it to a situation of professional practice in public organizations. For (b), it’s exhibiting the use of professional knowledge in a resourceful, anchored, imaginative, playful, articulate and measured way in a design project or other situation of design-oriented professional practice. Examining this contrast is important to contemplating the role of strategic public management in a design-oriented professional discipline of public management. In examining it, we might consider genealogical lineages. The genealogy of (a) reflects something of a presumption that the agents concerned are endowed with effective means of exercising authority (although that’s not true of Moore’s book), whereas (b) reflects a presumption that a design-oriented professional practitioner earns influence by exhibiting the use of professional knowledge as they effectuate situation–Purpose. For reasons that have been set out by many others in relation to the presumption I associated with (a)’s Agent–Agency ratio (Heifetz, 1994; Catlaw, 2006; Ezrahi, 2012), I conclude that there’s much merit in thinking about how the design-oriented professional discipline of public management could bring (b)’s Agent–Agency ratio into its core identity. To do that involves quite a lot of conceptual engineering – and

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more! – in developing a design-oriented professional discipline whose domain is public organizations and their management.

NOTES 1. Elusiveness was said to be a characteristic of strategic management of businesses and firms in a survey discussion from the 1990s (Rumelt, Schendel and Teece, 1994). 2. The use of this verbal symbol, public organizations, is meant to be the same as its use (and hence meaning) in Moore (1995). 3. The term, purposive realm, accords with “terministic realm” (Burke, 1968). This move aligns with Moore (1995). Chapter 2 of Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government was concerned with public programmes as a broad form of policy interventions (distinct from taxes and subsidies); public programmes were presented as being the locus of public value creation, while public organizations were presented as being an archetypal source of practical means for fulfilling the teleology of public programmes (that being creating public value). Strategic public management – the professional practice – was, in turn, the archetypal source of such practical means. This already-distilled argument was then further condensed into the line that public managers create public value. This version then became detached from the longer one, unfortunately. See Barzelay (2019), especially chapter 3. 4. Strategic public management can be used as a domain-specific title for the sub-branch, furnishing professional knowledge. That branch is further divisible into aspects of such knowledge, here presented as purposive theories and case-based knowledge, in keeping with Barzelay (2019). 5. A very good introduction, freely available on the internet, is Gusfield (1990), as is Overington (1977). A good book chapter on the pentadic method of criticism is King (2009), who comments that “the method [Burke] invented is simple and complex, flexible yet straightforward, both prosaic and poetic” (p. 165). 6. In this regard, also see the entry on “Public Management as a Design-Oriented Professional Discipline”, in the Encyclopedia of Public Management (Schedler, 2022). 7. For examples of tracking arguments about public management in an intentionally precise manner, see Barzelay (1999, 2000). 8. There’s no shortage of reflective discussions about the titling of theoretical discussion concerned with practical argumentation and, accordingly, the aptness of action. In public administration, a clear such discussion can be found in Hood and Jackson’s (1991) Administrative Argument, where the idea of doctrine appears as the content of arguments about the archetype of managing an organization (by performing the function of organizing). 9. Burke’s dramatistic method is discussed in practical guides to writing. It is illustrated in speech and text analysis and commentary in the communication studies and rhetoric fields. The most illuminating publication that I have read in this regard is, curiously, William FitzGerald’s Spiritual Modalities (FitzGerald, 2012). Reading it in August 2020 convinced me that Burke’s dramatism is an essential reference for public management (and much more). My first uses of this way of essentializing purposive theories of management were in a conference paper and presentation at the Netherlands Institute of Governance’s research conference in November 2020 (Barzelay, Love, Swann and Yan, 2020) and during a symposium on my 2019 book at the European Academy of Management (EURAM) in December 2020 (see https://​www​.youtube​.com/​watch​?v​=​ kfym85Xukf4). I am extremely grateful to my co-authors for joining me on this journey.

Finding a role for design-oriented practice in strategic public management  43

10. In this respect, a contextual characterization of Moore’s theoretical discussion of strategic management is that its philosophical genre is casuistry. On casuistry, see Jonsen and Toulmin (1988). On genre, see Miller, Devitt and Gallagher (2018). 11. No concept, verbal symbol, or term (as you prefer!) is assigned to the Act pentode for reasons that are like the ones behind the absence of such an assignment in Figure 3.3 (Moore). Acts are inherently specific and situated in Burke’s dramatism, while the pentadic method here is applied to a text about an archetype (of professional practice). 12. For Simon, a role model of such a terministic realm was the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb – see Augier and March (2011). 13. The Agent–Act ratio is titled as playing the character-role of designer. The background idea is that the specifics of situation–Act will call forth cultural schemas of character-roles, and the adoption of one or another of which contributes to how situation–participants’ experience not only the situation–Agent but also the situation–Act. As we are here speaking archetypally about design-oriented professional practice, it seems natural to assign the character-role of a designer to the Simon–Burke pentagram’s Agent–Act ratio. 14. In making moves in this direction, good starting points are Dym (1994) and Lawson (2004). 15. Augier and March (2011) assess this point in discussing the case of Herbert Simon as a contrarian member of the “modern management school” faculty at Carnegie Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA). Simon opposed design-oriented professional practice to the mainstream of teaching and research at GSIA, which fit the professional practitioner/applied science frame. 16. A book-length version of this synthesis is van Aken and Berends (2018), Problem-Solving in Organizations. A partial summary is presented in chapter 4 of Barzelay (2019). 17. In retrospect, the major strand of New Rhetoric that served as my orientation towards essentializing Moore and Simon (and other work) was argumentation theory, rather than symbolic action, just as was true of my earlier analyses and commentaries on work about the New Public Management (Barzelay, 1999, 2000). Symbolic action and argumentation theory are definitely different strands of New Rhetoric. 18. Note that this isn’t a simple analogy but one involving an analogical relation between an A and a B where A includes a relation between a and b and B includes a relation between c and d. It’s a complex analogy (Andriani and Carignani, 2018), an idea that goes back to Aristotle (White, 2010).

REFERENCES Abbott, A. (2001) Time Matters: On Theory and Method. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Andrews, M. (2013) The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Andriani, P. and Carignani, G. (2018) ‘Complex analogy and modular exaptation: some definitional clarifications’, in Middleton-Kelly, E., Paraskevas, A. and Day, C. (eds) Handbook of Research Methods in Complexity Science: Theory and Applications. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 483–506. Augier, M. and March, J. G. (2011) The Roots, Rituals, and Rhetorics of Change: North American Business Schools After the Second World War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bardach, E. (1998) Getting Agencies to Work Together: The Practice and Theory of Managerial Craftsmanship. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Barzelay, M. (1999) ‘How to argue about the New Public Management’, International Public Management Journal, 2(2), pp. 183–216.

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Barzelay, M. (2000) ‘The New Public Management: a bibliographical essay for Latin American (and other) scholars’, International Public Management Journal, 3(2), pp. 229–65. Barzelay, M. (2019) Public Management as a Design-Oriented Professional Discipline. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Barzelay, M., Love, A., Swann, W. and Yan, Y. (2020) ‘Finding meaning in modernist Public Administration: using Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic pentad in interpreting Herbert Simon’s “Proverbs of Administration”’, Netherlands Institute of Governance Research Conference, 11 November. Baumgartner, F. R. and Jones, B. D. (1993) Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Boorse, C. (2002) ‘A rebuttal on functions’, in Ariew, A., Cummins, R. and Perlman, M. (eds) Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 63–112. Bryson, J. M. (2004) ‘What to do when stakeholders matter: stakeholder identification and analysis techniques’, Public Management Review, 6(1), pp. 21–53. Bunge, M. (1966) ‘Technology as applied science’, Technology and Culture, 7, pp. 329–47. Burke, K. (1968) ‘Dramatism’, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 7, pp. 445–52. Buzan, T. (2018) Mind Map Mastery: The Complete Guide to Learning and Using the Most Powerful Tool in the Universe. London, UK: Watkins. Catlaw, T. J. (2006) ‘Authority, representation, and the contradictions of posttraditional governing’, American Review of Public Administration, 36(3), pp. 261–87. Crosby, B. C. and Bryson, J. M. (2005) Leadership for the Common Good: Tackling Public Problems in a Shared-power World. 2nd edn. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons. Cross, N. (2008) Engineering Design Methods: Strategies for Product Design. 4th edn. Chichester, UK: Wiley. Dunn, W. N. (2019) Pragmatism and the Origins of the Policy Sciences: Rediscovering Lasswell and the Chicago School. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dym, C. L. (1994) Engineering Design: A Synthesis of Views. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ezrahi, Y. (2012) Imagined Democracies: Necessary Political Fictions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Fauconnier, G. and Turner, M. (2002) The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York, NY: Basic Books. Fitzgerald, L. and Ferlie, E. (2000) ‘Professionals: back to the future?’, Human Relations, 53(5), pp. 713–39. FitzGerald, W. (2012) Spiritual Modalities: Prayer as Rhetoric and Performance. University Park, PA: Penn State Press. Goldratt, E. M. and Cox, J. (2016) The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. 3rd edn. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Gusfield, J. R. (1990) ‘The bridge over separated lands’, Hermès, 8(9), pp. 321–42. Hamel, G. and Prahalad, C. K. (1996) Competing for the Future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Heath, C. and Heath, D. (2008) Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck. London, UK: Random House. Heifetz, R. A. (1994) Leadership Without Easy Answers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heskett, J. (2005) Design: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Hood, C. and Jackson, M. W. (1991) Administrative Argument. Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth. Hull, D. L. (1975) ‘Central subjects and historical narratives’, History and Theory, 14(3), pp. 253–74.

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Isaacson, W. (2012) ‘The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs’, Harvard Business Review, 90(4), pp. 92–102. Jonsen, A. R. and Toulmin, S. (1988) The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. King, A. (2009) ‘Pentadic criticism: the wheels of creation’, in Kuypers, J. A. (ed.) Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Kotter, J. P. (1996) Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Kroes, P. (2002) ‘Design methodology and the nature of technical artefacts’, Design Studies, 23(3), pp. 287–302. Lakoff, G. (1987) Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. L. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lawson, B. (2004) What Designers Know. Oxford, UK: Architectural Press. Lawson, B. (2019) The Design Student’s Journey: Understanding How Designers Think. London, UK: Routledge. Lecy, J. D., Mergel, I. A. and Schmitz, H. P. (2014) ‘Networks in public administration: current scholarship in review’, Public Management Review, 16(5), pp. 643–65. March, J. G. and Olsen, J. P. (2011) ‘The logic of appropriateness’, in Goodin, R. E. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Science. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 478–97. Miller, C. R., Devitt, A. J. and Gallagher, V. J. (2018) ‘Genre: permanence and change’, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 48(3), pp. 269–77. Minsky, M. (1981) ‘A framework for representing knowledge’, in Haugeland, J. (ed.) Mind Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 95–128. Mintzberg, H. (1980) ‘Structure in 5’s: a synthesis of the research on organization design’, Management Science, 26(3), pp. 322–41. Mintzberg, H. (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. New York, NY: Prentice Hall. Mishra, U. (2013) ‘Introduction to the concept of ideality in TRIZ’. Available at: https://​papers​ .ssrn​.com/​sol3/​papers​.cfm​?abstract​_id​=​2273178. Moore, M. H. (1995) Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Murphy, G. L. (2002) The Big Book of Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Overington, M. A. (1977) ‘Kenneth Burke and the method of dramatism’, Theory and Society, 4(1), pp. 131–56. Quintilian (1920) Institutio Oratoria. Edited by H. E. Butler. Available at: http://​www​.perseus​ .tufts​.edu/​hopper/​text​?doc​=​urn:​cts:​latinLit:​phi1002​.phi0013​.perseus​-eng1:​5. Ragin, C. C. (1987) The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rumelt, R. P., Schendel, D. E. and Teece, D. (1994) ‘Fundamental issues in strategy’, in Rumelt, R. P., Schendel, D. E. and Teece, D. (eds) Fundamental Issues in Strategy: A Research Agenda. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, pp. 9–47. Sarasvathy, S. D. (2001) ‘Causation and effectuation: toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency’, Academy of Management Review, 26(2), pp. 243–63. Schedler, K. (2022), ‘Public management as a design-oriented professional discipline’, in Schedler, K. (ed.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Public Management. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 37–42. Selznick, P. (1957) Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson. Sharp, G. (2011) From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. London, UK: Serpent’s Tail. Simon, H. A. (1996) Sciences of the Artificial. 3rd edn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Terninko, J., Zusman, A. and Zlotin, B. (1998) Systematic Innovation: An Introduction to TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Tranfield, D., Huff, A. and van Aken, J. (2006) ‘Management as a design science mindful of art and surprise’, Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(4), pp. 413–24. van Aken, J. E. (2004) ‘Management research based on the paradigm of the design sciences: the quest for field-tested and grounded technological rules’, Journal of Management Studies, 41(2), pp. 219–46. van Aken, J. E. and Berends, H. (2018) Problem Solving in Organizations. 3rd edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Vickers, S. G. (1965) The Art of Judgment: A Study of Policy-making. London, UK: Chapman and Hall. Watson, C. (2020) ‘Perspective by incongruity in the performance of dialectical ironic analysis: a disciplined approach’, Qualitative Research: QR, 20(1), pp. 91–107. White, J. B. (1985) Heracles’ Bow: Essays on the Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. White, R. M. (2010) Talking about God: The Concept of Analogy and the Problem of Religious Language. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Yin, R. K. (2017) Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. 5th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Younés, S. (2016) The Imperfect City: On Architectural Judgment. London, UK: Routledge.

4. Strategy at the state level Alasdair Roberts

RAISING OUR SIGHTS ABOUT STRATEGY Recently, scholars in public administration have emphasized the importance of developing knowledge in their field at different levels of analysis (Jilke et al. 2019; Roberts 2019: 16–18). For the last thirty years, the major emphasis has been at the middle- or meso-level of public administration. The “public management approach,” as it is sometimes known, focuses mainly on the meso-level: on the design and implementation of government programs and the management of public agencies or networks of agencies (Hughes 2003: chapter 3). More recently, however, scholars have argued for attention to the micro-level: that is, to the interactions and attitudes of individuals within the public sector (Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2017). And other scholars have argued for attention to the macro-level: to the choices of state leaders and the overall architecture of the institutional apparatus that constitutes a state (Milward et al. 2016). As contributors to this Handbook have emphasized, the concept of strategy can be examined at different levels of analysis as well. Precisely because of the long emphasis on the meso-level, much of the existing literature focuses on the crafting of strategies by agency executives, at the meso-level of government. Philip Heymann’s Politics of Public Management is a classic work in this vein (Heymann 1987: chapter 2). A concise overview of recent work in this area is provided by Bryson and George (2020). The micro-level level can also be construed as a study of the strategic choices of individuals, concerned with the ways in which public employees and members of the public engage in “purposeful, goal-directed and future-oriented behavior” (Christensen et al. 2020: 129). What is presently missing in the scholarly literature is an explanation of how strategy works at the macro-level of public administration. This chapter attempts to fill this gap. It distills an argument made in Strategies for Governing: Reinventing Public Administration for a Dangerous Century (Roberts 2019). We begin by borrowing a concept from the field of international relations – grand strategy – and amending it to create a new concept, that of strategies for governing. The thesis of this chapter is that state leaders formulate governing strategies that are designed to advance their priorities, and these strategies are put into effect by building or reforming those institutions that constitute a state. In this chapter I describe the key elements of this approach, and its key assumptions and corollaries; some research questions that might be pursued using this framework; and how this approach might be included in the curricula of public administration programs. A summary of key propositions discussed in this chapter is presented in Box 4.1. 47

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BOX 4.1 KEY PROPOSITIONS ABOUT STATE-LEVEL STRATEGY 1. The fundamental unit of political organization is the state. Every state has leaders: a small group of people who have substantial influence over the ordering of state goals and the means by which goals are pursued. 2. Generally, leaders are concerned with (a) maintaining internal order and popular legitimacy; (b) security from external attack and the recognition of legitimacy by other states; (c) promoting economic growth; and (d) survival in office. In addition, leaders ought to protect and promote human rights. 3. The behavior of leaders is guided by governance strategies that describe priorities and the means by which those priorities will be pursued. 4. Leaders implement governance strategies by designing, consolidating, administering, and renovating institutions. Every state consists of a complex of institutions that expresses a strategy for governing. 5. Crafting and implementing governance strategies is difficult because: a. Goals are not always compatible; b. There is uncertainty about which policies are most likely to advance goals; c. The existing body of institutions, laws, and practices must be accommodated; d. The environment for which the strategy is designed is turbulent, so priorities and methods frequently need to be reconsidered; e. The analytic capacity of leaders and executive agencies is strained by the complexity of strategy-making. 6. Governance strategies are varied, fragile, and ephemeral. They must be adjusted frequently as conditions change. This means that institutions, laws, and practices must also be renovated frequently. 7. Scholars and practitioners in the field of public administration should be experts in the overall design, construction, administration, and renovation of those institutions that constitute a state. They should use this expertise to help leaders craft governing strategies that are effective, durable, and normatively defensible. Source:  Abbreviated from Roberts (2019: 23–5).

There are three powerful reasons why we need to understand state-level strategy more completely. Broad programs of public service reform are guided by high-level choices about national priorities – that is, by state-level strategy. Indeed, we can think of overall reform programs as the mechanism by which governing strategies are put into place. In addition, state-level strategy constrains strategy at the meso- and micro-levels (Roberts 2020a). That is, high-level choices about goals and overall institutional design set boundaries on the range of strategic choices that can be made by agency heads and frontline workers. Perhaps most importantly, sound decisions

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about state-level strategy are essential if societies are to remain secure, prosperous, and respectful of human rights. In the turbulent world of the twenty-first century, errors in state-level strategy-making can have devastating consequences for states and populations.

BEYOND GRAND STRATEGY One way to think about the subject of strategy at the state level is to begin with the concept of grand strategy and consider how it might be improved. The concept of grand strategy is familiar within the field of international relations (IR). IR has traditionally been concerned with the interaction of states, or in other words, with the dynamics of the state system (Booth 2014: 6–7). It is impossible to talk about the interactions of states without making some assumptions about the determinants of state behavior. A common approach is to regard each state as an institutional apparatus organized hierarchically – that is, roughly as a pyramid, with a set of leaders at its top (Campbell and Hall 2015: 4). It is further assumed that these leaders try to behave purposefully: that they identify goals or interests and tailor their interactions with other states to increase the likelihood of achieving those goals or interests (Mearsheimer 2001: chapter 2). The concept of grand strategy describes the combination of ideas about goals and methods that guide the behavior of state leaders within the state system. The concept of grand strategy has broadened over time. When it was introduced in the nineteenth century, the concept referred to an overall policy that guides the use of armed forces in a major war. The intention was to distinguish between “the large, broad plan for winning a whole war on several fronts … [and] the localized strategy of the commander of a single army” (Barrows 1942: 207). The era of total war (1914–45) led military thinkers to expand the concept so that it was not concerned only with the use of armed forces during wartime, but with the use of other national capacities as well. In 1941, British military historian B. H. Liddell Hart defined grand strategy as a “national war-policy” that explains how all the resources of a nation – military, economic, and political – will be applied to achieve war aims (Liddell Hart 1941: 10–11, 187–8, 202–5). Similarly, American military historian Edward Mead Earle defined grand strategy as “the art of controlling and utilizing the resources of a nation . . . to the end that its vital interests shall be effectively promoted against enemies” (Earle 1943: viii). The concept of grand strategy was revived in the 1980s by two historians at Yale University, Paul Kennedy and John Lewis Gaddis (Kulman 2016). Kennedy and Gaddis still conceived of grand strategy as something that involved the use of all national resources to protect national security (Kennedy 1991a: 167, 179–82; Gaddis 2002, 2004, 2005). But they broadened the concept in another way. Influenced by the experience of the Cold War, Kennedy and Gaddis conceived of grand strategy as something that was relevant in peacetime as well as periods of armed conflict. Kennedy, for example, defined grand strategy as the “husbanding of national

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resources” so that a state could survive in “an anarchic and often threatening international order” (Kennedy 1991b: 4–6). Some American scholars have stretched the concept of grand strategy even further, by expanding the range of possible goals beyond national security. For example, Hal Brands has defined it simply as “the intellectual architecture that gives form and structure to foreign policy … [and provides] a purposeful and coherent set of ideas about what a nation seeks to accomplish in the world, and how it should go about doing so” (Brands 2014: 2–3). Similarly, Edward Luttwak has observed that states may have many foreign policy goals, including territorial expansion, or an increase in economic aid, or simply being left alone to focus on domestic priorities (Luttwak 2001: 211). Likewise, Peter Trubowitz has argued that grand strategy “can be focused on many goals: security, power, wealth, national honor, and even the leaders’ own hold on executive power” (Trubowitz 2011: 1, 9). So, grand strategy today is a capacious concept: relevant to peacetime and wartime, concerned with the use of all national resources rather than just armed forces, and focused on many goals other than national security strictly defined. Still, it remains limited in one way: it is concerned only with the realm of foreign policy; that is, with interactions in other states. But should we reconsider this final limitation as well? In other words, why do we limit grand strategy to foreign affairs, while excluding domestic affairs? We can easily make an argument that leaders formulate a grand strategy for domestic affairs too. There are important parallels between the foreign and domestic realms. There is no state in which the domestic authority of leaders is not strained to some degree. Central government often struggles to establish influence over subnational authorities, economic actors, minority groups, or the general population. Many of the goals that are said to be important in foreign policy – power, legitimacy, wealth, survival in office – apply equally to domestic affairs. Adroit leaders are constantly trying to adjust several aspects of internal policy – policing, economic development, and political and administrative structures, among other things – to achieve these goals. These calculations about goals and policy adjustments constitute a grand strategy in the realm of domestic affairs. We might take the position that state leaders have two grand strategies: one relating to foreign policy, the other relating to domestic policy. This is convenient from the point of view of scholarship because there is a clear divide between academics who work in these two domains. But we could ask whether this model of two grand strategies reflects how leaders really think. That is, do leaders also compartmentalize in this way? Probably not. Susan Shirk has observed that in the United States, as elsewhere, “foreign policy is driven as much by domestic considerations as by the opinions of our allies and other foreign countries” (Shirk 2007: 8). And a leading scholar of American domestic policy has acknowledged the extent to which it is influenced by “international factors” (Katznelson and Shefter 2002: 4). Indeed, a common theme in scholarship over the last thirty years has been the extent to which globalization has blurred the boundary between domestic and foreign affairs. We are said to live in

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“an increasingly borderless world” (Slaughter 1997: 186). Many other scholars have also emphasized the entanglement of domestic and international affairs (Gourevitch 1978; Putnam 1988; Haas 1992; Schwartz 1994). The U.S. presidency of Donald Trump (2017–21) provides an excellent example of the interconnectedness of the two spheres. Trump has been described as a populist and isolationist. Populism describes a formula for winning domestic political support, while isolationism describes a formula for managing relations with other states. For Trump these were two sides of the same coin. A successful populist campaigner plays on themes that resonate with disaffected voters. Trump took an isolationist stance in his dealings with other countries because it was essential to maintain his political base at home (Judis 2016: chapter 3). This interconnection between domestic and foreign affairs was not unique to the Trump presidency. We could tell a similar story about interconnections for any American president, or any other national leader. “Foreign and domestic policy are inseparable in today’s world,” President Bill Clinton once observed. Clinton insisted that “we must tear down the wall in our thinking” between the two subjects (Clinton 1996: 112–13). Indeed, no leader operates with two grand strategies, one foreign and one domestic. All leaders have one overarching idea about their priorities, which is expressed through policies in both domains. Grand strategy, as it is conceived in the field of international relations, is not grand at all. It is one aspect of a broader set of ideas about ends and means.

STRATEGIES FOR GOVERNING A proper framework for thinking about strategy at the state level can begin by borrowing some building blocks from the field of international relations. For example, we should recognize the state as the foundation of political order in the modern world. Scholars in public administration once regarded the state as an essential concept in their field, but this has not been the case for the last few decades, at least in the United States. Similarly, we should recognize that all states have a ruling group, which in liberal democracies consists mainly of elected officials, but also influential senior officials selected by other means – such as Supreme Court judges, top military commanders, and senior bureaucrats. In a federalized democracy like the United States, the ruling group is large, heterogeneous, and highly susceptible to influence from voters and organized interests. We can also borrow from IR the idea that national leaders are likely to have certain general objectives always in mind. However, our list of general objectives will be cast more broadly because they pertain to domestic as well as foreign affairs. Again, this is not an entirely new idea within the domain of public administration. Decades ago, scholars in American public administration also enumerated “the ends of the state,” on the premise that it was impossible to say anything meaningful about administration without first stipulating these ends (White 1939: 7; Merriam 1944; Dimock 1951: 234). These general objectives are: (1) the maintenance of internal

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order and popular legitimacy; (2) security from external attack and the recognition of legitimacy by other states; (3) the promotion of economic growth, and (4) survival in office. And there is another objective that we encourage leaders to consider: (5) advancement of the welfare of the governed population, which we might also express as the advancement of human rights. Not all these objectives are equally important at all times. Leaders make judgments about the relative importance of these objectives based on their assessment of prevailing conditions. Confronted with rebellion or protest, leaders will worry more about internal order and legitimacy; with sudden shifts in geopolitics, with external security; with a financial crash, with economic stability and growth. Leaders also make judgments about the broad lines of policy that are likely to achieve their objectives, which are also informed by their assessment of prevailing conditions. For example, states might find it difficult to pursue domestic policies that are completely at odds with those favored by other states. Or they may see opportunities to adopt new policies because of the introduction of new technologies for surveillance, communication, and control. We can describe the combination of top-priority objectives and major policies that are adopted by leaders as a strategy for governing (Roberts 2019: chapter 5). Strategy is put into practice by passing laws, building and reforming public organizations, and adopting new programs and practices. These are all different ways of creating institutions. Many scholars have defined the state as a complex or agglomeration of institutions that have been constructed to accomplish key state objectives (Hay and Lister 2006: 5; Jessop 2016: 49). It follows that the overall architecture of the state will be influenced by strategy. Indeed, we can say that strategy is expressed by building and renovating the complex of institutions that constitute the state. Here we see the clear connection between strategy at the state level and public administration. Specialists in public administration must be expert in building and renovating institutions so that the state architecture is aligned with overall strategy. At the same time, they must advise leaders about whether proposed strategies are practicable, given their understanding of what is possible by way of building or renovating institutions. The concept of a governing strategy can be related to several other concepts already familiar to specialists in public administration. For example, Torfing et al. have argued for the study of “public governance paradigms,” which they define as “as a relatively coherent and comprehensive set of norms and ideas about how to govern, organize and lead the public sector” (Torfing et al. 2020: 9). But Torfing et al. do not appear to tie this concept tightly to the strategic calculations of a ruling group within a state; instead, they contemplate the possibility of competing paradigms within a polity (Torfing et al. 2020: 2). Perhaps this can be reconciled by observing that there is always competition within polities for control of the apex of the state, and that these competing factions have different views about ends and means, which can be described either as a governance paradigm or governance strategy. When we talk about governing strategy, we are talking about the bundle of ideas that shape the major decisions of national leaders. Many scholars have approached

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this topic using somewhat different language. For example, the historians Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher have studied the “official mind,” which they describe as a composite of “beliefs about morals and politics, about the duties of government, the ordering of society and international relations” that are shared by leaders (Robinson and Gallagher 1961: 20). The official mind as Robinson and Gallagher describe is really a set of understandings about state-level strategy. To put it another way, when we set out to study state-level strategy, we will be seeking to understand the official mind. A related notion is that of the “political mind”: those “patterns of thought, ways of perceiving the world, psychological attitudes, ideological premises, and working theories” that are shared by a ruling group (Tucker 1971: ix). Similarly, scholars drawing on Foucault have developed the notion of the “mentality of rule” – an “intellectual technology” that guides thinking about aims and methods of governing (Miller and Rose 1990; Foucault 2008: 2; Dean 2010: 24–5). Another way of defining state-level strategy would be to describe it as a mentality of rule that is developed as a way of guiding leaders’ response to prevailing conditions. Strategies for governing are often associated with the individuals who pioneered them. Ronald Reagan advocated for a strategy that regarded economic growth, internal order, and national security at the topmost goals; these goals were pursued through a range of policies that included deregulation, decentralization, free trade, tax cuts, tougher policing, and a military build-up. This approach became known as Reaganism (Wilentz 2008). It was not a radical change from pre-existing ideas about governing the United States: for example, it did not challenge fundamental principles like the separation of powers or federalism. But it did involve a reinterpretation of these principles and a broad program of institutional reform. Margaret Thatcher introduced a similar strategy in the United Kingdom that became known as Thatcherism (Bulpitt 1986). Reaganism was followed by a slightly modified formula, Clintonism, in the 1990s; similarly, Thatcherism gave way to Blairism (Derber 1994; Giddens 1998). In India and China, the prevailing strategies in the 1950s and 1960s were Nehruism and Maoism: more recently they have been replaced by Modi-ism and Xi Jinping Thought (Mahurkar 2017; Bougon 2018).

STRATEGIC FRAGILITY AND VARIABILITY This approach to thinking about strategy at the state level has two main entailments. The first is a recognition of the fragility of governance strategies. The second is a recognition that strategies will vary substantially from one country to the next, and over time within one country. These two entailments are connected. Both flow from the fact that crafting a sound governance strategy is hard work. This is so for several reasons. First, objectives often conflict with one another, so that achieving one goal means compromising another; and people often disagree about how this compromise should be struck. Added to this is massive uncertainty about circumstances – that is, about the char-

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acter and severity of threats and opportunities confronting the state – and about the likely effectiveness of alternative policies in achieving goals. A third complication is created by the fact of institutional and ideological legacies. Leaders inherit an existing state structure that is oriented toward certain purposes. Moreover, there is usually a well-established “conventional wisdom” about how government should work – that is, a prevailing strategy for governing (Galbraith 1998: chapter 2). These legacies cannot always be changed quickly. When crafting their strategies, leaders must make calculations about how much institutional and ideational reform is possible, and in which aspects reform is most likely to be feasible. A fourth complication is turbulence in circumstances. The conditions confronting leaders – consisting of geopolitical, demographic, economic, technological, and climatic factors – are never stable. The world changes incessantly, so that a strategy crafted in response to a particular historical moment may become outmoded quickly. Old threats to vital interests will be displaced by new threats, and policies designed to address old threats may no longer seem to be viable or most appropriate. Given all these considerations, we should not be surprised when leaders in different countries settle on different strategies for governing. Indeed, we should expect substantial variation as the norm. This proposition may seem self-evident, but it collides with a view that was widely held at the start of the twenty-first century. At that time, many experts predicted that models of governance in different countries would converge. This “universal strategy” emphasized liberal democracy, free markets, and internationalism (Fukuyama 1992; Friedman 1999; Mandelbaum 2002). Public management scholars talked in a similar way about the emergence of a common approach to the operation of public agencies around the world – a “global public management paradigm” (Kamarck 2003; Kettl 2005). Recent history has disabused us about the likelihood of convergence on a common strategy for governing. For example, a recent survey of public administration systems in the twenty-eight European Union member states observed that there continues to be “high heterogeneity” in many aspects of those systems. The authors of that study concluded from this that there was a need for better understanding of the dynamics of administrative reform, including an appreciation of the role of politics, history, and the state system (European Commission 2018: 57). Similarly, we should not be surprised when strategies for governing vary over time within one country. In a sense, this merely repeats the point already made about divergences between states. As novelist L.P. Hartley said: “The past is a foreign country” (Hartley 1953: 9). Successive generations of leaders confront different conditions and make different calculations about goal trade-offs and tactics. Consequently, they reach different conclusions about strategy. Again, this may seem self-evident: but it contradicts a body of literature which dwells more on continuities – expressed in the vocabulary of national exceptionalism, national traditions, or institutional path-dependence (Gerring 2003: 84; Pierson 2004: chapter 1; Painter and Peters 2010). Of course, legacies do matter, as already noted; the question is how much we emphasize continuities or variations across time. In the American case,

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certainly, there has been substantial variation in governance strategies over time (Roberts 2017).

TOPICS FOR RESEARCH If we are to take strategy at the state level seriously, there are many subjects that we should explore through research. Some of these questions might require us to be more eclectic in our choice of research methods. Describing strategies and patterns of change. Obviously, scholars will need to become practiced in describing the governance strategies that prevail at a particular moment of time, and in describing variations in strategy between countries and over time. As noted, this means becoming skilled in describing the prevailing mentality of rule – the official mind – and how it changes over time. We will need to reach agreement about what counts as a well-substantiated account of a governance strategy – or in other words, when we are prepared to accept the description of a prevailing strategy as accurate. Greve et al. provide an illustration of how this work can be done, in their recent appraisal of the “Nordic model” of governance, and the ways in which that model has been transformed in response to the 2007–09 financial crisis and other changes in the policy environment (Greve et al. 2017: 1–22). Scholars who undertake studies of state-level strategy often find that their work is dismissed by journal reviewers and other academics as essayistic or impressionistic. A difficulty is that the field of public administration has become biased toward quantitative methods over the last thirty years and has trouble seeing how other forms of evidence can be used to substantiate propositions about the operations of government. We have a developed a sort of blindness to certain forms of evidence. This is sometimes manifested in the question: how do we know that an argument about state-level strategy is true? A response to such concerns has three parts. First, we must re-emphasize that understanding state-level strategy is critically important, because it dictates to a large degree the character of activity at the middle- and micro-levels of administration, among other reasons. Second, we must agree that critically important questions must not be ignored simply because they cannot be answered with the usual research methods. The appropriate response is to find methods that are suited to the question. Third, we should recognize that there are increasingly sophisticated qualitative methods that can be applied to the study of state-level strategy (Corbin and Strauss 2015). We can also borrow techniques from historians and political scientists who already work in this area. This includes techniques used by scholars in the burgeoning area of American Political Development (Valelly et al. 2016). The process of strategy formulation and adaptation. A second area for inquiry relates to the processes by which strategies are formulated and adapted. Again, this is likely to involve a study of the discourse of influential groups – how they perceive circumstances, identify threats and opportunities, establish priorities, and settle on the main lines of policy (Bulpitt 1986: 20). Competition with ruling groups, and gen-

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erational change within the ruling group and the broader population, are also likely to be important considerations. So too are linkages with ruling groups in other states, and the processes by which ideas about state-level strategy flow between states. Institutional support for strategy-making. We can also explore how institutional arrangements support or undermine the capacity of leaders to formulate strategy effectively. This may have several dimensions: whether the right sort of people – elected officials or experts – are involved in strategic deliberations; whether there is adequate continuity in leadership; whether there are mechanisms that inform or warn leaders about changes in prevailing conditions; whether there is adequate support for deliberation, especially under pressure; and whether leaders have the ability to monitor whether strategic choices are actually implemented through institutional reforms. In some contexts, we will also want to consider how strategy is shaped by supranational bodies such as the European Union and the Bretton Woods institutions. Of course, questions such as these are not neglected within recent research (Rhodes and Dunleavy 1995; Weller et al. 1997; Smith 1999; Peters et al. 2000; Dahlström et al. 2011; OECD 2017: chapter 2; Wu et al. 2018). However, there is less attention to them than there was in previous generations of scholarship. Dilemmas in strategy-making. Strategy-making always involves tradeoffs. At the level of state strategy, these tradeoffs can be profound. For example, should leaders emphasize state security at the cost of individual freedoms? Should they tolerate inequalities as the price for greater overall prosperity? Or should they compromise the interests of future generations to improve security and prosperity today? Tradeoffs such as these must often be decided under conditions of extreme uncertainty and environmental instability. Leaders can never be sure whether they have made the right calculation or whether events will upend their calculations. Research can explore how these dilemmas are identified and resolved by national leaders as they craft state-level strategies. Translating strategy into institutional reform. Every new strategy requires an adjustment to institutions – that is, to laws, organizations, programs, and practices. We can study how this project of institutional reform tends to advance. We are not interested so much in the adaptation of specific institutions as the overall pattern of institutional reform – that is, in changes to the overall architecture of the state. An illustration is the distinction is between deregulation in one policy domain and deregulation as a general pattern across government, or between downsizing in one agency and de-bureaucratization as a general pattern. The growing literature on processes of institutional change within the field of political science may be useful as scholars explore the connection between strategy and state architecture (Robertson 2010). Strategy and the meso- and micro-levels. State-level strategy constrains patterns of activity at the meso-level of administration (Roberts 2020a). For example, strategic concerns determine the path of overall projects of administrative reforms. More narrowly, high-level ideas about the role of government constrain the scope of agency action: what agency executives may do, and how they may do it. To put it another way, agency actions must be rationalized according to the prevailing governance paradigm (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). As an illustration, it is more difficult for an

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agency to engage in command-and-control regulation if the overall strategy does not condone interventionism. Research can explore this connect between the macro- and meso-levels. We can also explore the connection between macro- and micro-levels; that is, between state strategy and frontline interactions between government officials and members of the public (Roberts 2020a: 635–6). One question is how high-level strategy shapes the relationship between officials and the public. Leaders may redefine individual roles, impose obligations, and bestow rights, as part of their effort to achieve high-level priorities such as the maintenance of order and legitimacy. Developments at the micro-level, such as problems of non-compliance or resistance by officials or members of the public, might also cause leaders to reconsider overall strategy. Assessing the quality of strategy. We must also refine our capacity to judge the soundness of governing strategies. This has two aspects. The first is clarifying what criteria ought to be used in judging soundness. Three possible criteria are effectiveness – whether a strategy accomplishes its objectives; durability – whether a strategy works for a long period of time; and normative defensibility – whether a strategy conforms to our ideas about how a just society ought to work (Roberts 2019: 4, 46–7). With regard to normative defensibility, we should ask whether the strategy is likely to produce a just society in which human rights are respected and promoted (Shue 1996; Donnelly 2013). Contemporary China, for example, appears to be governed according to a state-level strategy that is effective and durable, but normatively problematic given its disregard for some fundamental rights. Speculating about strategy. Finally, we must improve our ability to speculate about strategy. By this I mean our ability to anticipate how conditions are likely to change in the future, and to provide advice to leaders on how strategy ought to be adjusted in response. This ought to be an important responsibility for scholars in public administration. Strategic choices by leaders should be informed by knowledge about present and potential state capabilities, and this sort of knowledge is held by specialists in public administration. But first, scholars in public administration must be given permission to engage in speculation. At the moment, they are not given this permission: this sort of work is not counted within the field as proper research. We need to reach agreement that speculation is essential, and to reach agreement about what counts as good (well-informed, perhaps) speculation. At the same time, we must improve our skill in expressing the results of our research in language that is accessible to non-academic decision-makers.

TEACHING STATE-LEVEL STRATEGY Broadly speaking, graduate programs in public administration in the United States do not train students to think systematically about the big picture. If we look at the curricula of well-regarded graduate programs, we see that they still focus on the

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middle level of public service: on problems of policy design, management within public agencies or networks, and the implementation and evaluation of programs. Some consideration of state-level strategy is essential in any graduate program that prepares people for public service. Students should learn how to think broadly about the overall aims of government, the environmental factors that shape judgments about priorities, the tactics that have been used in the past to advance those priorities, and the ways in which priorities and tactics have been adapted in response to changing conditions. This sort of education should encourage students to take a long view. They should look decades back to see how strategies have evolved, and decades ahead to anticipate new challenges. And there would be a comparative view as well. Students should learn how the leaders of other countries wrestle with comparable challenges. Public administration programs could follow the model of graduate programs in international relations. At many top-ranked IR programs, students are required to take at least one course that provides a broad view of the challenges that confront leaders. Students are expected to “recognize the underlying forces at work in the world … [and learn how] to navigate a changing landscape” (Mezzera 2017). Furthermore, the approach within international relations programs is cosmopolitan. The United States is treated as one state among many, wrestling with problems that are shared by other states. Many people agree that globalization has blurred the line between domestic and foreign affairs. But there is still a marked difference in professional training for public service in the realms of domestic and foreign policy. The better approach is one taken by graduate programs in international relations: conscious of the big picture, inclined toward the long view, and focused on the challenges of crafting high-level strategy.

EXAMINING BIG QUESTIONS The pressure on leaders to think carefully about state-level strategy is always present, but not always with equal intensity. Occasionally, there are moments of calm when careful thinking about strategy does not seem necessary. The most recent moment of calm was at the start of this millennium. U.S. President Clinton observed in 2000: “Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats” (Clinton 2000). Not coincidentally, this was also the high point of confidence in a governance model that emphasized liberal democracy, free markets, and globalization. It might not be an exaggeration to say that some people believed questions of high-level strategy has been resolved permanently. The final formula for governing well had finally been discovered, or so it seemed. The moment described by Clinton was fleeting. The following two decades have been characterized by convulsions. Leaders in the United States and other countries have been compelled to deal with multiple shocks – the terrorist attacks of 2001–05, the global financial crisis of 2007–09, the pandemic of 2020–21 – as well as slower

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moving trends, such as the rise of China, climate change, rising inequality, and population aging. Over these twenty years, we have seen a collapse of faith in the strategy that was promoted by Clinton and like-minded leaders in the late 1990s. In the United States, leaders have adopted policies that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago. They have nationalized major corporations, tightened regulations, closed borders, retreated from trade negotiations, and incurred unprecedented peacetime deficits. Politics has become more contentious as leaders and voters have searched for some new formula – that is, a new strategy for governing – that is better suited to new realities (Roberts 2020b). In fact, the turbulence of recent years is not unusual. A long view of history suggests that it is the norm. And during turbulent periods, leaders are laser-focused on the question of how governing strategies should be adapted. Specialists in public administration have a direct interest in understanding how this process of strategic adaptation is unfolding, because it will necessarily be followed by changes at the meso- and micro-levels of government. If specialists in public administration do not try to understand the dynamics of state-level strategy formulation, then they will be caught flat-footed, constantly trying to keep up with unexpected changes. And they will miss out on the opportunity to provide advice about the course of future strategy. Fortunately, there is growing recognition within the field of the public administration of the need to study state-level strategy. This is typically expressed as a concern for “big trends” or “big questions” in public administration (Roberts 2019: 8–9). In the same vein, the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration recently launched an investigation into the “grand challenges of public administration,” aimed at anticipating “what government must do over the next decade and how it should do it” (National Academy of Public Administration 2018). What specialists in public administration must do now is develop a repertoire of methods for exploring these big questions and grand challenges in a systematic and rigorous way. There is no necessary conflict between the study of state-level strategy and research at the middle- and micro-levels of public administration. We are not confronted with an either/or choice. The field is big enough to accommodate diverse approaches to scholarship. Moreover, the approaches complement one another (Roberts 2020a). Just as a pianist must know how to play the whole keyboard, all specialists in public administration should have some familiarity with modes of inquiry at different levels of analysis, from street-level interactions to the dynamics of state-level strategy.

REFERENCES Barrows, D.P (1942). Review of ‘Grand Strategy’ by H.A. Sargeaunt and G. West. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 221: 207–8. Booth, K. (2014). International Relations. London, Hodder & Stoughton. Bougon, F. (2018). Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping. London, Hurst & Company. Brands, H. (2014). What Good Is Grand Strategy? Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press.

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Bryson, J. and B. George (2020). Strategic Management in Public Administration. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https://​oxfordre​.com/​politics/​view/​10​.1093/​acrefore/​ 9780190228637​.001​.0001/​acrefore​-9780190228637​-e​-1396. Bulpitt, J. (1986). The Discipline of the New Democracy: Mrs Thatcher’s Domestic Statecraft. Political Studies 34(1): 19–39. Campbell, J.L. and J.A. Hall (2015). The World of States. London, Bloomsbury. Christensen, J., L. Aarøe, M. Baekgaard, P. Herd and D.P. Moynihan (2020). Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen-State Interactions. Public Administration Review 80(1): 127–36. Clinton, W. (1996). A New Covenant for American Security. In S.A. Smith (ed.), Preface to the Presidency. Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 111–24. Clinton, W. (2000). State of the Union Address, Washington, DC. January 28. Corbin, J.M. and A. Strauss (2015). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage. Fourth edition. Dahlström, C.B., B. Guy Peters and J. Pierre (2011). Steering from the Centre: Strengthening Political Control in Western Democracies. Toronto, University of Toronto Press. Dean, M. (2010). Governmentality. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage. 2nd edition. Derber, C. (1994). Clintonism: Beyond Left and Right? Tikkun 9(1) (January/February): 40–46. DiMaggio, P.J. and W.W. Powell (1983). The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review 48(2): 147–60. Dimock, M.E. (1951). The Objectives of Governmental Reorganization. Public Administration Review 11(4): 233–41. Donnelly, J. (2013). Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press. 3rd edition. Earle, E.M. (ed.) (1943). Makers of Modern Strategy. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. European Commission (2018). A Comparative Overview of Public Administration Characteristics and Performance in the EU28. Brussels, European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics. New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Friedman, T.L. (1999). The Lexus and the Olive Tree. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York, Free Press. Gaddis, J.L. (2002). A Grand Strategy of Transformation. Foreign Policy 133: 50–57. Gaddis, J.L. (2004). Surprise, Security, and the American Experience. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Gaddis, J.L. (2005). Strategies of Containment. New York, Oxford University Press. Galbraith, J.K. (1998). The Affluent Society. Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin. 40th anniversary edition. Gerring, J. (2003). APD from a Methodological Point of View. Studies in American Political Development 17(1): 82–102. Giddens, A. (1998). The Third Way. Cambridge, MA, Polity Press. Gourevitch, P. (1978). The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics. International Organization 32(4): 881–912. Greve, C., P. Laegreid and L.H. Rykkja (eds.) (2017). Nordic Administrative Reforms. London, Palgrave Macmillan. Grimmelikhuijsen, S., S. Jilke, A. Olsen and L. Tummers (2017). Behavioral Public Administration: Combining Insights from Public Administration and Psychology. Public Administration Review 77(1): 45–56. Haas, P.M. (1992). Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination. International Organization 46(1): 1–35.

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Hartley, L.P. (1953). The Go-Between. London, H. Hamilton. Hay, C. and M. Lister (2006). Introduction: Theories of the State. In C. Hay, D. Lister and D. March (eds.), The State: Theories and Issues, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 1–20. Heymann, P.B. (1987). The Politics of Public Management. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press. Hughes, O.E. (2003). Public Management and Administration. New York, Palgrave Macmillan. 3rd edition. Jessop, B. (2016). The State: Past, Present, Future. New York, Polity. Jilke, S., A.L. Olsen., W. Resh and S. Siddiki (2019). Microbrook, Mesobrook, Macrobrook. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance 2(4): 245–53. Judis, J.B. (2016). The Populist Explosion. New York, Columbia Global Reports. Kamarck, E. (2003). Government Innovation around the World. Cambridge, MA, Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Katznelson, I. and M. Shefter (2002). Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Kennedy, P.M. (1991a). American Grand Strategy, Today and Tomorrow. In P.M. Kennedy (ed.), Grand Strategies in War and Peace. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 167–84. Kennedy, P.M. (1991b). Grand Strategies in War and Peace. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press. Kettl, D. (2005). The Global Public Management Revolution. Washington, DC, Brookings Institution. Kulman, L. (2016). Teaching Common Sense: The Grand Strategy Program at Yale University. New Haven, CT, Prospecta Press. Liddell Hart, B.H. (1941). The Strategy of Indirect Approach. London, Faber and Faber. Luttwak, E. (2001). Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace. Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press. Mahurkar, U. (2017). Marching with a Billion. Gurgaon, Viking. Mandelbaum, M. (2002). The Ideas That Conquered the World. New York, Public Affairs. Mearsheimer, J.J. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York, Norton. Merriam, C.E. (1944). The Ends of Government. The American Political Science Review 38(1): 21–40. Mezzera, C. (2017). Keeping Ahead in Uncertain Times. Foreign Affairs 96(5): 1–3. Miller, P. and N. Rose (1990). Governing Economic Life. Economy and Society 19(1): 1–31. Milward, H. B., L. Jensen, A. Roberts, M.I. Dussauge-Laguna, V. Junjan, R. Torenvlied, A.Boin, H.K. Colebatch, D. Kettl and R.F. Durant (2016). Is Public Management Neglecting the State? Governance 29(3): 1–26. National Academy of Public Administration. (2018). Grand Challenges in Public Administration. https://​www​.napawash​.org/​grand​-challenges​-in​-public​-administration/​. OECD (2017). Towards a More Effective, Strategic and Accountable State in Kazakhstan. Paris, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Painter, M. and B.G. Peters (2010). Tradition and Public Administration. London, Palgrave Macmillan. Peters, B. Guy, R.A.W. Rhodes and V. Wright (2000). Administering the Summit: Administration of the Core Executive in Developed Countries. New York, St. Martin’s Press. Pierson, P. (2004). Politics in Time. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Putnam, R.D. (1988). Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games. International Organization 42(3): 427–60. Rhodes, R.A.W. and P. Dunleavy (1995). Prime Minister, Cabinet, and Core Executive. New York, St. Martin’s Press. Roberts, A. (2017). Four Crises of American Democracy. New York, Oxford University Press. Roberts, A. (2019). Strategies for Governing: Reinventing Public Administration for a Dangerous Century. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press.

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Roberts, A. (2020a). Bridging Levels of Public Administration: How Macro Shapes Meso and Micro. Administration & Society 52(4): 631–56. Roberts, A. (2020b). The Third and Fatal Shock: How Pandemic Killed the Millennial Paradigm. Public Administration Review 80(4): 603–9. Robertson, D.B. (2010). Historical Institutionalism, Political Development, and the Study of American Political Development. In R.F. Durant (ed.), Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy. New York, Oxford University Press, 25–51. Robinson, R.E. and J. Gallagher (1961). Africa and the Victorians. New York, St. Martin’s Press. Schwartz, H. (1994). Small States in Big Trouble: State Reorganization in Australia, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden in the 1980s. World Politics 46(4): 527–55. Shirk, S.L. (2007). China: Fragile Superpower. New York, Oxford University Press. Shue, H. (1996). Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. 2nd edition. Slaughter, A.-M. (1997). The Real New World Order. Foreign Affairs 76: 183–97. Smith, M.J. (1999). The Core Executive in Britain. New York, St. Martin’s Press. Torfing, J., L.B. Andersen, C. Greve and K.K. Klausen (2020). Public Governance Paradigms. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar Publishing. Trubowitz, P. (2011). Politics and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American Statecraft. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Tucker, R.C. (1971). The Soviet Political Mind. New York, Norton. Revised edition. Valelly, R., S. Mettler and R.C. Lieberman (2016). Oxford Handbook of American Political Development. New York, Oxford University Press. Weller, P.M., H. Bakvis and R.A.W. Rhodes (1997). The Hollow Crown: Countervailing Trends in Core Executives. New York, St. Martin’s Press. White, L.D. (1939). Introduction to the Study of Public Administration. New York, Macmillan. 2nd edition. Wilentz, S. (2008). The Age of Reagan. New York, Harper. Wu, X., M. Howlett and M. Ramesh (2018). Policy Capacity and Governance. Cham, Palgrave Macmillan.

5. Is strategy possible in a federal system? Donald F. Kettl

The struggles of so many countries to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 not only mark the biggest global public policy challenge since World War II. The pandemic taught a searing lesson: fighting it without clear strategy puts millions of lives at risk. And that, in turn, shines a bright spotlight on one of the most enduring problems of federal systems: Can they plan and develop strategy? Are the residents of federal systems at greater risk because their governments might struggle with the problem of strategy? This has been a fundamental problem for all federal systems, but it has plagued the United States far more than most. A year after the start of the outbreak, the U.S.A. ranked sixth in the world in the number of deaths per capita (Johns Hopkins, 2021). Among federal systems, the country’s rank was second, after Brazil (Figure 5.1). From the overall data, it is difficult to make the case that federal systems fared significantly worse than unitary states although, of course, there are such vast differences among the world’s nations that any single explanation for governments’ responses to this mega-crisis would be hard to produce. In fact, there are bigger differences between federal systems than there are between federal and non-federal systems as a whole. At the same time, however, there is no escaping the conclusion that the United States, equipped with arguably the world’s most sophisticated public health system, suffered mightily as a result of the pandemic—far more, in fact, than most other federal systems. That frames the puzzle of why and, especially, whether federal systems struggled with especially serious problems during the course of the pandemic. That question, in turn, frames the central puzzle of this chapter. The puzzle stretches across all federal systems, but I will focus principally on the United States, because of its role in shaping the broader questions of governance—and its outsized importance in shaping public policy. How does the particular shape of federalism affect the ability of federal states to act strategically, especially in times of great stress? Does federalism help—or hinder—the creation of strategy to guide public policy decisions and their implementation?

THE CENTRALIZING IMPULSE IN STRATEGIC PLANNING Traditional approaches to strategic planning—and strategy, more generally—have built on an impulse toward centralization. To lead, leaders often believe that they need to have their hands firmly on the rudder, so that they can steer the organization in the direction they think it ought to go and so they can feel comfortable with the 63

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Figure 5.1

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people, among federal systems

direction in which they are going. There is a powerful argument that strategic planning reinforces centralizing tendencies within systems of governance. In his classic exploration of strategic planning, Bryson notes that “Leaders and managers of governments, public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and communities face numerous and difficult challenges,” for which strategic planning offers invaluable assistance (2004: 3). Strategic planning helps reinforce centralization in organizations because it strengthens the role of organizational leaders in charting their steps into the future. In fact, strategic planning would have only loose meaning if it did not contain strong centralizing instincts. “Decentralized strategic planning” might well be an oxymoron.

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Some scholars have criticized the underlying impulse toward centralization for what they see as its “conventional elitism and opacity” (Whittington et al., 2011: 236). Some approaches to strategy and strategic planning have embraced coordination across organizations and the importance of bringing a wide perspective of views, including community views, into the process (Whittington, 2006; Mack and Szulanski, 2017). Indeed, some scholars have argued, strategic planners can break open the process by consciously choosing to make strategic planning more participatory and by ensuring that the participation is inclusive (Whittington, 2006). Bryson (2004) lays out a sophisticated approach to identifying stakeholders and creating strategic plans in collaborative settings. This debate about strategic planning lies at the very core of the debate about how to divide power in a federal system of governance. Federal systems formally divide power between the central government and its subdivisions, and the subdivisions retain a measure of political independence and responsibility for administrative discussion. Unitary governments, in contrast, create their own subnational governments, which have only the power that the national government gives them and which operate as administrative agents to pursue policies set at the national level. Federalism thus is important because it is, at once, both a political and an administrative strategy (Wheare, 1947; Anderson, 1960; Grodzins, 1960; Graves, 1964: 4–6). This simple definition quickly becomes vastly complicated, especially in the American system of federalism. That is the formal definition of federalism, a definition grounded in legal standards. Federalism is a system of government where the subnational units have formal and independent standing and power. But behind that rather formal—and obsolete—definition lies a vastly complicated system of governance, politics, and administration. First and foremost, federalism is a political system. In some federal systems, like the United States, the subgovernments have allied with each other to create a national government while retaining a measure of authority. The name of the country, after all, is the united states, and the Declaration of Independence was a document voted on and signed by representatives of the states. In the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment reserves to the states any power not explicitly given in the Constitution to the national government, although that apparently bright line broke down almost immediately in practice (Kettl, 2020). Other federal systems, like Switzerland and Germany, grew from efforts to bring unity to subnational governments with deep historic roots that go back centuries (Renzsch, 1989). The Swiss system of federalism, in fact, can trace its roots back to the 1300s and the enduring “love for complexity” (Bogdonor, 1988; Schweizer, 1991). Regardless of its roots, federalism frames the debate, in important ways, about the distribution of political power in a handful of large and important nations. All governmental institutions need to sort out the role of the center and its subdivisions. In federal systems, constitutional rules formally set boundaries around the role of these different governments. As we shall see a bit later in this chapter, those formal boundaries rarely capture the actual operation of federal systems. But the boundaries

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do play an important role in structuring the inevitable political conflicts. In the United States, in particular, federal brings a formal commitment to more pluralism. And, as Nelson Polsby has pointed out, “The price of more pluralism is a less orderly political life” (quoted by Wildavsky, 1984: 5). Polsby digs deeper, by pointing out that federalism is costly, that it frames inherent value contradictions, and that it brings tough political choices: What individuals cannot choose, of course, is a society in which they retain the right to move about as they like or need, exercising their options to change their jobs, marital status, geographic location, names, hair, lifestyles, political commitments, while others hold still and provide them the comforting support system—stable neighborhoods, lifelong friendships, personalized and unbureaucratic professional service—of a more stable, confining, and less resourceful age.

Polsby concludes by arguing that “it seems to be inescapably the case that the price of more pluralism is a less orderly political life. And this, no doubt, is one reason otherwise level-headed analysis with egalitarian values occasionally observe that we are doing better and feeling worse” (1984: 31–2). Federalism is thus not only a construct for power but also an arena for conflict. In the U.S.A., these conflicts have stretched from debates over immigration policy and economic development to job training programs and, especially, health care. Second, federalism is also an administrative system. The political relationships between the national and subnational governments create a natural set of roads for implementation, especially through grant and regulatory strategies (Sundquist, 1969; Rubenstein, 2015). In American federalism, state and local governments have been important parts of the national administrative system almost since the very beginning of the country, with grant programs for local schools and roads. Those programs grew enormously during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and again during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. Meanwhile, regulatory programs expanded, especially with rise of the environmental policy movement of the 1970s (Graves, 1964; Kettl, 2020). Administrative federalism in Germany is different than in the U.S.A., with a pattern of strong decentralization and autonomy reserved for local governments as well as a broader national culture focusing on coordination and uniformity (Behnke, 2021). Canada has resisted the broader trend toward centralization of its federal system (Lecours, 2019), while Australia ranks as one of the most centralized federal systems in the world (Fenna, 2019). The U.S.A. is among the most decentralized federal systems, far closer to Switzerland than to Germany, Canada, and Australia. In examining the issue of administrative federalism, however, two points are especially important. Data from the World Bank, shown in Figure 5.2 and based on scores created for the degree of decentralization in a country, paint a fascinating picture. (The data are from 2012, but the overall complexion of governance systems has not changed substantially since then.) First, the degree of centralization and decentralization in major federal systems varies widely, from the most decentralized system (Switzerland) to the most centralized ones (India and Mexico). Second,

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the distribution of decentralization within federal systems is not markedly different than a collection of the world’s largest nonfederal systems. Administrative decentralization—the degree to which the central government relies on subnational governments—is a major element of governance in the world’s nations, but it does not depend on whether the country is federal. Analysts often compare federal systems on their degree of decentralization. It turns out that the most important comparison is between all countries on the degree to which they rely on subnational governments as administrative agents.

Figure 5.2

Government systems by degree of decentralization

For federal states, the issue thus is not whether there is the core issue of determining the balance between central and local power. Rather, it is the way in which the distinctive legal structure and politics of federal systems affect the ways in which the administrative issues play out. That, as we shall see later, proved to be an important element of different governments’ response to COVID-19. Third, as a result, federalism is a particularly—and often peculiarly—blended system. The legal and constitutional approaches to federalism take a dual approach, suggesting a relatively clear division between the responsibilities of different layers of government. But in the 1960s, scholars began arguing that the formal, legal, dual approach did not adequately capture the realities of American federalism, in particular. Grodzins, for example, argued that the functions and politics of federalism were far more interconnected than had been broadly recognized in the past—that, in fact, it was more like a marble cake than a layer cake (1960, 1966). Others saw federalism

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more like a fence than a cake. Sanford (1967), for example, contended that federalism was often like a picket fence, with functional specialists at different levels of the system connecting vertically with each other more than horizontally with others at the same level of government. The debate about metaphors began to break down in the tug between cakes and fences, but the fundamental issue became inescapable: Federalism in general, and American federalism in particular, has become increasingly a matter of shared responsibility for major functions, and the impossibility of drawing clear lines separating the roles and functions of different levels of government. The argument for a marbled approach to federalism sometimes deeply frustrated scholars (Nivola, 2005), but what emerged was a clear view of an often muddled and deeply interconnected system. To the degree that strategic planning and centralization—and clarity of goals and clarity of responsibilities for carrying them out—are interconnected, the underlying issues about strategy in a federal system have become even more sharply debated. Nothing brings that issue to life in the U.S.A. more than the country’s response to COVID-19, and nothing is a stronger foundation for understanding that response than the two generations of policy toward Medicaid that preceded it.

THE U.S.A. AND HEALTH CARE The three approaches to governance surfaced sharply in the debate over creating the Medicaid program in 1965 and in the way the program has evolved since. Since at least the Truman administration, right after World War II, Democrats had been pressing for a national strategy to provide health insurance to all Americans. The distinction between health care and health insurance is an important one. In many countries, the post-World War II years saw a rapid expansion of the welfare state, and that typically included state-funded and state-provided health care. That is, in many countries like the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries, the government both paid for and delivered health care (Schmidt et al., 2019; National Archives, 2021). In the United States, however, there has never been enough support to create a government-provided health care system, beyond the hospitals and clinics for veterans. Truman’s proposal for government-funded health care took 20 years to come to even partial fruition and, even then, the path was an extremely rugged one (Kettl, 2020). President Lyndon B. Johnson made health care a cornerstone of his Great Society proposals. It was immediately clear that a British-style national health service could never gain political support, especially because Republican opponents marshaled the argument that it would constitute socialized health care, a charge that stuck in those Cold War days. Johnson’s fallback position was a system of nationally funded but privately delivered health care, where the federal government would provide funding but private doctors and health care facilities would treat patients. Even that generated an enormous political battle but, in the end, Johnson won passage of his two signature

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proposals: Medicare, with federally funded health care for seniors over the age of 65; and Medicaid, with a complex system of funding for the poor. Medicaid proved especially complex to launch. Its designers faced a twin challenge: They could not create a federally operated program, and the long history of federal relief programs for the poor involved federal–state–local partnerships. Medicaid, therefore, emerged as a federal–state partnership, with a combination of basic federal service guarantees, funded by federal grants, that were administered by state governments, which had the choice of adding their own options to the program. The program, therefore, became not one national program but 51 different programs, depending on the choices made in state capitals and in the District of Columbia. The states, in turn, funded health care actually delivered by private physicians and medical centers (Thompson and DiIulio, 1998). By 2020, nearly 29 percent of all state spending went to Medicaid, in what was often the fastest growing program in many state budgets (NASBO, 2020: 55). Total Medicaid expenditures, with federal and state spending combined, accounted for one out of every six dollars spent on health care in the United States (U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2019). The program covered health care for 72 million Americans (Medicaid.gov, 2020). The program proved enormously complex to manage. There was the federal stream of funds and the state add-on expenditures. There were federal and state standards for individuals’ eligibility to reconcile, along with the collection of services the program would pay for. There were hundreds of thousands of providers, including hospitals, nursing facilities, doctor’s offices, hospitals, and laboratories. Simply tracking the payments required tremendously sophisticated information technology systems, managed by contractors. Indeed, one small agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was responsible for managing one-fourth of the federal budget, but had a staff of only about 5,000 employees. Medicaid thus wove together the three major streams of federalism. The program divided political responsibility for major decisions between the federal government and the states and, with the states having such wide discretion about the nature of the program, it was the cutting edge of divided political power in federalism. It also vested administrative responsibility for a national program in the states, which were responsible for the delivery of results and the management of billing. And, through both the political and administrative elements of federalism, it created a truly blended system of responsibility and accountability. These streams frame the answer to whether strategy is possible in federalism—at least, federalism, American style. As is so often the case with federalism in general and American federalism in particular, there are multiple answers. First, if strategy means a concerted plan of action, devised to accomplish a goal with a consistent plan for achieving its elements, the answer is no. Federalism, by its very nature, has no center of decision or action. Its multiple legal underpinnings produce multiple sources of power that, in turn, prevent the construction of a singular goal or concerted action.

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Second, however, if strategy means mobilizing the political system to advance a broad goal, albeit by different methods, often in ways that align with the many differences in a very diverse nation, the answer is yes. Strategy, in this approach, means securing broad political agreement on issues where a more centralized approach might make it impossible. It also means sharing administrative power through widely varying state systems that both provide decentralized flexibility and increased political support. The very question, therefore, simultaneously shines a bright light on two very different puzzles. Asking about strategy provides keen insight into the realities of federalism. Asking about federalism provides an understanding into the nature of strategy. And both of these puzzles, in turn, helped frame the response to COVID-19.

COVID-19 AND STRATEGY The raging pandemic that swept the globe in 2020 seemed to call for a clear, strong, and aggressive strategy. Scientists discovered, relatively quickly, the way the virus spread and the practices that proved most effective to stop it. Speaking with a clear, singular voice and ensuring that the public rallied behind proven scientific findings surely seemed the approach most likely to curb the virus’s spread. Indeed, that was the approach that drove the dramatic success in New Zealand, with its unitary government, and it proved effective in Australia, a federal system but one with a high degree of centralization. A careful look at Figures 5.1 and 5.2, however, shows that there is not a strong association between a federal system’s degree of centralization and its death rate, as a measure of its success in battling COVID-19. The U.S.A. and Mexico, for example, experienced similar death rates but have very different levels of centralization in their systems. Switzerland is highly decentralized, but its death rate was considerably lower than in the U.S.A. Brazil is more centralized than Canada, but Canada’s death rate was far lower than Brazil. If the question is whether strategy is possible in federal systems, whether there’s likely to be more strategy in more centralized systems, and whether more centralization leads to better outcomes, the answer is anything but clear. The case of the U.S.A. sharpens this puzzle. In the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Trump administration decided to deflect the virus wherever possible. It minimized the seriousness of the disease, undermined the effort to promote masks and social distancing, and passed the hard questions on to state governments which, in turn, predictably acted very differently. In 1932, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis celebrated the states as “laboratories of democracy,” where the different approaches of different states could help them experiment more easily and find more quickly the answers that would work best in solving the nation’s problems (New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 1932). This “laboratories” notion, in turn, set the stage for the role of strategy in the American system, and in other federal systems: experimentation, coupled with learning, to embrace what worked best and to discard what did not.

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In the U.S.A., however, the patterns of state decision-making had nothing to do with experimentation or, for that matter, with the seriousness of the outbreak. A good indicator of a state’s aggressiveness in responding to COVID-19 was whether its governor decided to lock the state down in the early phase of the outbreak (before the end of March 2020) or afterwards. Of the states with March lockdowns, Democrats controlled the governorship and the state legislatures in 13 states, and party control was split in another 13 states. In the states with Republican control of the governorship and the state legislature, just 6 of the 20 states locked down in March. The decision was grounded in party control. Moreover, these decisions were grounded in an ongoing pattern of policy decisions. As part of the passage of the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare) in 2010, states were given the ability to expand eligibility for Medicaid, with a federal subsidy. Thirty-five states decided to expand eligibility for the program, and 28 of these locked down in March. On the other hand, 15 states decided not to expand the program, and 11 of them did not lock down in March. Furthermore, states that locked down in March spent, on the average, 44 percent more on public health per capita than the states that did not (Kettl, 2020b). Within the American system, therefore, “strategy” was the product of the political alignment of the states, embedded in an ongoing stream of previous policy decisions, as Kingdon (1984) would have predicted. This surely constituted a strategy. However, it does not match what many analysts would view as strategy. Two different perspectives emerged from these wide variations. One perspective suggested that state power protected at least some Americans from what they viewed as mistakes made by the Trump administration. A stronger administration hand on policy would have prevented the decisions of states—especially the ones that decided to lock down early and take a more aggressive approach to the virus—from protecting their decisions. Another perspective suggested that a stronger national strategy would have provided better protection for all Americans, much as such a strategy did in Germany, where the death rate was much lower (although, of course, the German federal system is much more centralized than in the U.S.A.). This issue extends to more than the American experience. Buerkli (2021) observed that, in the case of Switzerland, the nation discovered that its system of federalism provided only loose coupling among its governments; at the time it needed tight coupling, with a stronger strategy. There was a great deal of experimentation, just as there was in the U.S.A., but there was very little learning. And there was a presumption of competence, but a significant underinvestment in management at precisely the time that the country needed a stronger hand.

STRATEGY AND FEDERALISM And that frames the most fundamental question. In cases like COVID-19, did federalism harm the U.S.A. and other federal systems? Would policy outcomes have been better without federalism—or with a more centralized, more strategic version

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of federalism? Or did federalism protect the system by insulating it from decisions at the center that, in the end, helped fuel the spread of the virus? On the first question, the answer is clear. There was no discernible pattern between governmental structures and the outcome in fighting the virus. Different governments with similar governance systems had very different outcomes; different governments with similar outcomes had very different systems of governance. The answer to the second question is more difficult. In the U.S.A., and in other countries, confusion at the center and tensions between the center and the states undoubtedly made fighting the virus more difficult. But much of the difference flowed from deep political conflicts, more than the absence—or presence—of federalism. That, in turn, points to the most important conclusion. Federalism is a system that combines the political and administrative systems into an increasingly hybrid system of governance, where decision-making is divided and administration is shared. In such systems, a quest for a clear strategy might be an impossible dream—or, at least, one based more in the abstract than in reality. Federal systems vary so widely that is it very difficult to produce a clear conclusion on how it affects governance. On the other hand, one clear point does emerge. Big, sweeping problems with huge consequences do not treat federalism gently. In many cases, federalism emerged as a political solution to a political problem, often dealing with how to organize power in a new state. The mandate for dealing with these problems, on the other hand, typically requires concerted administrative action, which is not the strength of federal systems. Moreover, many federal systems have evolved into hybrid systems, where both political power and administrative actions are blended, and that increases the challenges all the more. Some unitary systems, like the United Kingdom and Italy, struggled mightily with the challenges of the early stages of COVID-19. The American federal system did far better in the early stages of immunizing its population, even in comparison with more centralized federal governments like Canada and Germany. The fundamental question about whether strategy is possible in a federal system, therefore, has not one answer but many. But the question itself proves exceptionally useful in exploring the dimensions of federalism—and the special challenges it faces in dealing with the kinds of problems that increasingly dominate the twenty-first-century landscape.

REFERENCES Anderson, William. 1960. Intergovernmental Relations in Review (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Behnke, Nathalie. 2021. “Administrative Federalism.” In Sabine Kuhlmann, Isabella Proeller, Dieter Schimanke, and Jan Ziekow, eds., Public Administration in Germany, 35–51. London: Palgrave. Bogdonor, Vernon. 1988. “Federalism in Switzerland,” Government and Opposition 23:1, 69–90.

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Bryson, John M. 2004. Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement, 3rd edn. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Buerkli, Danny. 2021. “Four Facets of Failure: Lessons We Might Be Able to Learn from Switzerland’s Pandemic Crisis Management” (April 28), https://​ dannybuerkli​ .medium​ .com/​some​-lessons​-we​-might​-be​-able​-to​-learn​-from​-switzerlands​-crisis​-management​-in​ -this​-pandemic​-b72deb43c6e5. Fenna, Alan. 2019. “The Centralization of Australian Federalism, 1901–2010: Measurement and Interpretation,” Publius 49:1 (Winter), 30–56. Graves, W. Brooke. 1964. American Intergovernmental Relations: Their Origins, Historical Development, and Current Status (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons). Grodzins, Morton. 1960. “The Federal System,” Report, President’s Commission on National Goals, Goals for Americans (New York: American Assembly, Columbia University, Prentice-Hall). Grodzins, Morton. 1966. The American System: A New View of the Government of the United States (New York: Rand McNally). Johns Hopkins. 2021. Johns Hopkins University, Coronavirus Resource Center, “Mortality Analyses” (May 11), https://​coronavirus​.jhu​.edu/​data/​mortality. Kettl, Donald F. 2020. The Divided States of America (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Kettl, Donald F. 2020b. “States Divided: The Implications of American Federalism for COVID-19,” Public Administration Review 80:4 (July/August), 595–602. Kingdon, John W. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown). Lecours, Andre. 2019. “Dynamic De/Centralization in Canada, 1867–2010,” Publius 49:1 (Winter), 57–83. Mack, Daniel Z. and Gabriel Szulanski. 2017. “Opening Up: How Centralization Affects Participation and Inclusion in Strategy Making,” Long Range Planning 50:3, 385–96. Medicaid.gov. 2020. “November 2020 Medicaid & CHIP Enrollment Data Highlights,” https://​www​.medicaid​.gov/​medicaid/​program​-information/​medicaid​-and​-chip​-enrollment​ -data/​report​-highlights/​index​.html. NASBO [National Association of State Budget Officers]. 2020. State Expenditure Reports (Washington, D.C.: NASBO). National Archives. 2021. “The National Health Service,” https://​www​.nationalarchives​.gov​ .uk/​cabinetpapers/​alevelstudies/​nhs​.htm. New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932), https://​ supreme​ .justia​ .com/​ cases/​ federal/​us/​285/​262/​#:​~:​text​=​U​.S​.​%20Supreme​%20Court​&​text​=​The​%20business​%20of​ %20manufacturing​%20ice​,in​%20order​%20to​%20control​%20competition. Nivola, Pietro. 2005. “Why Federalism Matters” (October 1). Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, https://​www​.brookings​.edu/​research/​why​-federalism​-matters/​. Polsby, Nelson. 1984. “Prospects for Pluralism in the American Federal System: Trends in Unofficial Public-Sector Intermediation.” In Robert T. Golembiewski and Aaron Wildavsky, eds., The Costs of Federalism: Essays in Honor of James W. Fesler, 21–35 (New Brunswick: Transaction Books). Renzsch, Wolfgang. 1989. “German Federalism in Historical Perspective: Federalism as a Substitute for a National State,” Publius 19:4, 17–33. Rubenstein, David S. 2015. “Administrative Federalism as Separation of Powers.” Washington and Lee Law Review 72:1, 171–255. Sanford, Terry. 1967. Storm over the States (New York: McGraw-Hill). Schmidt, Morten, et al. 2019. “The Danish Health Care System and Epidemiological Research: From Health Care Contacts to Database Records,” Clinical Epidemiology 11, 563–91. Schweizer, Peter. 1991. “Federalism in Switzerland,” India International Centre Quarterly 18:4, 161–9.

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Sundquist, James L. 1969. Making Federalism Work: A Study of Program Coordination at the Community Level (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press). Thompson, Frank J. and John J. DiIulio, eds. 1998. Medicaid and Devolution: A View from the States (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press). U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 2019. NHE Fact Sheet, https://​www​ .cms​.gov/​Research​-Statistics​-Data​-and​-Systems/​Statistics​-Trends​-and​-Reports/​Natio​ nalHealthE​xpendData/​NHE​-Fact​-Sheet​#:​~:​text​=​Historical​%20NHE​%2C​%202019​%3A​ &​text​=​Medicare​%20spending​%20grew​%206​.7​%25​%20to​,31​%20percent​%20of​%20total​ %20NHE. Wheare, Kenneth C. 1947. Federal Government (New York: Oxford University Press). Whittington, Richard. 2006. “Completing the Practice Turn in Strategy Research,” Organizational Studies 27:5, 613–34. Whittington, Richard, Ludovic Cailluet, and Basak Yakis-Douglas. 2011. “Opening Strategy: Evolution of a Precarious Profession,” British Journal of Management 22:3, 531–44. Wildavsky, Aaron. 1984. “E Pluribus Unum: Plurality, Diversity, Variety, and Modesty.” In Robert T. Golembiewski and Aaron Wildavsky, eds., The Costs of Federalism: Essays in Honor of James W. Fesler, 3–17 (New Brunswick: Transaction Books).

6. The strategic state: a case study of devolved government in Scotland Ian C. Elliott

Conceptualizations of public service design and delivery have evolved significantly from the ideas of Traditional Public Administration (TPA) to New Public Management (NPM) and now to New Public Governance (NPG) (Osborne, 2010).1 These conceptual changes reflect a shifting policy focus from government-directed design and delivery (TPA) to government-directed design but with mixed approaches to delivery (NPM) and now, arguably, to mixed approaches to design and delivery (NPG), which requires a greater focus on collaborative modes of governance (Fenwick et al., 2012; Mackie, 2013; McQuaid, 2010). There is also, within many Western societies, a shift towards more populist politics and a related rise of post-truth, alternative-facts rhetoric within political discourse which has challenged traditional models of government, democratic systems (Bauer & Becker, 2020) and the ability to innovate (Borins, 2018). This chapter considers how the Scottish Government have responded to these challenges through the development of a strategic state (Elliott, 2020b) including establishment of a National Performance Framework (NPF), a reformed civil service organizational structure and the development of a whole-of-society approach to governance. Through exploring more recent reforms to the NPF, and using illustrative examples from practice, it is shown how a lack of focus and waning momentum has created significant challenges in the practice of strategy across the Scottish Government, police service and health service. Finally, some recommendations are made for future research.

WHAT IS THE STRATEGIC STATE AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? There is a burgeoning literature on policy failure (McConnell, 2015), government blunders (King & Crewe, 2013) and administrative burden (Herd & Moynihan, 2018). Questions over how and why governments make mistakes are of course not new. For example, the introduction of the community charge (known as the poll tax) in the UK in 1990 has been expertly documented by Butler et al. (1994). There is also a significant legacy of important work within the subject areas of administrative justice and ombudsmen over many decades (Buck et al., 2010; Stacey, 1971). Finally, there are many examples of public inquiries which have investigated gov75

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ernment failures; particularly high-profile UK inquiries include the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and the Leveson Inquiry. These examples of failure provide part of the rationale for calls to do government better. At the same time there is growing recognition, both within the literature and in practice, that wicked problems require joined-up solutions (Bryson et al., 2006; Carey & Crammond, 2015). Others have drawn on complexity theory to illustrate how the level of analysis needs to be at the system, or macro-, level and that public organizations work within complex open systems (Lowe et al., 2020; Roberts, 2018). A broad range of possible responses to this complex landscape have been prescribed including more evidence-based policymaking (Cairney, 2016; Parkhurst, 2017), systems-based policy design (Lowe et al., 2020) and, in particular, more strategic forms of government (Bryson, 2010; Bryson et al., 2010; George & Desmidt, 2014; George et al., 2019; Joyce & Drumaux, 2014). But there remains a lack of research that has explored the nature, antecedents and consequences of the strategic state and it remains a relatively underexplored concept. Much of what has been written on the strategic state has come from the OECD who have provided particular impetus to calls for more strategic forms of government (Drumaux & Joyce, 2018). Through public governance reviews, the OECD have explored moves towards a strategic state in countries across Europe (OECD, 2010, 2012, 2013). Whilst there is no one way to develop a strategic state, and the nature of a strategic state will vary depending on context, some key factors may include: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Broadly supported long-term vision; Clearly identified emerging and longer-term needs; Prioritized objectives; Identification of medium and short-term deliverables; Assessed and managed risk; Efficient policy design and service delivery to meet identified needs; Actors and resources across society mobilized to achieve outcomes. (Adapted from OECD, 2013: 58)

Specifically, the strategic state has been defined as “a set of capabilities around the creation and delivery of an effective strategy at a country-wide level” (Elliott, 2020b: 286) and by others as “the essence of the new thinking about public governance, and it represents the reinvention of governance around a set of public management processes that deliver direction, steering, and a new relationship between government and citizens” (Drumaux & Joyce, 2018: 26). The following section briefly summarizes how the above key factors can be seen to have been implemented by the Scottish Government (for a fuller discussion on the implementation of the strategic state, see Elliott (2020b)).

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THE SCOTTISH EXAMPLE AS A UNIQUE CASE STUDY The Scottish Parliament was established (or re-enacted) in 1999 with the aspiration of a new type of politics (Arter, 2004; Cairney, 2011). A consensual, less adversarial, approach to politics was designed into the system, including the architecture of the Scottish Parliament debating chamber, the unicameral system with scrutiny taking place via a cross-party committee system, and the form of proportional representation in the voting system (a combination of first-past-the-post and the Additional Member System) (Arter, 2004). More than 20 years later many have cited Scottish devolution as a significant success (McGarvey and McConnell, 2012; Mitchell, 2009) though more recently some have questioned the progress that has been made over this time. As noted by the Auditor General for Scotland, “audit work consistently shows a major implementation gap between policy ambitions and delivery on the ground” (Boyle, 2021). The nature and extent of any comparative success is therefore a matter of ongoing debate. In the introduction to his monograph on The Scottish Question, Professor James Mitchell cites the Scottish journalist J.M. Reid who noted that Scotland was “a country which is, at least in some sense, a nation, but in no sense a State” (Mitchell, 2014). This might rightly beg the question – what can the case of Scotland give to our understanding of the strategic state? However, Scotland offers a unique case for many historical, cultural and political reasons. Having been an independent nation, prior to the Treaty of Union 1707 which created the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland maintained some administrative devolution due, in part, to the functions preserved in the Treaty (Parry, 1982 as cited by Rhodes et al., 2003). Specifically, Scotland retained its own legal system, education system and established church. At the same time, the distinctiveness of the Scottish system must not be overstated, and undoubtedly 300 years of Union have brought significant unity to the systems of Government across England and Scotland. But devolution, and the re-enactment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, have brought a renewed momentum to Scottish public affairs and high expectations that were set out by Donald Dewar (inaugural First Minister of Scotland 1999–2000) at the opening of the new Scottish Parliament that it was brought about in order “to do right by the people of Scotland; to respect their priorities; to better their lot; and to contribute to the commonweal” (Dewar, 1999). The strongest rationale for exploring Scotland as an example of the strategic state lies in the reforms which took place following the election of the first minority Scottish National Party (SNP) administration in 2007. Scotland may not, at least for now, be a State. But it has much to offer by way of example to other nations and small States in its experience as an aspiring State over this time. The remainder of this chapter will explore the development of a distinct ‘Scottish Approach’ to public services since 2007 and, in particular, how a lack of focus and waning momentum has led to significant challenges in the practice of strategy.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF A STRATEGIC STATE? Despite some distinctions, as noted above, the Scottish form of devolution was originally designed to closely resemble the Whitehall model (Elvidge, 2011) and many of the systems and structures of the Scottish Government were remnants of the former Scottish Office (the UK Government department which exercised government functions in Scotland prior to devolution). Yet, it became clear during the early years of the parliament that these traditional ways of working were not optimal for the new realities of devolution. One of the challenges in early years of devolution was the nature of coalition government (Labour–Liberal Democrat Coalition 1999–2003; Labour–Liberal Democrat Coalition 2003–07) which led to the development of very broad Programmes for Government. As noted by Sir John Elvidge (Scottish Government Permanent Secretary 2003–10), The 2003–07 agreement [between Labour and Liberal Democrats] contained over 460 specific individual commitments. It was later decided that those commitments were not to be the subject of any form of agreed prioritization. The two parties had contrived to manufacture a shared straitjacket for themselves. (2011: 12)

The perceived challenges in running the Scottish Government through the first two coalitions following devolution would later form a significant part of the rationale for development of a more strategic approach (Elliott, 2020b). With the election, in May 2007, of the first minority SNP administration the opportunity was taken to reshape the Scottish Government. It was felt, particularly by the Permanent Secretary at that time (Sir John Elvidge), that a more strategic and joined-up approach was required in order to better tackle persistent wicked issues (Elvidge, 2007). Subsequently, specific reforms were made including the establishment of a NPF founded on an outcomes-based approach, a reformed civil service organizational structure and the development of a whole-of-government approach. Establishment of a National Performance Framework The NPF was introduced within the Scottish Budget Spending Review 2007. This included an overarching purpose: to focus government activity and public services on creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth. (Scottish Government, 2007: 2)

The NPF represented a shift in governing from a target-driven approach to a more strategic approach (Arnott & Ozga, 2010). The NPF was based on the Virginia Performs model (Bryson, 2018) and was to provide an overview of the performance of the Scottish Government against each of its five strategic objectives. The associated website – Scotland Performs (www​.scotlandperforms​.com) – was launched

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in June 2008 to present information on how Scotland was performing against the indicators and targets outlined in the NPF. Reformed Civil Service Organizational Structure To support this new strategic approach to government, the Scottish Government was restructured. The Departmental structure, which resembled the traditional Whitehall structure (and had been inherited from the Scottish Office), was abolished. Heads of Department were replaced with five Directors-General, each one responsible for a strategic objective (Wealthier and Fairer; Safer and Stronger; Smarter; Greener; and Healthier) and a larger number of more autonomous Directorates. The new organizational structure was intended to remove old departmental silos and encourage a more joined-up and strategic approach to government. As explained in the ‘Civil Service Capabilities’ report, this meant that Directors-General now had a compelling reason to understand Scottish Government holistically, taking an interest beyond their own directorate. It also put them far more directly in touch with the local implications of actions from the centre, an awareness that they could then apply to their own policy making. (Kidson, 2013: 19)

Each of the five strategic objectives was underpinned by 15 National Outcomes and 45 National Indicators (refreshed in 2011 and 2016). Development of a Whole-of-Government Approach to a Whole-of-Society Approach Arguably the most significant and innovative development of the Scottish Government’s approach to strategic management was the inclusion of other public bodies, and even parts of the third sector, within the NPF. So, for example, all 32 local authorities in Scotland were aligned with the priorities of the Scottish Government. As stated by the Scottish Government, As part of the new relationship, local government will be expected to contribute to the delivery of the national Strategic Objectives, outcomes, indicators and targets, and in this way to support the Scottish Government in the delivery of its overarching Purpose. (Scottish Government, 2007: 71)

This alignment came about through the agreement of a Local Government Concordat whereby the Scottish Government cut the ring-fencing of funding and consequently streamlined reporting requirements in exchange for all 32 local authorities agreeing to freeze council tax rates and sign up to the NPF. Similarly, the NPF was extended to Community Planning Partnerships including Police Scotland, Health Boards, Enterprise Networks, the Fire and Rescue Service and Regional Transport Partnerships. Thus, it initially represented a ‘whole-of-government’ approach.

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The strategic approach to government, as symbolized by the NPF, was overhauled in 2018. The 15 National Outcomes were replaced by 11 outcomes and the 45 National Indicators replaced by 81 indicators. Crucially, as part of the ongoing changes, the NPF was reoriented from being a ‘whole-of-government’ approach to being a ‘whole-of-society’ approach. This included the NPF being notionally owned by the Scottish Leaders Forum, which is an informal collaborative forum of leaders from across a wide range of public service organizations, rather than being owned and led by the Scottish Government. It also included an explicit recognition that not all indicators could be achieved by government and public bodies alone. As noted on the revised National Performance Framework website (https://​nationalperformance​ .gov​.scot/​): To achieve the national outcomes, the National Performance Framework aims to get everyone in Scotland to work together. This includes: • national and local government • businesses • voluntary organisations • people living in Scotland. (Scottish Government, n.d.)

As well as including government, public bodies and the third sector, the revised NPF also included businesses and the people of Scotland. It also included broader outcomes such as “[W]e grow up loved, safe and respected so that we realise our full potential” (Scottish Government, 2018: 2). In doing so, the nature of the NPF shifted from being a whole-of-government approach to a whole-of-society approach. Thus, at one time the strategy became less focused (and arguably less strategic) and more extensive (and technical). Whilst there may be challenges in developing a strategic approach within an organization, or across several organizations (as was the ambition of the original NPF), there is even less evidence from the literature on how a strategic approach can apply to a whole country (as envisioned by the newly refreshed NPF). The NPF is supported by The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act and the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act. Together these legislate for an outcomes-based approach which must be renewed, following consultation, every five years and requires that services must be planned, delivered and evaluated across partnerships. The results from this strategic approach, in terms of improved outcomes, are mixed (Wallace et al., 2013) yet the Scottish Government clearly created a distinctly Scottish Approach to government and demonstrated competence and proficiency in matters of governance – often in contrast to the ‘traditional’ Westminster approach. This is demonstrated in the consistently high levels of public trust in the Scottish Government (Reid et al., 2020; Scottish Government, 2021) and strong election performance from the SNP who have remained in government since 2007, either as a minority (2007–11 and 2016–21), majority (2011–16) or power-sharing administration (2021–present).

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RECENT CHANGES AND LOSS OF FOCUS Some scholars question whether the use of strategic concepts and practices is appropriate in a public context, particularly as many of these have evolved from the private sector (Alford & Greve, 2017). Others have provided evidence to suggest, in terms of content (Andrews et al., 2006) and processes (Andrews et al., 2009), that strategy does have a significant impact on performance. In part, the value of adopting strategic practices in public contexts depends on how you define value. For George et al. (2019), strategic planning can enhance effectiveness but does not necessarily achieve efficiency gains. Within the public management literature there is even more debate over the value of outcomes-based approaches, particularly in the context of inter-institutional contexts (French & Mollinger-Sahba, 2021; Lowe, 2013; Lowe & Wilson, 2017; Moynihan et al., 2011; Wimbush, 2011). What remains even less clear is to what extent strategic concepts and practices can be applied to a whole society. In some senses the Scottish Government moved to develop a ‘whole-of-society’ approach before the ‘whole-of-government’ approach had even taken hold. For example, having an outcomes focus was central to the underpinning philosophy of the original NPF. Yet it was noted that “[W]hile the Scottish model provides the basis for the scrutiny of outcomes, linked to the budget, the evidence suggests that this is not used in a systematic, sustained way across all committees of the Scottish Parliament” (Potter, 2016: 1). It remains the case that evidence surrounding the impact of the outcomes-based approach is mixed (Connolly & Pyper, 2020; Mackie, 2018; Wallace et al., 2013). Therefore, questions remain over both the extent to which the strategic approach was ever embedded across the public sector and how effective this had been in practice. Specifically, there are examples from across the Scottish Government, the police service and the health service that would suggest a loss of focus and waning momentum have threatened the practice of strategy.

CHANGES TO LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY Initially the Scottish Approach advocated an adaptive leadership approach and significant leadership development took place, particularly with mid-level civil servants, involving both Ron Heifetz (adaptive leadership) and Mark Moore (public value). By May 2007, all Heads of Departments and Group Heads were to have engaged in training on adaptive leadership and public value (Scottish Executive, 2006). Yet, initially, this leadership development, and other related changes, were largely internal to the Scottish Government and many public sector employees, outside of the core civil service, were unaware of the reforms (Wallace, 2019). Later, particularly given the requirements of the NPF and the commitment to co-production, for joined-up or partnership working, wider parts of the public sector were included in leadership development activities. Following the refresh of the NPF in 2016 the focus for leadership development shifted from adaptive leadership and public value to collective leadership.

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Leadership development was initially coordinated by the Scottish Government through ‘Workforce Scotland’ which was established following the publication of the Christie Commission Report (Christie, 2011). This was renamed Collective Leadership for Scotland in 2018 in recognition of the increasing focus on this particular model of leadership and in line with the revised NPF. It is described as “a collaborative partnership which reaches right across public services, with a small core team based within The Scottish Government” (Collective Leadership for Scotland, 2020). The Scottish Government, through Collective Leadership for Scotland, have identified “a wide range of complex, wicked issues in Scotland, such as poverty, increasing inequalities and climate change” (Sharp, 2018: 2) and note that “many of our conventional models for leadership of change do not serve us well when it comes to complex, systemic issues” (Sharp, 2018: 2). The previous approach to leadership development (2007–17) was arguably too focused on internal civil service development. Broadening the scope of leadership development activity, and establishing Collective Leadership for Scotland, may have helped address this criticism but by extending the scope of the NPF to encompass a whole-of-society approach any leadership development efforts would require significantly more investment. Lost Opportunities and Emerging Failures From a strategic perspective, the Scottish Government, particularly the political leadership in the devolved polity, have attempted to differentiate themselves from the rest of the UK whilst at the same time, in terms of the administrative function, they remain part of a unified British civil service. In terms of leadership style and organizational culture there has tended to be a very strong Whitehall influence. As noted by Rhodes et al. (2003), it has historically been common for civil servants to transfer between Edinburgh and London. This has been seen to serve two purposes: to develop leadership experience across a range of Government departments and to maintain strong cultural and organizational links between Whitehall and Edinburgh. Some argue that the status of the Scottish Government as part of the British civil service has remained largely unchanged since devolution and the Whitehall model, whilst undergoing change, remains dominant across Britain (Northern Ireland has always had a separate civil service) (Parry, 2012). However, the development of a strategic Scottish Approach to public services marks a deliberate shift from the Whitehall model (particularly in relation to the organizational structure and culture). There may be different motivations administratively and politically for this development but focusing on being distinctive may lead to lost opportunities for learning, when other parts of the UK are, in fact, doing similar things. Opportunities may exist across the devolved administrations and with Whitehall for greater sharing of learning, leadership development and experience which risk not been capitalized on in favour of developing a separate and distinctive approach. To a small extent these opportunities have always existed, for example, the Wednesday morning Whitehall meetings of permanent secretaries (Parry, 2012). Yet there are

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limited opportunities for shared learning and development at all levels of the civil service as well as beyond the civil service to other parts of the public sector. The lack of learning opportunities is no more evident than in the higher education sector where there is currently only one MPA programme and one MPP programme across Scotland. This is in comparison to around six MPA and MPP programmes in both the US States of Minnesota and South Carolina (both with equivalent population sizes to Scotland). Ideas of boundary spanning and collaborative governance are neither new nor are they unique to the Scottish experience (O’Flynn, 2014; Pollitt, 2003; Sullivan & Skelcher, 2002). The outcomes-based approach which underpins the Scottish Approach has also been developed across the other nations of the UK (Birrell & Gray, 2018). Yet, the demise of the UK National School of Government in 2012 and subsequent creation of Civil Service Learning has “left a void that has not been filled” (PACAC, 2019: 11). Permanent institutions for civil service learning and development as exist in other countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, France and New Zealand have not been established at a UK-wide level (PACAC, 2019). But even developments at a devolved government level, as with Academi Wales and the Wales Centre for Public Policy, have not been matched in Scotland. Consequently, there remains a lack of investment in either a distinct approach to learning and development or in building on other UK-wide approaches. Within the Scottish context, the lack of a joined-up approach to leadership development has meant that “leadership cadres across the civil service, local government, the health and social services and the other arms of the public service, have remained distinct and disaggregated” (Connolly & Pyper, 2020: 411). Other examples where there has been shown to be a lack of leadership development and investment in capacity include in relation to community empowerment (Elliott et al., 2019), in relation to health and social care integration (Elliott et al., 2020) and in relation to local government (Elliott, 2020a; Gibb et al., 2020). The lack of investment in leadership development has led to a significant lost opportunity in health and social care integration (Elliott et al., 2020) and local interpretation of performance measures has resulted in inconsistencies in how different areas have approached and evaluated integration (Audit Scotland, 2015). The independent review into allegations of bullying and harassment in NHS Highland, conducted by John Sturrock QC, found that the Scottish Government continue to focus on centralized targets and ring-fenced budgeting (Sturrock, 2019). One NHS Highland Director commented: It’s targets. It’s finance. It’s political. Populist policies but don’t have the resources to fill them. NHSH is just one health board of many that are suffering. (Sturrock, 2019: 35)

The Sturrock report calls for greater training and development and for a focus on collective leadership approaches. Finally, in relation to policing, it has been noted that “muddy lines of accountability, a lack of separation between the key actors and an interventionist approach by the Scottish Government has politicized the space in

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which strategy is developed” (Murray & Malik, 2019: 174). Controversies surrounding the establishment of Police Scotland (Thomson et al., 2015), the use of stop and search powers (Murray, 2015), deployment of armed policing, and scrapping of the Edinburgh housebreaking unit (Malik, 2018; Thomson et al., 2015) have all served to highlight the challenges in running a national public service whilst also being sensitive to local context and needs. The national audit agency, Audit Scotland, has repeatedly raised concerns over the Scottish Government’s continued use of top-down targets (Audit Scotland, 2019b); inconsistencies in the approaches and evaluation of health and social care integration (Audit Scotland, 2015); challenges in recruitment and retention of staff (Audit Scotland, 2018b, 2019a, 2019b); and a lack of collaborative leadership (Audit Scotland, 2018a). This is despite having adopted an explicit strategic approach to government in 2007 and having implemented many of the factors consistent with the strategic state (Elliott, 2020b). As recently highlighted by the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle, For now, there’s a mismatch between the Scottish Government’s vision of a more successful Scotland – where poverty is reduced, and economic growth is sustainable – and how we assess public sector performance. I am not convinced that public sector leaders really feel accountable for delivering change that demands different organisations work together. There is much talk of collaborative leadership. But in my discussions with public sector leaders, it’s clear that too many of them still don’t feel truly empowered or sufficiently emboldened to make the changes they think are needed to deliver Christie [the Christie Commission on the future delivery of public services (Christie, 2011)]. (Boyle, 2021)

CONCLUSIONS The key factors required to be a strategic state have been listed by the OECD as including: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Broadly supported long-term vision; Clearly identified emerging and longer-term needs; Prioritized objectives; Identification of medium and short-term deliverables; Assessed and managed risk; Efficient policy design and service delivery to meet identified needs; Actors and resources across society mobilized to achieve outcomes. (Adapted from OECD, 2013: 58)

In the case of Scotland, most of these can be seen to be in place but there remain significant challenges in ensuring actors and resources across society are mobilized to achieve the desired outcomes – particularly given the ambitions to develop a ‘whole-of-society’ approach. Despite over 20 years of devolution, and nearly 15 years of the NPF, there remains little clear apparent success in relation to key indicators such as child poverty and educational attainment. This has led the Auditor

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General for Scotland to assert that “[W]e all need to rethink radically how we measure success and hold organisations to account for their performance”. This radical rethinking of how we measure success is, at least in part, what the NPF was meant to achieve almost 15 years ago. The austerity policies that have emanated from Westminster since 2008 may have played a part in stalling some of the strategic goals, particularly as training budgets across the public sector have been the first to be cut (Elliott, 2020a). But the moves to widen the scope of the strategic approach from a ‘whole-of-government’ to ‘whole-of-society’ approach without increased investment, particularly in learning and development activities, have undoubtedly placed greater pressure on the aspiration to be a strategic state. The small scale of Scottish public service landscape and the opportunities that came with devolution lead to a sense that things could be done differently – and better. Both the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament have developed and matured over time. Working beyond Westminster has enabled the development of a distinctly Scottish Approach. With the implementation of a strategic state, underpinned by the NPF, significant improvements were made to the running of the Scottish Government (Elliott, 2020b). There is significant evidence that this strategic approach was an improvement on what had come before, particularly in relation to the inner workings of the Scottish Government. At the same time, the dawning of a ‘new politics’ has not been fully realized and further developments towards a fully integrated and strategic public sector have been stalled. Devolution has been described as a success (McGarvey and McConnell, 2012; Mitchell, 2009), yet there is a risk that, without a consistent and sustained investment in the delivery of public services, the measures that have been taken so far may appear as little more than window-dressing. A strategic state is a whole-of-government approach to the design and delivery of public services which links a shared long-term vision with the collective capacity, capability and conviction to make it happen. On all three tests the Scottish case would appear to be fracturing. There are challenges around capacity and capability – in relation to workforce planning, talent management and broader education, training and development. Recent Audit Scotland reports have suggested that there is a lack of strategic planning, collaborative leadership and investment in strategic capacity (Audit Scotland, 2018a, 2018b, 2019a). What remains unclear is the extent to which recent controversies and failures represent the beginning of a breakdown in the strategic state or whether the legislative protections that have been put in place will be sufficient to ensure that the longer-term strategic focus can be regained. Undoubtedly, further research is required to continue to explore these issues in depth. The following are just some suggestions for further research and are provided in no particular order: ● Comparison between models of leadership in Scottish Government and at city region level in England; ● Comparison of leadership across different countries that have adopted a well-being perspective, such as New Zealand and Scotland;

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● Comparison of strategic approaches to government across similar countries such as Belgium, Finland, Iceland, Republic of Ireland and Estonia; ● The relationship between different forms of leadership and the strategic state; ● The understanding and use of collective leadership across public service organizations.

NOTE 1. The author would like to thank participants at the EGPA Annual Conference 2019, Professor Robert Pyper (University of West of Scotland), and the anonymous reviewer for comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

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McConnell, A. (2015). What Is Policy Failure? A Primer to Help Navigate the Maze. Public Policy and Administration, 30(3–4), 221–42. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0952076714565416. McGarvey, N., & McConnell, A. (2012). Has Scottish Devolution Been a Success? Paper presented at Public Administration Conference, Birmingham, United Kingdom. McQuaid, R. (2010). Theory of Organizational Partnerships: Partnership Advantages, Disadvantages and Success Factors. In S. P. Osborne (ed.), The New Public Governance? Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public Governance (pp. 127–48). London: Routledge. Mitchell, J. (2009). Devolution in the United Kingdom. Manchester University Press. Mitchell, J. (2014). The Scottish Question (first edition). Oxford University Press. Moynihan, D. P., Fernandez, S., Kim, S., LeRoux, K. M., Piotrowski, S. J., Wright, B. E., & Yang, K. (2011). Performance Regimes Amidst Governance Complexity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21(suppl. 1), i141–i155. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1093/​ jopart/​muq059. Murray, K. (2015). Stop and Search in Scotland: Legality and Accountability. Scottish Justice Matters. http://​sc​ottishjust​icematters​.com/​stop​-and​-search​-in​-scotland​-legality​-and​ -accountability/​. Murray, K., & Malik, A. (2019). Contested Spaces: The Politics of Strategic Police Leadership in Scotland. In P. Ramshaw, M. Silvestri, & M. Simpson (Eds), Police Leadership (pp.  173–91). Springer International Publishing. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​978​-3​-030​-21469​ -2​_8. OECD (2010). Finland: Working Together to Sustain Success, OECD public governance reviews, OECD Publishing, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1787/​9789264086081​-en. OECD (2012). Slovenia: Towards a Strategic and Efficient State, OECD public governance reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1787/​9789264173262​-en. OECD (2013). Poland: Implementing Strategic-state Capability, OECD public governance reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1787/​9789264201811​-en. O’Flynn, J. (Ed.) (2014). Crossing Boundaries in Public Management and Policy: The International Experience. Routledge. Osborne, S. (Ed.) (2010). The New Public Governance? Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public Governance. Routledge. PACAC (2019). Strategic Leadership in the Civil Service: Sustaining Self-Governance and Future Capability while Supporting the Government of the Day (Nineteenth Report of Session 2017–19 HC 1536). House of Commons. https://​publications​.parliament​.uk/​pa/​ cm201719/​cmselect/​cmpubadm/​1536/​1536​.pdf. Parkhurst, J. O. (2017). The Politics of Evidence: From Evidence-Based Policy to the Good Governance of Evidence. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Parry, R. (2012). The Civil Service and Intergovernmental Relations in the Post-Devolution UK. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 14(2), 285–302. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1111/​j​.1467​-856X​.2011​.00498​.x. Pollitt, C. (2003). Joined-up Government: A Survey. Political Studies Review, 1(1), 34–49. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​1478​-9299​.00004. Potter, M. (2016). Outcomes-Based Government: Scrutiny of Outcomes (Research and Information Service Briefing Paper NIAR 215-15). Northern Ireland Assembly. Reid, S., Montagu, I., Scholes, A., Scotland, Social Research, Scotland, Scottish Government, & APS Group Scotland (2020). Scottish Social Attitudes 2019: Attitudes to Government, the Economy and the Health Service, and Political Engagement in Scotland. Rhodes, R. A. W., Carmichael, P., McMillan, J., & Massey, A. (Eds) (2003). Decentralizing the Civil Service: From Unitary State to Differentiated Polity in the United Kingdom. Open University Press.

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Roberts, A. (2018). The Aims of Public Administration: Reviving the Classical View. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 1(1), 73–85. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1093/​ ppmgov/​gvx003. Scottish Executive (2006). High Level Action Plan for the Scottish Executive’s future change programme. Scottish Executive. https://​www​.webarchive​.org​.uk/​wayback/​archive/​ 20180515200333/​http://​www​.gov​.scot/​Publications/​2006/​12/​12110142/​0. Scottish Government (2007). Scottish Budget Spending Review 2007. Scottish Government. http://​www​.scotland​.gov​.uk/​Publications/​2007/​11/​13092240/​0. Scottish Government (2018). Scotland’s National Performance Framework: Our Purpose, Values and National Outcomes. Scottish Government. https://​ nationalperformance​ .gov​ .scot/​sites/​default/​files/​documents/​NPF​_A4​_Booklet​.pdf. Scottish Government (2021). Public Attitudes to Coronavirus—January Update. Societal impacts and wellbeing team, Covid-19 Analysis Division. https://​www​.gov​.scot/​binaries/​ content/​documents/​govscot/​publications/​research​-and​-analysis/​2021/​01/​public​-attitudes​ -coronavirus​-january​-update/​documents/​public​-attitudes​-coronavirus​-january​-update​ -societal​-impacts​-wellbeing​-team​-covid​-19​-analysis​-division/​public​-attitudes​-coronavirus​ -january​-update​-societal​-impacts​-wellbeing​-team​-covid​-19​-analysis​-division/​govscot​ %3Adocument/​public​-attitudes​-coronavirus​-january​-update​-societal​-impacts​-wellbeing​ -team​-covid​-19​-analysis​-division​.pdf. Scottish Government (n.d.). National Performance Framework—How it Works. National Performance Framework. https://​nationalperformance​.gov​.scot/​how​-it​-works. Sharp, C. (2018). Collective Leadership: Where Nothing Is Clear and Everything Keeps Changing. Collective Leadership. https://​workforcescotland​.files​.wordpress​.com/​2018/​11/​ collect​iveleaders​hipreport1​.pdf. Stacey, F. A. (1971). The British Ombudsman. Clarendon Press. Sturrock, J. (2019). Cultural Issues Related to Allegations of Bullying and Harassment in NHS Highland: Independent Review Report. [Report to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport]. Scottish Government. https://​www​.gov​.scot/​publications/​report​-cultural​-issues​ -related​-allegations​-bullying​-harassment​-nhs​-highland/​. Sullivan, H., & Skelcher, C. (2002). Working Across Boundaries: Collaboration in Public Services. Palgrave Macmillan. Thomson, B., Mawdsley, G., & Payne, A. (2015). The Thinning Blue Line. Reform Scotland. https://​reformscotland​.com/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2015/​06/​The​-Thinning​-Blue​-Line​-2015​ .pdf. Wallace, J. (2019). Wellbeing and Devolution: Reframing the Role of Government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (first edition). Springer International Publishing/Palgrave Pivot. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​978​-3​-030​-02230​-3. Wallace, J., Mathias, M., Brotchie, J., Wales Public Services 2025 (Program), & Carnegie United Kingdom Trust (2013). Weathering the Storm? A Look at Small Countries’ Public Services in Times of Austerity: Summary. https://​www​.bl​.uk/​collection​-items/​weathering​ -the​-storm​-a​-look​-at​-small​-countries​-public​-services​-in​-times​-of​-austerity​-summary. Wimbush, E. (2011). Implementing an Outcomes Approach to Public Management and Accountability in the UK—Are We Learning the Lessons? Public Money & Management, 31(3), 211–18. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​09540962​.2011​.573237.

PART II CHALLENGES, APPROACHES AND NEW SOLUTIONS

7. Public value governance and strategic public management John M. Bryson, Barbara C. Crosby and Bill Barberg

INTRODUCTION This chapter explores what public value governance (PVG) might imply for strategic public management (SPM). In other words, how might strategic management create public value and advance the common good, when doing so requires focusing on challenges that exceed the capacity of any single organization. We argue that strategy management-at-scale, embracing collaboration and less formal co-alignments, can be effective in such cases (Bryson, 2021; Bryson et al., 2021). Strategic management for organizations is now standard practice for businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations around the world. Strategy management-at-scale is far less common, but is needed to address issues, challenges, or problems that spill well beyond the boundaries of any single organization’s capacities to address. Such cross-boundary issues include the global COVID-19 pandemic, achievement of each of the 169 targets included in the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (https://​sdgs​.un​.org/​goals), or U.S. domestic issues like homelessness, the lack of affordable housing, racial gaps in educational achievement, or the damage from adverse childhood experiences. Such issues occur within a shared-power, no-one-wholly-in-charge environment and demand a response from multiple organizations. Multiple strands of reasonably aligned if not directly coordinated efforts are required (Sancino, 2016; Bryson et al., 2017). We discuss two complementary approaches to strategy management-at-scale: collaboration, and especially the popular collective impact (CI) approach; and community organizing, coalition building, and advocacy. CI rarely alters power relations, while community organizing, coalition building, and advocacy can, and often do, change power relationships. Broadly based social transformation, however, is unlikely to result from either approach, because social transformation takes the change challenges and responses to a societal or even global level. The required changes are multi-issue, multi-level, multi-organizational, and cross-sectoral, and can cross national frontiers. This calls for a social movement or movements including, but moving well beyond, organizations and collaborations. In short, social transformation involves many, many initiatives that are loosely coordinated or co-aligned – all at least implicitly guided by shared principles and aiming toward common purposes. Social transformation does alter power relationships, often in fundamental ways. Cultural change is required; individuals’ and groups’ mental models and practices must change. Strategic man92

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agement and strategy management-at-scale still have a role to play, but exploring that role is beyond the scope of this chapter. See Bryson et al. (2021) for more on leading social transformation. Throughout this chapter, we attend to the importance of public values and the common good. The public value literature draws attention to: (1) the public purposes that are, or should be, served by organizations in all sectors, by intra- and cross-sector collaborations, and by public leadership broadly defined; and (2) how public managers and other leaders do and should accomplish these purposes (Moore, 1995; Bozeman and Johnson, 2015; Bryson et al., 2015; Hartley et al., 2015; Sancino, 2016; O’Flynn, 2021). After this introduction, we briefly review the meaning of public value governance and its implications for strategizing. We then discuss the two approaches to strategy management-at-scale. We delve further into strategy mapping as a key technique for effective strategy management-at-scale. Finally, we offer several observations concerning strategy management-at-scale for practice, research, and education.

STRATEGIZING IN THE CONTEXT OF PUBLIC VALUE GOVERNANCE Public value governance (PVG) (described in Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomberg, 2014), synthesizes views about how governance, and with it public management, has been changing in order to effectively address major cross-boundary and often cross-border challenges (Table 7.1). The authors argue that important aspects of traditional public administration and so-called New Public Management will continue, but these earlier approaches are not up to the task of addressing many current challenges to governance, not just to public management. The new approach highlights four important stances that together represent a response to current challenges and old shortcomings. These include an emphasis on public value and public values; recognition that government has a special role as a guarantor of public values; a belief in the importance of public management broadly conceived, and of service to and for the public; and a heightened emphasis on citizenship and democratic and collaborative governance. These concerns, of course, are not new to public administration, but their emerging combination is the latest response to what Dwight Waldo (1948/2007) called the periodically changing “material and ideological background.” Whether the new approach can live up to its promise – and particularly its democratic promise – is an open question and depends on how well strategizing is pursued in the new context. Strategizing links aspirations and capabilities, issues and answers, challenges and responses, problems and solutions (Ackermann and Eden, 2011; Gaddis, 2018). This includes forming, deciding on, or changing aspirations and strategies. It also includes developing or acquiring capabilities, and it includes learning-by-doing and changing minds (Ansell, 2011). In the context of PVG, strategizing “consists of the activities undertaken by public organizations or other entities to deliberately and emergently (re)align their aspirations and capabilities, thus

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Table 7.1

The Public Sphere or Realm

Intellectual Context

Broad Environmental and

 

Public value governance including public value management, service, and citizenship

Dimension

Public Value Governance

Material and

Concern with market, government, nonprofit and civic failures; concern with

ideological

so-called wicked problems; deepening inequality; hollowed or thinned state;

conditions

“downsized” citizenship; networked and collaborative governance; advanced information and communication technologies

Primary theoretical

Democratic theory, public and nonprofit management theory, plus diverse approaches

and epistemological

to knowing, including positivist, interpretive, pragmatic, and critical theories

foundations Prevailing view of

Formal rationality, multiple tests of rationality (political, administrative, economic,

rationality and model legal, ethical), belief in public spiritedness beyond narrow self-interest, “reasonable of human behavior

person” open to influence via dialogue and deliberation

Definition of

What is public is seen as going far beyond government, though government has

common good,

a special role as a guarantor of public values. Common good determined by broadly

public value, public

inclusive dialogue and deliberation informed by evidence and democratic and

interest

constitutional values

Role of politics

“Public work,” including determining policy objectives via dialogue and deliberation; democracy as “a way of life”

Role of citizenship

Citizens as problem-solvers and co-creators actively engaged in creating what is valued by the public and is good for the public

Role of government

Government as convener, catalyst, collaborator; sometimes steering, sometimes,

agencies

rowing, sometimes partnering, sometimes staying out of the way

Key objectives

Create public value in such a way that what the public most cares about is addressed

Government and Public Administration

effectively and what is good for the public is put in place Key values

Efficiency, effectiveness, and the full range of democratic and constitutional values

Mechanisms for

Selection from a menu of alternative delivery mechanisms based on pragmatic

achieving policy

criteria; this often means helping build cross-sector collaborations and engaging

objectives

citizens to achieve mutually agreed objectives

Role of public

Play an active role in helping create and guide networks of deliberation and delivery

manager

and help maintain and enhance the overall capacity of the system

To whom the

Elected officials, citizens, and an array of other stakeholders

public managers are responsive Administrative

Discretion is needed, but is constrained by law, democratic and constitutional values,

discretion

and a broad approach to accountability

Approach to

Multi-faceted, since public servants must attend to law, community values, political

accountability

norms, professional standards, and citizen interests

Approach to public

No one sector has a monopoly on public service ethos; maintaining relationships

service ethos

based on shared public values is essential

Contribution to the

Delivers dialogue and catalyzes and responds to active citizenship in pursuit of what

democratic process

the public values and what is good for the public

Source:  Adapted from Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomberg (2014: 447).

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exploring how aspirations can actually be achieved within a given context – or else need to be changed – taking into account current capabilities and the possible need to develop new capabilities or to change the context” (Bryson and George, 2020: 1). At each point in this formulation – meaning the interconnections of capabilities, strategies, and aspirations – public value and specific public values are explicitly or implicitly involved, meaning they are maintained, enhanced, or undermined (Roberts, 2019). In short, if one is to address the challenges effectively and take advantage of opportunities in order to preserve or enhance public value (Moore, 1995, 2013) and values (e.g., Bozeman and Johnson, 2015; Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomberg, 2015), strategizing is certainly necessary, since there are undoubtedly more ways to fail than to succeed. Even though strategizing can never guarantee success, at least it may reduce the risk of failure, or if failure does occur, it can increase the likelihood of drawing the right lessons from failure, so that success is more likely in the future (Jakobsen, Baekgaard, Moynihan, and van Loon, 2018; Roberts, 2019).

STRATEGY MANAGEMENT-AT-SCALE Strategic management is now a conventional feature of government, nonprofit, and business organizations (Bryson, 2018; Whittington et al., 2019).1 Strategic management “integrates strategic planning and implementation across an organization (or other entity) in an ongoing way to enhance the fulfillment of mission, the meeting of mandates, and sustained creation of public value” (Bryson, 2018: 24). Different kinds of strategic management systems are appropriate for different kinds of context (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015; Bryson and George, 2020). The systems vary in: comprehensiveness, loose or tight coupling, advance planning, approaches to governance, approaches to organizational learning, and so on. Each system represents an organizational strategy for adapting the organization to its context to ensure ongoing mission accomplishment, or else to accommodate mission change based on experience. Such systems can help improve performance and responsiveness, especially when organizations are interested in behaving proactively (e.g., Crook et al., 2008; Mintzberg et al., 2009; Marr and Creelman, 2011; Andrews et al., 2012; Whittington et al., 2019). On the other hand, when these systems – and their leaders – are out of alignment with the organization’s challenges, needed change can be stifled and public value creation reduced. PVG prompts recognition of the many challenges that go beyond what an organization’s strategic management system can handle by itself, including those we mentioned earlier: the global COVID-19 pandemic, the targets for the U.N.’s SDGs, and U.S. domestic issues like homelessness, the lack of affordable housing, racial gaps in educational achievement, and the damage from adverse childhood experiences. Making headway against such challenges requires reasonable collaboration among, or at least some alignment of, the efforts of multiple organizations, associations, and groups in an approach involving – at least to some degree – sharing power, pooling

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authority, and aligning resources and purposes around achieving a shared objective. Multiple strands of reasonably aligned if not directly coordinated effort are necessary, often across sectors and levels (e.g., global, national, state, and/or local). Strategy management-at-scale efforts have gone on for decades, though often with disappointing results, in part because – in contrast to the hype surrounding it – collaboration is not an easy answer to hard problems, but is instead a hard answer to hard problems. When it comes to collaboration, there are more ways to fail than to succeed (Bryson et al., 2015). In this section, we discuss two different, yet complementary, approaches to strategy management-at-scale: collaboration, and especially a popular approach called collective impact (CI); and community organizing, coalition building, and advocacy. Before we do, however, we want to clarify our terminology. Strategic management typically refers to the efforts of single organizations or entities to integrate strategy formation and implementation in a reasonable way. Strategy formation includes both deliberately set strategy and emergent strategy; in other words, some aspects of strategy can be set in advance, but others emerge as desirable patterns that are recognized after the fact as good strategies. Beyond that, strategies can be realized, which is what happens when what is intended merges with what is emergent (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel, 2009). Strategy, in other words, is not a document, such as a strategic plan, but is instead “a pattern across purposes, policies, programs, projects, actions, decisions, or resource allocations” (Bryson, 2018: 54) – with the caveat that the pattern may not be a good one. Strategy management-at-scale refers to efforts to fulfill aspirations when it is not possible for a single entity – such as a collaboration – to do so on its own. Power, authority, and resources are simply too widely dispersed; no entity comes close to being in charge. Collective Impact Strategy management-at-scale initiatives gained momentum with the publication of Kania and Kramer’s widely cited 2011 article on “Collective Impact” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The authors asserted that achieving CI required a disciplined cross-organizational and cross-sector approach on a scale that matches the challenge. They believed “five conditions” were necessary to achieve collective impact (39–40): ● A common agenda, including a shared vision that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving the problem through agreed-upon actions ● Shared measurement regarding how success will be measured and reported and a short list of indicators to be used for learning and improvement ● Mutually reinforcing activities, in which stakeholders across sectors coordinate in such a way that activities build on each other ● Frequent and structured communications to build trust, create common motivation, and focus on the objectives

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● A “backbone organization” which has an independent, funded staff dedicated to supporting the initiative. The CI framework achieved acceptance among foundations, government agencies, health systems, and other actors who wanted a conceptually simple way to talk about and create large-scale change through multi-sector collaboration. The CI approach met that requirement and was in reasonable accord with more sophisticated, research-based frameworks (Ansell and Gash, 2008; Stratton, 2009; Bryson et al., 2015; Emerson and Nabatchi, 2015; but see Wolff et al., 2016). Partly in response to strong criticisms, CI advocates have modified and elaborated the approach. One change involves articulating several “preconditions” for achieving CI, including having an influential champion, or a small group of champions; adequate financial resources; and a shared sense of urgency around the need for change (Hanleybrown et al., 2012). Other changes included clarifying that the “conditions” are really principles to guide development of a CI effort; articulating development phases; highlighting the need to attend to equity and justice; and elaborating on “mindset shifts” needed to achieve impact (e.g., Hanleybrown et al., 2012; Kania and Kramer, 2013; Kania et al., 2014). These shifts include: ● ● ● ● ● ●

Getting all the right eyes on the problem Understanding that the relational is as important as the rational [Understanding] structure is as important as strategy Sharing credit is as important as taking credit Paying attention to adaptive work, not just technical solutions Looking for silver buckshot instead of the silver bullet. (Kania and Kramer, 2011: 39–40)

Yet another change is that the concept of a “backbone organization” evolved to be “backbone support.” This came about because the level of influence and prestige (and potentially control over funding) associated with a backbone organization led to competition in communities over selecting the backbone organization – and sometimes resulted in competing coalitions that were each trying to pull in key community organizations to support their efforts. The idea of backbone support means that different organizations may take on parts of the backbone support roles that align with their strengths. In large-scale system-change efforts, distributed backbone support is far more practical than expecting a single organization (new or existing) to provide what is needed to advance many mutually reinforcing activities to make meaningful progress toward advancing the common agenda. As noted, the CI approach has received a number of critiques, the most serious asserting that CI initiatives have great difficulty achieving deep-seated system change, equity, and justice (e.g., Christens and Inzeo, 2015; Wolff et al., 2016). Stachowiak and Gase (2018) have studied eight CI initiatives, out of an initial sample of 25, that they thought most “demonstrated strong implementation of the CI approach and had documented meaningful changes among the target population” (2). The authors found that “more complete implementation of the conditions results

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in greater impact” (3). In addition, when initiatives focused on equity, “there was evidence of positive outcomes” (5), though how much evidence is unclear. There was also some evidence of system change in this sample of success stories, but, as might be expected, change took a long time, and does not appear to be the deep-seated kind envisioned by social transformation. Using process tracing, the authors concluded that backbone support, including continuous communication, and a common agenda, are important starting points. The two together help produce mutually reinforcing activities. The common agenda and mutually reinforcing activities then contribute toward developing a shared measurement system. One takeaway from this evaluation is that while the need might be great, the normal expectation ought to be that meeting the conditions for successful CI is very difficult. The CI literature is relatively silent on leadership tasks, except for those implicit in the mindset shifts noted above. More recently, Senge, Hamilton, and Kania (2015), in a widely cited article, argue that three core capabilities needed by “system leaders” to foster collective leadership are: seeing the larger system, fostering reflection and generative conversations, and shifting the collective focus from reactive problem solving to co-creating the future. In addition, DuBow, Hug, Serafini, and Litzler (2018) implicitly point to leadership tasks with their finding that backbone organizations help foster change when they promote regular convening; stress accountability; promote public visibility of efforts; have top-leader involvement; and engage in coaching. Ideally, the collaboration literature would pay more attention to the kinds of leadership required for successful collaboration (O’Leary et al., 2012; Stout et al., 2018; Sørensen et al., 2021). Community Organizing, Coalition Building, and Advocacy The critiques of CI draw limits around the situations in which it is likely to be helpful. Specifically, really addressing issues of equity, social justice, and system change requires community organizing, coalition building, and advocacy (Wolff et al., 2016). A revision of the CI framework called “Collective Impact 3.0” acknowledges this, but does not go far enough (Cabaj and Weaver, 2016). As originally formulated, CI is a fairly top-down, “grass tops” approach that does not engage the most affected communities as equal partners, nor does it get at the deep political, economic, and racial causes of serious social problems. Wolff et al. (2016) argue that tackling issues of equity and justice (as key public values) requires initiatives built on the following six principles: ● Explicitly address issues of social and economic injustice and structural racism ● Employ a community development approach in which residents have equal power in setting the coalition’s or collaborative’s agenda and resource allocations ● Employ “grass roots” community organizing as an intentional strategy and as part of the process; work to build residents’ leadership and power; change the power structure when necessary

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● Focus on policy, systems, and structural change (“Policy offers the most direct route to measurable progress, but all too often CI practice stops at the programmatic level” (Wolff et al., 2016: 46) ● Build on the extensive community-engaged scholarship over the last four decades that shows what works, that acknowledges the complexities, and that evaluates appropriately (e.g., Christens and Inzeo, 2015) ● Construct core functions for the collaborative based on equity and justice, including providing basic facilitating structures and building member ownership and leadership. As Wolff et al. (2016: 49) note, “The key role for the collaborative needs to be building the community leadership as opposed to being the leadership.” The shift is to create a social movement that alters power relations so that major system changes can happen. The shift also involves recognizing that powerful opposition is to be expected; a power analysis is necessary; effective engagement, mobilization, and advocacy efforts are required; and entrenched power must often be confronted and neutralized or overcome, if deep-seated system change is to occur. The required leadership tasks are in many ways similar to those for CI, but there is more emphasis on grass-roots organizing, systems thinking, political astuteness (Hartley et al., 2015); coalition building and advocacy (Jenkins-Smith et al., 2017; Almeida, 2019); and a willingness to engage in conflict (Christens and Inzeo, 2015). Strategy mapping (Bryson et al., 2014, 2016; Barberg, 2017), power mapping (Ackermann and Eden, 2011; MoveOn.org, 2015), and system dynamics modeling (Stroh, 2015) can be particularly helpful. Community organizing, coalition, and advocacy also have their limits. The focus on bottom-up organizing and overcoming entrenched power means that – as with CI efforts – there are more ways to fail than to succeed. The focus on “the community” also generally limits the reach of the approach to more local concerns, although grass-roots mobilizing initiatives have also helped change many specific policies at state and federal levels, including smoking limits, gun safety legislation, easing or strengthening abortion rights, changes to suffrage, and civil rights legislation. In other words, networks of community organizing efforts across geographically dispersed communities can have a substantial impact, such as the multi-city, multi-state efforts of the national U.S. organization Faith in Action, a coalition of coalitions of religious congregations and their allies. CI initiatives and community organizing efforts, of course, can be complementary. System changes that require better alignment and inter-organizational service coordination may be achieved relatively quickly using a CI approach. On the other hand, when “changes require concessions from entrenched interests, or reorganization and reorientation of existing institutions,” community organizing, coalition building, and advocacy are “likely the more effective approach” (Christens and Inzeo, 2015: 431). Once these changes to power relations and institutions occur, CI initiatives can be used as part of efforts to make sure the implemented changes work well in practice.

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STRATEGY MAPPING AS A KEY TECHNIQUE FOR EFFECTIVE STRATEGY MANAGEMENT-AT-SCALE This section explores an example of collaboration in the western Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia (BC) aimed at fundamentally changing the family justice system. The changes involve better alignment across provinces and better alignment and coordination within provinces of existing services, but also major reorientations (mind-set shifts) and new ways to organize system actors and activities to increase the likelihood of achieving major changes to the family justice system. The example involves collaboration between the two provinces to support each other through sharing high-level goals and overall strategies and by sharing learning from their respective provincial experience of coalition building and strategy management within provinces. In other words, it is a collaboration of collaborations. Given the Canadian constitutional division of powers that gives the provinces the responsibility for the administration of justice, the BC and Alberta initiatives are separately working at what Roberts (2019: 17) terms the “macro-level,” altering the “overall architecture” of governance within their respective provinces. The organizations participating in their provincial initiatives work at the “meso-level” of reforming institutions – that is, laws, organizations, programs, practices – within the [province]” (Roberts, 2019: 17). Alberta and BC have made use of strategy management-at-scale and the technique of strategy mapping as an effective way to support major changes in the “architecture” of the governance of family justice reform in their respective provinces. It helps them encourage key provincial organizations to co-align around common strategic objectives and provides a framework for creating an ecosystem of effective family justice reform activity in each province. The partnership between Alberta and BC is a supportive and learning partnership, designed to strengthen their individual efforts at capacity building for systems change. Together they committed to applying a strategy mapping approach and to learning from each other as they test that approach and supporting tools. The Alberta initiative, begun in 2013, is called “Reforming the Family Justice System” (RFJS) (RFJS, 2020). (For more information, see Lowe, 2021.) The British Columbia initiative is called the “Transforming the Family Justice System (TFJS) Collaborative.” The British Columbia Collaborative is based on a commitment, in October 2019, of a network of justice-sector organizations called Access to Justice BC to promote family well-being through the family justice system (https://​ accesstojusticebc​.ca/​family​-justice​-collaborative/​). The core and common purpose of the two initiatives is to shift the family justice system from one focused on courts and an adversarial model of dispute resolution to one with a focus on family well-being. This is a social justice objective that cannot be achieved by any one organization. It is based on the compelling scientific evidence regarding brain development, including research emphasizing the importance of building resilience along with the need to address the negative impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma (i.e., toxic stress) on brain development. This involves major shifts in both the mental models and the practices that have

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become deeply embedded in the current family justice system. Specifically, the move is away from judicial system involvement except where absolutely necessary and toward supporting families in manifold ways, meaning the effort necessarily moves beyond the justice system-as-is, across government levels, and across sectors. The example also involves what we think is one of the most important technological and process innovations for managing strategy-at-scale: interactive strategy mapping with “zoomable” strategy maps (Ackermann and Eden, 2011; Bryson et al., 2014; Barberg, 2017). These software-based maps operate much like Google maps in that it is possible for all collaborators to zoom out and in from high-level strategic objectives down to more detailed strategy elements. The maps help with managing the complexity of the changes needed at this scale. They also act as a way of tracking and monitoring progress. The maps can easily be changed as circumstances change. In the absence of a single backbone organization, the maps provide the involved parties guidance for working in a collaborative or just co-aligned way toward shared purposes. In December of 2019, the Alberta and BC collective impact initiatives began working together to develop a common strategy map for transforming the family justice system by focusing on achieving family well-being. The Alberta and British Columbia coalitions were two of the nine across Canada and the U.S.A. that spent several months working on different parts of a comprehensive strategy map template aimed at addressing ACEs and promoting resilience that is now available through a free, online repository built on the same technology platform as Wikipedia. The repository is called the ACEs and Resilience Resource Commons for Communities (ARRCC) (https://​www​.insightformation​.com/​arrcc). The comprehensive map starts with the high-level strategy map that organizes the many areas where more detailed strategies for transformation are needed (Figure 7.1). This high-level strategy map helps organize the big picture with high-level objectives like “Increase Babies Born Healthy in Nurturing Homes” or “Improve the Child Welfare System” (including transformation of the foster care system and improvements to the adoption system). The family justice system, as discussed in the next paragraph, is a fairly small part of the overall map and system, or system of systems. In the lower right of Figure 7.1, one of the objectives is “Transform the Family Justice System by Focusing on Achieving Family Well-Being” The + in the lower right corner of the objective enables “zooming in” to view more details, much like one might zoom in on an online map of the United States to look at specific highways and streets. In this case, the zoom map focuses on the CI strategy to TFJS (Figure 7.2). Figure 7.2 shows a map with four objectives in the first column that focus on achieving the shifts in attitudes, beliefs, and understanding that are so important in transforming an established system like the family justice system. By including clearly defined objectives to achieve the desired shift in mental models, the Alberta and BC initiatives are in a stronger position to align, support, and create efforts to make that change a reality.

Figure 7.1

Adverse childhood experiences and resilience to advance hope and increased intergenerational health and well-being across the life span for all

Note:  TIP – Trauma-Informed Practices; MCH – Maternal and Child Health.

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Figure 7.2

Transform the Family Justice System by focusing on achieving family well-being

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In this strategy map, the third column of objectives recognizes the need for innovations throughout the system. Since this effort at system change is going into uncharted territory, these innovations require testing, scaling, and ultimate incorporation into what would then be a highly changed mainstream regime. The middle column of objectives focuses on more concrete policy and program changes to the system based on the pressures created by both the shift in mental models and the innovations that have been tested and proven the possibility for change. Including all of these objectives in the strategy map offers a structure around which to organize information, actions, research, and toolkits that can help to accelerate, refine, and spread those innovations. Underpinning these strategy objectives are five capacity development approaches. These are needed because, as noted earlier, strategies link aspirations with capabilities or capacities. The two provinces are wise to attend to building these capacities so that they have greater ability to achieve their strategy objectives and produce the desired outcomes. The high-level, common TFJS strategy map is an articulation of strategic objectives that have been developed at both the national and the provincial levels over many years. They are recognizable to those involved in family justice reform and are thus a rallying cry for a movement to make fundamental change. The strategic objectives in this level of the map also serve as a focal point for developing strategic networks in communities (both geographic communities and communities of interest or practice that are working with common populations or with common issues) to strategize about how to achieve the objectives. This includes a “bottom-up” process of developing capacity, supporting strategies, and common measures. The zoomed-in strategy map shown above is a foundational structure that can allow additional information, measures, and actions to be developed, shared, and implemented. Development of this kind of information can be aided by the creation of “From–To Gap Diagrams.” Convening community representatives to describe the current state and envision the desired state helps to build relationships and a sense of common purpose, in the context of the long-term and motivating goal of transforming the family justice system so that it not only does no harm but also promotes well-being. Clear descriptions of these gaps help participants organize current actions and prioritize new actions to build the capacity of the coalition. The diagrams also help participants demonstrate progress to the community, decision-makers, funders, and other stakeholders. For example, under “Increase the Use of Non-Adversarial Processes in the Family Justice System,” a next level of detail provides examples of what that might involve in the form of a “From–To Gap.” These include the from–to move as shown in Table 7.2. The more that these types of details can be clearly described and broadly communicated, the more likely that different stakeholders will be able to move forward on actions to close those gaps and accomplish the objectives. The bottom layer of the strategy map includes the objectives that the coalition will work on to build its capacity to accomplish the strategy objectives in the section above in Figure 7.2. For example, one of those objectives is to “Increase participation and the collaboration capacity of those working on family justice transformation.”

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Table 7.2

From collecting evidence for adversarial use to supporting family well-being

From: (Current State)

To: (Desired State)

A model where the purpose of exploring the history of the A model where the purpose of exploring history is to family is to collect evidence for court or negotiations

support family members and to develop family well-being within their situation (with better understanding to support healing and approaches that take past trauma into consideration)

Table 7.3 From: (Current State)

From collaboration and participation within the justice system to broader sectoral and community involvement To: (Desired State)

The coalition primarily consists of people from the justice There is extensive cross-sectoral and community sector

involvement in the planning and activities to transform the family justice system

The underlying detail for that objective includes bridging the from–to gap shown in Table 7.3. The Alberta and BC initiatives are taking different approaches, as each must adapt to the circumstances in their respective provinces. Still, their collaboration around a common focus on family well-being and the use of the high-level (TFJS) strategy map will generate opportunities to learn from each other, improve their respective initiatives, and inspire a similar approach to family justice reform across Canada. The two provinces have reached out to system leaders in the justice sectors in other provinces, and intend to support any interested province in developing its own TFJS initiative, with a customized strategy map reflecting the sub-objectives and activities of each respective province.

OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING STRATEGY MANAGEMENT-AT-SCALE FOR PRACTICE, RESEARCH, AND EDUCATION As noted previously, strategizing by public and nonprofit organizations takes place not just at the organizational level, but also at the strategy management-at-scale levels (and at the level of social transformation as well, which is beyond the scope of the chapter).2 This section highlights a number of observations for practice, research, and education. Practice in many ways is ahead of research and education. The observations concern: approaches to strategy management-at-scale, leadership, public value, evaluation, and logic models and theories of change.

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Approaches to Strategic Management-at-Scale We have discussed two main approaches to strategic management-at-scale: collective impact as an approach to collaboration and co-alignment; and community organizing, coalition building, and advocacy. Unfortunately, the scholarly literature can say little about the details of which specific approaches (including leadership, management, politics, inter-organizational designs, practices, procedures, platforms, tools, and techniques) work best in specific circumstances, and why. Furthermore, strategies can be set deliberately, emerge in practice, result from bricolage, and be realized or not (Innes and Booher, 1999; Chia and Holt, 2009; Mintzberg et al., 2009; MacMaster et al., 2015); so fitting these approaches into ongoing streams of events adds further contingencies. One area where we therefore expect to see considerable progress is in matching approaches to strategy management-at-scale to different kinds of issues or problems, for what purposes, in what kinds of contexts (including decision-making contexts), and with which specific inter-organizational designs, technologies, techniques, and tools. Such knowledge will help practitioners be more strategic about their choices. Strategy management-at-scale also draws attention to some other features of strategy formulation and implementation in multi-actor, multi-organizational settings. Strategic management typically has emphasized the importance of goals as a guide for action that responds to opportunities or challenges. For strategy management-at-scale to succeed, additional emphases are needed. First, if collaborations are involved, some collaborative advantage must be possible, meaning gains that the separate actors or organizations could not achieve by themselves (Bryson et al., 2016). Second, when actors or organizations simply must be co-aligned, they need some at least implicit super-ordinate purpose or goal around which they can align. Sometimes, however, goals can get in the way of desirable progress. Sometimes agreeing on principles rather than goals can be the best way forward, particularly when the situation is too ambiguous or complex to allow wise choice of goals (Patton, 2017; Bryson, 2018). Or sometimes organizations just differ on what constitutes a good goal statement, or strategy, or theory of change. These concepts can be divisive, not just because of substantive differences but because of different, strongly held preferences for what a goal statement should include and how it should be written. Organizations also differ widely in what constitutes a strategy. Principles come with less baggage, both substantively and format-wise, so there is more freedom to focus on finding common ground and meaning without the burden of choosing among competing formats. Principles are also a statement of public values and an assertion of the common good. Leadership Strategy management-at-scale requires effective leadership, but how? Strikingly little attention is paid to the actual strategizing efforts of leaders of various kinds in the public and nonprofit literature; what attention exists is seldom informed by a the-

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oretical understanding of strategy, strategizing, and strategic management. Similarly, the leadership literature itself contains little attention to the content and practice of strategy formulation and implementation, and especially so in terms of collective approaches (Crosby and Bryson, 2005, 2018; Quick, 2015; Stout et al., 2018; Ospina et al., 2020). A starting point for making progress is choosing the best way to conceptualize leadership for purposes of strategy management-at-scale. At the most general level, leadership means gaining better alignment of direction and commitment, in keeping with the Center for Creative Leadership’s Direction–Alignment–Commitment (DAC) ontology, an ontology meant to encompass leadership that is “more peer-like and collaborative … at every level from dyad, to group and team, to organization, to inter-organization, and society overall” (Drath et al., 2008: 636–7). We think the DAC ontology is a better starting point than the more traditional leader–follower ontology. We do expect that professional development programs for public and nonprofit leaders, and the core curricula of public affairs, public policy, public administration, and planning schools will increasingly focus on both leadership and strategizing and how best to go about both, perhaps especially in terms of collective approaches to addressing major public challenges (O’Leary, Choi, and Gerard, 2012; ‘t Hart and Tummers, 2019). Public Value Far greater attention likely will be paid to public values beyond efficiency and effectiveness in the strategizing efforts of public and nonprofit organizations, collaborations, and cross-sector collaborations in the future (Bryson et al., 2015; Sancino et al., 2018; Huijbregts et al., 2021; O’Flynn, 2021). Social justice and equity concerns in the U.S.A for example, have risen to prominence. Beyond that, there is increased recognition in the United States and elsewhere that a broad range of public values are really important and that governments, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and collaborations, often across sectors, are crucial to realizing those values in practice (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015; Roberts, 2019; Torfing et al., 2020). Given the number and scale of the challenges facing the world, the increased attention to a broad range of public values is most welcome. Moreover, an emphasis on a range of public values has implications for government managers’ responsibilities. For example, legislators in the U.S.A. traditionally have been concerned with controlling public managers and making sure they have the requisite capabilities to do their job. The PVG context requires additionally that public managers very consciously and diligently assume responsibility for serving public aims (Bertelli, 2021). Evaluation Strategy management-at-scale and evaluation are likely to become increasingly intertwined. Views of evaluation have changed over the years. Evaluations, whether

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formative or summative, originally focused on projects and programs and whether implementation involved fidelity to the a priori designs. Later moves have added evaluands and approaches. Evaluands now include strategies, missions, organizations, collaborations, principles, developments, and indeed the earth as a living system. The work of addressing complex changes usually requires several years of making progress on a system of mutually reinforcing changes – ideally shown in a strategy map. The nature of large and long-term strategies creates a need for insights at a higher level than the needs of funders or researchers to understand the impact of specific programs. Evaluation approaches have moved beyond questions of fidelity and accountability to usefulness, assistance with learning, and designing interventions in partnership with planners, stakeholders, and decision-makers (Patton, 2010, 2017). Especially when it comes to the most complex challenges – in which collaboration, co-alignment, and learning are essential to progress – thinking, acting, and learning strategically and thinking evaluatively are two sides of the same coin. Adept evaluators should be involved at or near the start of change efforts. In strategy management-at-scale, strategy maps serve as the structure for measures that monitor the progress toward the objectives – meaning community-level or system-level changes that are bigger than the individual programs or projects that funders and researchers typically evaluate. These new measures become powerful tools for learning and for managing the implementation of large-scale change. The measures help catalyze a forward-looking approach that invites generative conversations about how existing efforts could be enhanced and how new partners could align, assist, and collaborate to make better progress on different objectives in the strategy map. Logic Models and Theories of Change Philanthropic and academic research funders now typically require proposals to include a logic model, if a program or project is to be funded, or a theory of change if the effort involves multiple organizations or multiple projects (Funnel and Rodgers, 2011; Van Tulder and Keen, 2018). Earlier, we asserted that strategy is what links aspirations and capabilities, meaning that a logic model or a theory of change is a kind of strategy. Both can be helpful, but have their limits when it comes to strategy management-at-scale. Since logic models are primarily designed for evaluating grant applications for projects or programs, and for then evaluating them, it is sensible that they start with the “inputs” that are typically being funded. The logic models then show hypotheses about how the inputs will result in outputs that would logically contribute to desired outcomes. The logic model, therefore, can communicate the strategy for a program or project, but the structure is not suited to communicate a large-scale, long-term strategy meant to address a complex social challenge. The manifold mutually reinforcing changes to be made over several years make it unrealistic to imagine a logic model could capture it all.

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Earlier, we highlighted strategy mapping as a valuable way to lay out in a plausible causal sequence of how capabilities might be drawn on to achieve aspirations (we are using the word “causal” loosely). Strategy mapping is especially helpful in supporting collaboration and alignment of different organizations’ efforts (Ackermann and Eden, 2011; Bryson et al., 2016; Barberg, 2017). A good strategy map could be considered a robust theory of change. Specific programs or projects are not necessarily part of the strategy map; they are often identified and created as the collaboration or coalition of involved or affected organization creatively works on better ways to achieve the objectives that make up the strategy map. We expect strategy formulators, managers, and evaluators will make increasing use of strategy mapping as a way of better articulating theories of change and determining whether hypothesized relationships are realized in practice or whether re-mapping is necessary. Research Approaches In order to learn more about strategy management-at-scale, researchers can conduct variance studies, particularly when time-series data are available. Experiments, of course, can help (Bryson and George, 2020), as can reverse-engineering of both successful and unsuccessful efforts at strategy management-at-scale (Barzelay, 2019; Barzelay et al., 2022). Given the current state of knowledge, however, it seems to us that richly detailed case studies, and especially longitudinal, comparative case studies would be helpful (Douglas et al., 2020). Such studies take a long time and are very hard work, which is why there are so few. That said, such comparative case studies can afford the rich depictions of context, strategy management-at-scale approaches, processes, practices, and outcomes – along with relevant comparisons and contrasts – that can really contribute to learning (Langley and Tsoukas, 2017; Cloutier and Langley, 2020).

CONCLUSIONS In closing, we believe it is important to take seriously the need to develop the field of strategy management-at-scale because so many of the major challenges the world faces require multi-actor, multi-organization, cross-sector responses. Right now, it certainly appears that practice is ahead of theory and education on how best to approach these challenges. So an important task for scholars is to document and study strategy management-at-scale in practice in order to learn far more about which approaches to strategy management-at-scale work best in which situations, how, and why. We think these studies should also focus on the ways in which leadership, public value, strategy mapping, evaluation, and theories of change can be the most supportive of desirable change. The promise of such work – and the education that flows from it – is a world that works better for more people across a whole range of very important public values.3

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NOTES 1.

This section and the next are drawn principally from Bryson, Barberg, Crosby, and Patton (2021). 2. This section draws on Bryson (2021), but focuses more specifically on strategy management-at-scale. 3. The authors gratefully acknowledge comments on previous drafts of this chapter by Jane Morley, QC, and Diana Lowe, QC. Any errors are the sole responsibility of the authors.

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Sørensen, E., J. M. Bryson, and B. C. Crosby (2021) How public leaders can promote public value through co-creation. Policy and Politics. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1332/​0305​57321X1611​ 9271739728. Stachowiak, S., and L. Gase (2018) Does collective impact really matter? Stanford Social Innovation Review. https://​ssir​.org/​articles/​entry/​does​_collective​_impact​_really​_make​_an​ _impact. Stout, M., K. P. R. Bartels, and J. M. Love (2018) Clarifying collaborative dynamics in governance networks. In M. Stout, ed., From austerity to abundance?: creative approaches to coordinating the common good (pp. 91–115). Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Stratton, M. (2009) Creating collaborative alliances for change. Edmonton, Alberta, CA: Canadian Forum on Civil Justice. http://​cfcj​-cjc​.org/​sites/​default/​files/​docs/​2009/​stratton​ -car​-en​.pdf. Stroh, D. P. (2015) Systems thinking for social change. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Press. ‘t Hart, P., and L. Tummers (2019) Understanding public leadership, 2nd edition. London: Springer Nature. Torfing, J., L. B. Andersen, C. Greve, and K. K. Klausen (2020) Public governance paradigms: competing and co-existing. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Van Tulder, R., and N. Keen (2018) Capturing collaborative challenges: designing complexity-sensitive theories of change for cross-sector partnerships. Journal of Business Ethics 150: 315–31. Waldo, Dwight (1948/2007) The administrative state: a study of the political theory of American public administration. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers [originally published in New York by Ronald Press]. Whittington, R., P. Regnér, D. Angwin, G. Johnson, and K. Scholes (2019) Exploring strategy, 12th edition. London: Pearson Education. Wolff, T., M. Minkler, S. M. Wolfe, B. Berkowitz, L. Bowen, F. D. Butterfoss, B. D. Christens, V. T. Francisco, A. T. Himmelman, and K. S. Lee (2016) Collaborating beyond equity and justice: moving beyond collective impact. The Nonprofit Quarterly (Winter): 42–53.

8. Strategic public management in crises Per Lægreid and Lise H. Rykkja

INTRODUCTION This chapter looks beyond the more stable and routine situations that public organizations normally deal with and examines how strategy can play out in more complex, turbulent, and unsettled crisis situations. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how important strategic management in crisis situations is, involving not only crisis management but also crisis governance. Crises that result from unexpected and unforeseen circumstances as well as those that emerge from anticipated risk scenarios regularly challenge the political leadership and public administration. They require awareness and capacity, but also a legitimate mandate to act to minimize the damage. Strategic management in crisis situations also connects to broader central issues of governance in modern states (Roberts 2019). This chapter therefore asks: What do we know about strategic public management in crisis situations? How does it connect to broader issues of state governance? And what are the ways forward? The general literature on public sector strategic management embraces a plethora of concepts and approaches, exhibiting numerous models and schools of thought. Mintzberg et al. (2009) distinguish between ten different schools of strategic management. Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) list eleven distinct models. These authors also argue that the distinctiveness of public sector contexts must be considered when addressing strategic public management in public service settings. A further distinction can be made between a structural, entrepreneurial school, a cultural school, a public value approach that regards public managers as stewards of public values (Moore 1995), and a network and collaborative strategy approach (Bryson and Crosby 2015). Thus, it is essential to go beyond the simple design model of strategic management and include a wider set of political-societal expectations and obligations (Ferlie and Parrado 2018). This chapter looks at how governments prevent, prepare for, and respond to major transboundary crises in the civil sector. Our focus will be on governing strategies at the central governmental, strategic level (Roberts 2019), rather than the operational level, and we will address the strategic and political dimensions of crisis management, including the issues of both governance capacity and governance legitimacy (Christensen et al. 2016a; Lægreid and Rykkja 2019b). We will address the overall direction of crisis response and the political processes surrounding that response (Boin et al. 2016). To understand how strategic management plays out in crisis situations, we will apply a broad institutional approach based on organization theory (see Olsen 2010; Lægreid and Rykkja 2019b; Christensen et al. 2020). 114

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In the following, we will first undertake some conceptual clarifications and expand these using our theoretical approach. We will then dig into how strategies play out in practice along different dimensions of crisis management before we conclude by discussing important lessons learned from existing research and literature.

CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION The world is characterized by turbulence, emergencies, crises, and unruly problems, increasing citizens’ fear and sense of insecurity, and influencing their behavior, attitudes, and expectations vis-à-vis government action (Ansell et al. 2017). Dealing with crises is a core responsibility of governments and public sector executives. Thus, the ability to manage a crisis is essential for political and administrative executives. A broadly accepted definition of crisis is “a situation in which there is a perceived threat against the core values or life-sustaining functions of a social system that requires urgent remedial actions under uncertain conditions” (Rosenthal et al. 1989). This means that crises imply threats, urgency, and uncertainty, and represent a set of perceptions. Crises regularly strike at the core of democratic governance, creating challenges for governments and political leaders. They are increasingly transboundary, straddling organizational borders, administrative levels, policy areas, sectors, and countries, thus activating experts, administrators, and politicians. Crises are typically unpredictable, difficult to handle, demand a rapid response, and often spark public criticism and debate. Transboundary crises are normally particularly difficult to predict and influence (Gundel 2005). They involve many actors with conflicting responsibilities, are difficult to chart, and have no ready-made, straightforward solutions (Boin 2019). Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a crisis, before, during, and after it has occurred. It can be defined as the sum of activities designed to minimize the impact of a crisis (Boin, Ekengren and Rhinard 2013), typically putting responsible actors in a difficult position. Planning and preparing for the unexpected and unknown, dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty, responding to urgency and at the same time addressing citizens’ expectations is a crucial, but difficult task. It tests the limits of what public bureaucracies are designed to handle. It is also relevant to distinguish between crisis management and crisis governance. Although the difference is subtle, governance relates more to broad, high-level strategic tasks and choice at the interface between different institutional spheres. Transboundary mega crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, 9/11, and financial crisis involve crucial, high-level questions about total societal response which might better be conceptualized as a problem of crisis governance (Posner and Vermeule 2009; Boin et al. 2014; Boin et al. 2021). Governance capacity concerns the formal, structural, and procedural features of the governmental apparatus. Lodge and Wegrich (2014) discern four types of capacity: (1) coordination capacity, bringing together disparate organizations in joint actions; (2) analytical capacity, which involves analyzing information, providing professional

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advice, and carrying out risk and vulnerability assessments; (3) regulatory capacity, the capacity to instruct, control, and audit; and (4) delivery capacity, the capacity to handle a crisis as it unfolds, exercising power and providing appropriate services in response. All four are crucial in the handling of a crisis. Governance legitimacy involves citizens’ trust in government and concerns accountability, responsiveness, expectations, and reputation. Upholding and restoring trust in government arrangements for dealing with crises is a key challenge. It deals primarily with the relationship between government authorities and citizens and concerns citizens’ perceptions of whether the actions of the authorities are desirable, proper, and appropriate, according to the citizens’ norm, value, and belief systems (Suchman 1995; Jann 2016). While governance capacity is mainly related to the functional dimension of crisis management, governance legitimacy is more related to the political dimension. Legitimacy refers to organizational and leadership support, in terms of responsiveness (input), procedures (throughput), and performance (output) (Schmidt 2013) and concerns what people expect or demand from government, their attitudes toward government authorities during crises, but also how they understand the crisis and judge the authorities’ actions. Strategies for crisis management are established through priorities and policies and executed by building or reforming complex institutions (Roberts 2019). Strategic crisis management can be enacted in different phases of a crisis response process and ideally follows a cycle from mitigation to preparation, response, recovery, and learning. Different strategies can be used in different phases, and they address several critical tasks involving crucial organizational processes and leadership, including preparation, cognition, and sense-making; communication and meaning-making; coordination, decision-making and control; ending the crisis; and learning (Comfort 2007; Boin et al. 2016; Blondin and Boin 2018; Wolbers and Boersma 2019). Here, preparation means being prepared to act. Cognition is about recognizing and detecting emerging crises. Communication and meaning-making are about developing a shared understanding of a crisis and communicating it to the public. Coordination and decision-making relate to collaboration across organizational borders and making decisions under conditions of uncertainty and stress. Control concerns the capacity to keep ongoing action focused on a shared goal. Ending the crisis is about managing accountability, and learning is about assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the crisis response to improve future crisis management.

THEORETICAL APPROACH In general, crisis research has tended to concentrate on technical and managerial issues or has taken a national security perspective (Boin et al. 2013; ‘t Hart and Sundelius 2013). Crisis studies have largely been dominated by two questions (Boin, ‘t Hart and Kuipers 2018): first, what causes crises; and second, what determines the effectiveness of crisis management efforts. Boin et al. (2016) note a more recent, growing interest in the politics of crisis management from a strategic perspective.

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Furthermore, while inter-organizational collaboration in crisis management and governance is essential, the links between research on collaborative public management and crisis management have been rather loose (Nohrstedt et al. 2018). Nevertheless, there seems to be an increasing interest in collaborative approaches to crisis management in recent research, exemplified by Bynander and Nohrstedt (2020), Nohrstedt et al. (2018), and Ansell et al. (2020). A general theory of crisis management and governance, outlining how and by what type of organization crises should be managed, does not exist. A broad organization theory-based institutional approach (Christensen et al. 2016a) can offer a rewarding contribution. We note a growing interest in coupling the study of extreme events with organizational characteristics and in applying an organizational-institutional approach to the governance of turbulent problems (Boin and van Eeten 2013; Ansell and Trondal 2018; Zhang et al. 2018; Trondal 2021). Such approaches concur with the argument that a rational, instrumental model of decision-making is not well suited to understanding crisis conditions or, indeed, to dealing with crises, owing to its inherent complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity (Ansell and Boin 2019). In such situations, a pragmatic approach might be more appropriate, following a basic incremental pattern and relying on feedback to adjust the strategy as the crises develops. This represents a cautious, sequential approach requiring a lot of information and a well-functioning administrative infrastructure (Boin and Lodge 2020). According to Boin, Ekengren, and Rhinard (2020), such a strategy might work particularly well for handling creeping and slow-burning crises, such as pandemics. Organizing to ensure adequate crisis management and governance is a particularly ‘wicked problem’ where coordination between actors and organizations with different tasks and perceptions is crucial but difficult to achieve (Head and Alford 2015). Wicked problems are typically complex, involving multi-level and multi-sectoral actors and thereby posing challenges as well as opportunities for political actors and public servants. In a crisis, the knowledge base is typically uncertain, and goals, priorities, and solutions are ambiguous. They represent turbulent problems that are highly volatile, inconsistent, unexpected, and unpredictable (Ansell et al. 2017). This puts pressure on structural-instrumental management strategies. When crises increasingly transcend organizational borders, policy areas, and administrative levels, action must include coordination within and between the local, regional, national, and supranational levels. Public organizations face important capacity constraints in their efforts to handle these complexities. In addition to the importance of organizational structures for governance capacity, institutional features linked to governance legitimacy, accountability, and reputation are crucial (Christensen et al. 2016a, 2019). We contend that both structural features and cultural context matter for strategic crisis management. This requires a combination of two organizational perspectives: First, a structural and instrumental organizational approach, based on a logic of consequentiality which assumes that leaders will score high on both rational calculation and political control (Dahl and Lindblom 1953). This perspective predicts a tight coupling between formal strategy, structure, practice, and outcome. Second, a cultural-institutional perspective, based on a behav-

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ioural logic of appropriateness, where actors are assumed to be informed by values and norms instead of rational calculation. When facing a crisis they will primarily try to match the situation with their institutional identity and existing decision-making rules, including informal ones. Our argument is that both perspectives are useful for understanding how crises are managed. Several studies have shown that high-performing crisis management is linked to both cultural and structural factors, and that trust, loyalty, and professionalism are needed in addition to formal hierarchy and organization (Rykkja and Lægreid 2014; Christensen et al. 2016a; Parker et al. 2018). Thus, a hierarchical, top-down structure can be compatible with a more bottom-up strategy based on values and norms. Hybrid organizations combining hierarchical and collaborative values can, in other words, produce a well-functioning crisis management strategy (Parker et al. 2018). In national crises related to nationalism and separatist movements where there is low trust in government and low governance legitimacy it is, however, a big challenge to fulfill such a strategy. Furthermore, the structural and the cultural-institutional elements of strategic crisis management and governance are interlinked. Formal organization and capacity may influence but can also be influenced by legitimacy. Contextual features, such as polity, administrative culture, and trust relations, can be assumed to have an impact on strategic crisis management. Institutional changes in turbulent situations may lead to existing institutions being adaptively recombined, refashioned, or repurposed – representing “institutional syncretism”, according to Ansell et al. (2017). Moynihan’s (2012) study of leadership and red tape during Hurricane Katrina, for example, demonstrates this. He explores the importance of culture-switching, showing that organizational actors dealing with the crisis shifted from one organizational culture to another to reshape action. Our approach similarly assumes that the political and institutional context, combining different structural and cultural elements, is imperative for understanding stability and change, including in a crisis (Andrews 2013). This means that crisis management and governance play out in specific institutional, political, and organizational contexts that influence processes, performance, and effects. Hence, strategic crisis management and governance must recognize that the complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity arising from crises must be addressed within and across specific institutionalized organizations, such as sectorial/ministerial areas of responsibility, and at different administrative levels. The collective understanding of a crisis also makes a difference. Citizens’ attitudes feed into the system, but the system itself also affects citizens’ trust and behavior. Within the specific political context, crisis management and governance is influenced by legitimacy issues. In a high-trust environment and a state-friendly society, citizens tend to have strong confidence in their authorities, including their ability to manage crises (Fimreite et al. 2013). A high-trust context can therefore affect the authorities’ capacity to cope. Parker et al. (2016), for example, found that citizens in countries with a high level of trust in domestic government were less likely to support EU-coordinated civil protection efforts, while citizens in countries with a low level of trust in their government tended to support such efforts more often.

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Hence, we argue that to understand how strategic crisis management and governance plays out in practice we need to go beyond a limited instrumental approach and apply broader institutional factors (Christensen and Lægreid 2016). Transboundary crisis management takes place at the interface between policy areas, and between administrative levels as well as between government authorities and citizens. Understanding the organizational layout and the different kinds of governance capacity of the crisis management field and investigating the basis for governance legitimacy are therefore of fundamental importance. Furthermore, crisis management is not only a question of objective reality but also a matter of public perceptions and sentiments (Lewis 2005). Roberts (2019) discusses dilemmas in strategies for governing, between efficiency and extravagance, tight and loose control, separation and connection, present and future, commitment and equivocation, and planning and improvisation. These dilemmas are also highly present in strategic crisis management. The ability to exercise formal authority and responsibility is constrained by basic organizational considerations, such as choosing between specialization by function or by place and being prepared and ready to act but also not to waste resources (Kettl 2003). There may be tensions between different public values, (e.g., being resilient but also flexible), and administrative doctrines (e.g., being efficient but also effective and accountable) (Olsen 2010). The COVID-19 pandemic is a current example that has revealed such difficult trade-offs, between saving lives, protecting individual freedom, and safeguarding economic interests (Gostin and Wiley 2020; Christensen and Lægreid 2020a). Specific organizational arrangements may exacerbate crises but can also limit loss or damage. Crisis management organizations are often semi-autonomous, loosely allied bodies, each with their own operating procedures, programs, and repertoires (Allison 1971). Such specialized, semi-autonomous, or loosely coupled organizations pose challenges for coordination and delivery capacity as well as for analytical and regulatory capacity. We will also expect variations in strategies according to the type of crisis – depending on whether it has transboundary features and the associated degree of uncertainty and uniqueness (Gundel 2005). Transboundary crises with a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity require different strategies than routine crises, which will be easier to predict and handle. Moreover, the temporal and spatial dimensions of crises matter (Boin, Ekengren and Rhinard 2020). They might be fast-running or slow-burning and creeping, and they might evolve over time and space and vary according to the degree of political and societal attention. In simple, routine crises that are easy to predict and to handle, anticipation, rational planning, and emergency preparedness can be useful strategies. In more turbulent times, when a crisis is transboundary, unexpected, difficult to handle, wicked and unruly, more improvisation, quick response, flexibility, and resilient arrangements are needed (Ansell et al. 2017). Transboundary crises do not fit easily into established organizational contexts since they cut across geographical, administrative, infrastructural, and cultural boundaries (Head 2008; Ansell et al. 2010; Boin et al. 2016). They challenge existing organi-

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zational, management, and governance patterns and expose gaps between organizational structures and the problem structure. They affect the government’s capacity to coordinate, deliver, regulate, and analyze. In transboundary crises, coordination between actors and organizations with differing tasks and perceptions is particularly crucial. All public organizations face major constraints in dealing with the complexities of a crisis. Decisions on how to organize, regulate, and prepare for crises and how to respond to them when they happen are inherently political and involve priorities and values (Selznick 1957). Strategic considerations are necessary. There is, however, no one best way of organizing for crisis management (Christensen et al. 2016b; Lægreid and Rykkja 2018).

CRISIS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN PRACTICE The body of academic research on how to design public administration, manage organizations, and evaluate the means to protect citizens from crises, transboundary threats, wicked problems, or the collapse of critical infrastructure, is growing, but still limited (Lægreid and Rykkja 2017). Although overall attention to crises and disasters has increased (Kuipers and Welsh 2017), public administration research on crisis management has been scarce (Boin and Lodge 2016). Mainstream public administration research has mainly focused on stable and routine situations, while knowledge about strategic public management in unsettled situations and crises from a public administration perspective is lacking (Lægreid and Rykkja 2019b). Hence, the foundation for evidence-based policymaking within this area has been weak. Petak (1985) found that early studies of crises and disasters primarily focused on human response and the use of technological solutions, while less work was done on understanding the problems of public administration and finding solutions from a public policy/public management perspective. Since then, the political dimensions of crisis management have become more prominent (Boin et al. 2016; Riddervold, Trondal, and Newsome 2021). As shown by Kuipers and Welsh (2017), however, this has not translated into a greater number of articles on strategic crisis management and political leadership. After 9/11, more research examined state and local governance, civil liberties, bureaucracies and administrative systems, the organization of internal security, crisis management, and responsible governance.1 Issues pertaining to intergovernmental relations and organization theory have also been given more attention (Comfort, Cigler, and Waugh 2012), and transboundary crisis management is now much higher on the research agenda (Boin, Cadar, and Donnelly 2015). In the following, we explore in greater depth the lessons learned for practice based on this type of research. After the end of the Cold War the strategic focus, especially in the Nordic countries, shifted gradually from attention to national military security to a stronger focus on civilian societal security and a more pragmatic, holistic all-hazard strategy embracing the whole of society (Lægreid and Rykkja 2019a; Bynander and

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Nohrstedt 2020; Larsson and Rhinard 2020). It was followed by increased attention toward societal resilience, how to enhance the capacity to recover from a crisis, and strategies for risk reduction, with an emphasis on the need for plans and strategies to reduce vulnerability and risks (Comfort, Boin, and Demchak 2010). Empirical research from Europe shows that there has been an increased focus on coordination and centralization strategies over time, accompanied by a strengthening of national crisis management organizations that have the coordination of other central administrative bodies as a main task (Lægreid and Rykkja 2019a). However, these and other studies from different countries also confirm that no single organizational model dominates the field of crisis management. On the contrary, organizational arrangements differ significantly from one country to another, in terms of degree of centralization and decentralization, use of hierarchical mechanisms, lead agencies, and network arrangements (Kuipers et al. 2016; Christensen et al. 2016b). Overall, there has been a change from a traditional functional, technical, and professional perspective on crisis management strategies, addressing capacity issues, toward a political perspective addressing issues such as accountability and legitimacy (Boin and Lodge 2016; Boin et al. 2016; Kuipers and Welsh 2017; Nohrstedt et al. 2018). In practice, both functional and political strategies are often enacted simultaneously (Schmidt 2019), demonstrating that both capacity and legitimacy are crucial for strategic crisis management and governance. Research on transboundary crisis management in the European Union has revealed deficits in central authority, prescriptiveness, subsidiarity, and flexibility (Cabane and Lodge 2019). These authors point to four different strategies for enhancing capacity and legitimacy in crisis management: reliance on ‘ad hoc’ responses; strengthening EU-level capacity; strengthening multi-level governance; and making member state policies more consistent. Each of these strategies comes with specific advantages and disadvantages. Riddervold et al. (2021) reveal that a main EU strategy for coping with crises is incremental adaptation, sometimes pejoratively termed ‘muddling through’. Crises are normally channeled through and mediated by persisting and segmented institutional frameworks and path dependencies (Batora and Fossum 2020). But adaptation might also occur because of more path-breaking and forward-looking strategies informed by learning and innovation. In the USA, 9/11 revealed four kinds of failure: lack of imagination, policy failure, capability problems, and management problems (The 9/11 Commission Report 2004). Other crises, such as Hurricane Katrina, disclosed similar crucial failures in crisis management capacity (Waugh 2006). Boin, Brown, and Richardson (2019, 2020) argue that an effective and legitimate response to a crisis or disaster requires governments to be prepared to act, to make sense of the unfolding situation, to collaborate across horizontal and vertical boundaries, and to formulate and communicate a convincing crisis strategy. Examining the case of Hurricane Katrina, the authors found that the authorities were well prepared for the wrong disaster, sense-making was fragmented, who should coordinate the large-scale response was unclear, and the crucial task formulating and sharing a sensible message in the wake of a disaster left a lot to be desired. They conclude that over-preparation needs to be weighed against

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the chance that a mega-crisis will occur, that officials at the strategic level must learn to work with a high degree of uncertainty, and that improvisation as well as sensible meaning-making and crisis communication is crucial. Traditionally, a command-and-control model characterized by a hierarchical and centralized ‘military’ approach has had a strong footing as a crisis management strategy. Critics have deemed this strategy unrealistic in the face of a crisis, however (Moynihan 2009). Over time, this top-down strategy has increasingly been replaced/ challenged by the establishment of more collaborative and sometimes bottom-up crisis management arrangements. More inter-organizational network strategies have been launched that are designed to reduce the uncertainty and ambiguity linked to complex and transboundary crises and include stakeholders from the private and voluntary sector (Bynander and Nohrstedt 2020). The emergence of such networks and collaborative arrangements, often in the shadow of hierarchy, has increased the complexity and hybridity of the field (Lægreid and Rykkja 2019a). Collaborative arrangements are essential in transboundary crises that require adaptation, adjustment, and innovation by different participants (Parker et al. 2020), but prioritizing collaborative crisis management may be problematic if, for example, first responders’ need for central coordination mechanisms are ignored (Moynihan 2009). Related to this, Parker and Sundelius (2020) identify five failures that should be avoided in collaborative crisis management: First, a failure of imagination and a need to foster shared sense-making; second, a failure of initiative and a need to overcome capacity deficits; third, a failure of cooperation and a need to prepare for transboundary coordination; fourth, a failure of credibility and a need to invest in prompt meaning-making; and finally, failures of learning and a need to disseminate and institutionalize lessons learned. Contemporary public administration research points to an increased focus on inter-organizational coordination, network solutions, and reforms, with an emphasis on more holistic approaches, such as whole-of-government (Christensen and Lægreid 2007). This also affects the policy area of crisis management, where coordination and collaboration between different policy sectors and organizational levels is particularly important (Lægreid and Rykkja 2015). Owing to increasing complexity, political leaders, policymakers, regulators, and administrators are struggling to establish adequate administrative structures to facilitate a coordinated response. They try to combine organizational stability and crisis preparedness with flexibility and rapid response, revealing a common gap between central plans and local challenges (Boin 2008). Strategic crisis management and governance during the COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized chiefly by centralizing power and prerogatives (Capano et al. 2020). Institutional factors have played a core role regarding both governance capacity and societal trust (Toshkov et al. 2022), while national institutional settings and administrative systems seem to have led to a “coronationalism” (Bouckaert et al. 2020), exhibiting a striking diversity of approaches. Institutional contexts and administrative culture and actor constellations have shaped strategies for handling the pandemic (Kuhlmann et al. 2021). Mass polarization, trust in government and

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an uncooperative society as well as an uncooperative political elite matter for the performance in the fight against COVID-19 (Charron et al. 2022). Thus, governance legitimacy as well as strategic factors, including political considerations and underlying policy and governance choices, have had a major role to play in the face of deep uncertainty (Maor and Howlett 2020). In a highly unpredictable situation, one strategy has been to apply a principled approach based on the precautionary principle of ‘better safe than sorry’. Another, more pragmatic, response is based on a mixture of reasoning and feedback, allowing for adjustments based on experience. Both strategies come with costs and benefits (Boin and Lodge 2020). Effective crisis management seems to be enhanced by successful meaning-making and crisis communication with the public (Christensen and Lægreid 2020b). Adding to this, psychological factors, such as panic among elites, limitations on government attention, and popular fear have been important (Maor and Howlett 2020; Six et al. 2023). Boin, Lodge, and Luesink (2020) point to the following potential lessons for strategic crisis management from COVID-19: making sense of the crisis under deep uncertainty, crafting a response that is both effective and legitimate, and maintaining solidarity through crisis communication. They argue that it is necessary to improve response capacity related to creeping mega crises by securing improved preparation and planning, a fruitful relation with experts, increased crisis communication skills by political executives, and better knowledge about how long a crisis can last without losing legitimacy and enhancing international cooperation. Boin, McConnell, and ‘t Hart (2021) argue that good governance makes a difference in forging an effective and legitimate response to the COVID-19 pandemic, underlining that trust, civic responsibility, science, public bureaucracies, and leadership matter for the development of administrative, institutional, and societal resilience. Overall, there has been strong and persistent agreement about what the problems are when organizing for internal security and crisis management. Lack of coordination, collaboration, and communication plans that turn out to be ‘fantasy documents’ when faced with a real crisis, and unclear responsibility and accountability relations are frequent challenges. When it comes to solutions, there is a lot more disagreement and divergence. Some advocate centralization, others decentralization. Some address structural changes, while others argue in favor of cultural changes or of a tighter connection between structural and cultural features. Ultimately, there are also trade-offs between calls for stronger integration or more fragmentation, between effectiveness and transparency, between more specialization and better coordination, between hierarchical or network solutions, and between efforts focusing on the strategic or the operational level.

ANALYSIS Our review of existing empirical research shows that crisis management strategies are framed within specific institutional, political, and organizational settings. Thus, it is fair to assert that the organizational layout of the crisis management field matters.

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At the same time, crises clearly challenge and sometimes change the existing patterns of organization and management. They do not fit easily into established contexts and often spur adjustments to existing arrangements. Decisions on how to manage, organize, regulate, prepare for, and respond to crises ultimately concern values. Crisis management and governance decisions are therefore inherently political and not merely technical issues. Highlighting this is important to understanding the challenges that policy makers and administrative leaders in this policy area face. Hence, understanding the politics of crisis management and the relationship between strategies for prevention, preparation, response, and recovery is essential. Strategic crisis management and governance concerns many difficult, value-based dilemmas in compound public administration systems – and trade-offs between efficiency and inclusiveness, internal and external legitimacy, flexibility and stability, and centralization and decentralization (Moynihan 2009; Christensen et al. 2016a; Schmidt 2019). Coordination and centralization are prevalent strategies for crisis management, but they also come with problems, especially in the face of transboundary crises (Boin 2019). Centralization may aggravate legitimacy problems. Stronger transboundary coordination requires a high degree of mutual trust. Transboundary crises are characterized by complexity, tight coupling, and dependency between systems, which may result in severe knock-on effects if one part of the system is affected by a crisis (Perrow 1984). One strategy for tackling transboundary crises is therefore decoupling, insulation, retrenchment, and building walls. Another is adopting a more conscious strategy for dealing with complexity, e.g., preparing for an effective and resilient response through trial-and-error (Wildavsky 1988) or building new transboundary crisis management institutions (Boin 2019). Governance capacity and governance legitimacy are two essential elements that mutually affect each other, but do not always go hand in hand (Lodge and Wegrich 2014; Boin and Lodge 2016; Christensen et al. 2016a; Lægreid and Rykkja 2018). To be effective, a response strategy should not only aim to produce greater governance capacity, but also to maintain or increase the legitimacy of the response actors. Governance legitimacy is a crucial precondition for high-performing strategic crisis management. For example, a context of high trust and strong democratic rule normally makes states more sustainable in their fight against terrorism (Christensen and Aars 2019). Research on crisis management strategies might benefit from an analysis that takes these functional and political dimensions of the crisis response process into account (Schmidt 2019). The intertwined relationship between governance capacity and governance legitimacy kindles a need for mixed and composite crisis management strategies. Capacity to deal with the crisis, having the necessary resources, equipment, knowledge, and training, is important. The means and measures decided upon should also be accepted by citizens, thus ensuring that citizens follow the authorities’ advice and instructions (Boin and Bynander 2014; Lægreid and Rykkja 2019b). The probability that they will do so is higher when trust in government is high. Extant literature shows that low trust leads to low rule compliance, while high trust leads to high compliance (Six

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2013; Six and Verhoest 2017). During crises, legitimacy is to a great extent linked to capacity. Draconian measures are easier to implement when citizens trust the crisis management authorities (Rykkja et al. 2011). Thus, crisis management is most successful when it combines democratic legitimacy and governance capacity (Lægreid and Rykkja 2019b). The crisis outcome is in this sense an example of co-production: It depends just as much on citizens’ behavior based on trust in government as on government capacity (Christensen and Lægreid 2020a). Adapting to uncertainty and learning from experience with crisis management strategies is neither simple nor straightforward and, hence, may not always be wholly based on rational calculation. Organizational adaptation to extreme events might be affected by exposure to crises but also to risk perceptions (Zhang, Welch, and Miao 2018). Learning is one of the most underdeveloped aspects of crisis management (Boin et al. 2018; Nohrstedt et al. 2018). Crises may facilitate learning and contribute to overcoming the organizational inertia that often inhibits learning under normal conditions, but they may also create obstacles to learning (Stern 1997). Sometimes, changes after a crisis take the form of ‘superstitious’ or dysfunctional learning (March and Olsen 1975). Success and failure can be assessed according to the processual, decisional, and political dimensions of crisis management (McConnell 2011), and politicization may both enhance and impede crisis-induced learning (Broekema 2015). Major crises tend to influence policy agendas and bring about policy change (Birkland 2007). Media, salience, and organizations within the policy domain may promote learning, but political constraints, competing advocacy coalitions, and confusion about the nature and impact of a crisis may impede such learning. While there is often a strong wish to learn from a crisis, dramatic crises may produce incremental rather than radical policy and structural changes, owing to cultural path-dependency and resistance (Boin, McConnell, and ‘t Hart 2008). In such cases, one often faces a dynamic conservatism (Ansell, Boin, and Farjoun 2015): In the aftermath of crises, institutions tend to be responsive and adapt to lessons learned, but at the same time, they remain rather stable and robust. Thus, changes often take place within an established order rather than changing that order per se (Olsen 2017). Summing up, strategic crisis management concerns governance capacity and structural arrangements but is also a question of cultural features and processes related to legitimacy and trust. Governments’ ability to prevent and handle crises varies both according to structural factors, such as organizational affiliation, tasks, and positions, and cultural factors, such as mutual trust relations and identity (Christensen and Lægreid 2019). Interlinkages between governance capacity and governance legitimacy are especially important in mega crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, typified by not only crises management but also crises governance.

CONCLUSION A main conclusion to this chapter is that there is no best strategy for crisis management and governance (Lægreid 2018) – no strategy that can be applied everywhere,

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to all types or phases of a crisis. A careful diagnosis of the situation and specific context is needed rather than a standardized blueprint approach. Strategic crisis governance is a managerial and a functional issue, but also a political issue involving value considerations and support from political executives as well as citizens. A key lesson is that a well-performing crisis governance strategy needs to address both governance capacity and governance legitimacy. There might be a co-evolution and co-production between capacity and legitimacy, as often seen in strategic crisis communication. Crisis communication is important from both a governance capacity and from a governance legitimacy point of view. Successful crisis communication can enhance trust in government, while failed crisis communication may have serious consequences for the legitimacy of political executives. Effective coordination processes are important for building trust and legitimacy and might be threatened by increasing distrust in government authorities’ organizational capacity to cope with the crisis. Thus, in crises legitimacy is greatly affected by capacity and vice versa. Strict and drastic measures are easier to implement when citizens trust the crisis management authorities. If citizens are to follow the government’s advice and instructions, it is crucial that they accept and trust that the measures are appropriate. Thus, successful crisis governance is a question of perception, depending just as much on citizens’ behavior and trust in government as on government capacity. Another main lesson learned is that effective inter-organizational collaboration and coordination is an important component of well-performing strategic crisis management. Establishing and maintaining collaborative arrangements is a core activity in crisis management (Nohrstedt et al. 2018). Like Ansell et al. (2020), we argue that one needs to go beyond standard strategies, such as foresight, protection, and resilience, to handle turbulent and transboundary problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Robust governance strategies (i.e., strategies that facilitate and combine adaptive and flexible adjustment and entrepreneurial exploration and exploitation – such as scalability, prototyping, modularization, bounded autonomy, bricolage, and strategic polyvalence) seem promising. A third lesson is that there is a dilemma between a need for centralization and hierarchy, on the one hand, and flexibility and horizontal collaboration, on the other. Transboundary network arrangements develop in the shadow of hierarchy. They are hybrid structures that enable strategic crisis management, but they also bring costs (Moynihan 2009; Waugh 2009). Both horizontal and vertical coordination is crucial, but it is also important to go beyond that and discuss core issues concerning legitimacy. What are, for example, legitimate and illegitimate government powers in different types of crisis? What is more, collaborative crisis management should be improved through the mobilization of critical knowledge for strategic purposes, to enhance both governance capacity and governance legitimacy, credibility, inclusiveness, and trust (Parker and Sundelius 2020). A fourth lesson from current research is that there has been more system maintenance than system change within the field of crisis management. Changes in crisis management strategies often occur within the dominant governance model (Lægreid and Rykkja 2019a). They are normally adaptations to the national context and to the

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context of the crisis itself. This implies that there is no overarching holistic crisis management and governance strategy that can be applied to all types of crises and all countries. There is no simple formula for well-performing strategic public management and governance in crises, and flexibility and experimentation along with continuous learning from experience is important.

NOTE 1.

See, for example, Public Administration Review, 62 (1) (2002).

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9. Cross-fertilisation of design labs and strategic public management Christian Bason

This chapter discusses the rise of innovation and design labs, and the potential cross-fertilisation with strategic public management. It argues that the “labs movement” can be seen as a strategic endeavour to embed innovation capacity as an integrated part of traditional public organisations. The chapter concludes with a reflection of four strategic roles of design labs in government. For nearly two decades now, design practices in the public sector have been emerging as a diverse set of methods, approaches, behaviours and, indeed, ways of thinking (Bason 2017; McGann et al. 2018; Lewis et al. 2020). Design as a field of theory and practice increasingly questions classical forms of public management and governance. As Bason and Austin (2021) suggest, design approaches offer alternate conceptual foundations, which lead to different processes, structures and outcomes: imagine for a moment the fast-paced and creative culture of designers facing off against an old-fashioned bureaucratic culture of civil servants. Though this caricature oversimplifies, there can be little doubt that the professionals who typically occupy the two domains – designers, artists, ethnographers and technologists on the one side and economists, lawyers and political scientists on the other – have different world views and appetites for innovation and change (Michlewski 2014). As Lewis et al. (2020: 116) summarise this dichotomy, ‘… the application of design thinking does not sit easily alongside the pursuit of other approaches to policy, according to some of its promoters’. Buchanan (1990) characterises design as a ‘new liberal art of technological culture’, signifying the relation of design discipline to the ever-changing, emerging, contemporary context. Set against this we have the long-held principles, espoused by Max Weber ([1947] 2012), of bureaucracy as a system based on formal offices and roles filled via demonstration of competencies, underpinned by rational rules, laws and administrative regulations that spells out authority and responsibilities (Wren and Bedeian 2009). Whereas design espouses a human-centred approach to innovation and change, with key concepts such as empathy, visualisation and experimentation, bureaucracy emphasises efficiency, predictability/reliability, procedural fairness and equality/democracy (du Gay 2000). However, design methodologies have not been introduced at random in the public sector. Rather, in many instances, design competencies (as in formally educated designers and related professions), approaches (as in theoretical and practical frameworks for action) and methods (as in process tools and guides) have all been folded into systematic and formal approaches to innovation. In particular, the rise of innova133

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tion and design labs has in many cases involved the recruitment and development of design skills across subdisciplines such as service design, digital design and design for policy (Carlsson 2004; Dunleavy et al. 2006; Carstensen and Bason 2012; Bason, 2014; Wetter-Edman 2014; Mager 2016; Lewis et al. 2020; Lewis 2021). In that sense, the establishment and operation of design labs can be viewed as an expression of the pursuit of public value creation – of a strategic approach to public management (Moore 1995, 2013; Benington and Moore 2011). This indicates that rather than the clash of two radically different worlds of design and bureaucracy, there is a potential cross-fertilisation of design labs and the strategic management intent of public organisations. Indeed, as Kattel et al. (2019) show, Max Weber in fact envisaged two forms of ideal-type public organisations: one being more networked, agile, dynamic, and “charismatic”; the other “original” Weberian organisation being centrally governed, stable, predictable and expertise-driven. These organisational forms, according to Kattel et al. (2019, p. 13) ‘belong together’, and in real-world practice they are intertwined to form a state of agile stability. The introduction of innovation and design labs in the public sector can thus be viewed as ways of pushing the traditional expert-driven organisations to better embrace complex societal challenges and emerging technologies. In the following, I explore whether and how the rise of design labs can be seen as an expression of a more strategic, even intentional, approach to public management. How can design labs be seen as a resource for public organisations, allowing them to discover, pursue and realise strategic objectives more effectively? And what does the future hold for the “labs movement”? The chapter is structured as follows. First, I undertake a comprehensive examination of the rise of design labs, their characteristics and deployment. Then, I turn to a consideration of strategic public management: what is the potential cross-fertilisation between design labs and public management? Here, I discuss four roles of labs that point to the contributions they make to addressing public problems. Finally, I discuss the potential of “third-generation labs” as system orchestrators that may even better fit today’s needs for strategic public management and mission-oriented innovation policy.

THE RISE OF LABS AND THE ROLE OF DESIGN1 In an op-ed in late 2014, the current affairs magazine The Economist suggested the following about the rise of innovation labs in the public sector: ‘Reforming government is hard and often boring work. The innovation labs are making it a bit faster and a lot more interesting’ (The Economist 2014). In other words, it is the experimental, exploratory nature of public sector innovation labs that is worth recognising. The mere fact that these units are able to co-exist, and in some instances even thrive, within the presumed hostile environment of bureaucratic administration, merits some respect. Historically, public organisations have built portfolios of development activities as a way to give structure, content, and direction to innovation. This can be part of

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comprehensive policy programmes, modernisation initiatives or digital transformation efforts. However, a prerequisite, of course, is the ability of the organisation to actually work in innovation projects and manage them. This raises questions about how to create, build and sustain the process skills and capabilities needed to run the innovation efforts, bringing all relevant stakeholders into the mix. The rise of innovation labs can be viewed as a recognition that the competencies and mindsets needed for systematic innovation are not the same as those required for stable, daily operations and service delivery at the front line – or for traditional, linear project design and “stage-gate” implementation. The question thus becomes whether public organisations need new approaches, skills, models and tools beyond what most trained civil servants usually possess. Might public purpose organisations need to create dedicated ‘safe’ spaces and opportunities for collaboration on innovation across units, departments and sectors? Those are some of the assumptions behind the establishment of innovation labs in public sector organisations which governments have embraced with increasing scope over the past two decades. As hinted here, this chapter will primarily examine the establishment of innovation and design labs that are ultimately tied to public organisations (e.g. labs that fall under some degree of government auspices at international, national, regional or even local (city) level). The Rapid Emergence of Design Labs There seems no doubt that public sector innovation labs, or design labs, continue to be on the rise (McGann et al. 2018). By one account there are at least 100 innovation labs in public sector organisations globally (Nesta, 2014), up from none at the turn of the twenty-first century (Tōnurist et al. 2017). This may, however, be a significant under-estimation. Other more recent work suggests that there exist over 60 labs in Europe alone (McGann et al. 2018), over 50 in Australia and New Zealand and more than 40 in Canada (Lewis et al. 2020). Labs are being embedded in government structures at all levels, ranging from international organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the European Commission and the World Bank to countries including the United States, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Chile, Brazil, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and New Zealand, to cities ranging from New Orleans and Boston to Copenhagen, Seoul and Mexico City (Bason 2014, 2017; Puttick et al. 2014; OECD 2017; Tōnurist et al. 2017; Lewis et al. 2020; McGann et al. 2021). This growth in number and scope of labs has not been without setbacks. Most significantly, the closing of the ambitious Helsinki Design Lab, the discontinuation after only 18 months of the Australian government’s lab DesignGov, and the termination in 2018 of Denmark’s MindLab, at the time the world’s longest-running of its kind. Lewis (2021) points out that the unique organisational form of many labs, where they rely on internal government funding, makes them relatively easy to defund and/or ignore as compared to more established public institutions. This means that many labs in the public sector, according to Lewis (2021), struggle for long-term

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survival. To draw on some of the lessons from a short-lived lab, Alex Roberts, an Australian civil servant involved in the DesignGov prototype, has carefully unpacked the learnings in a blog aptly titled “Establishing, running and closing a public sector innovation lab” (Roberts 2014). However, there still seems to be a tendency towards the proliferation of dedicated units, teams and spaces for systematic work on public and social innovation. Perhaps it is not so surprising that reformist and “modern” public administrations like the Dutch, Danish or British chose to try out such new organisational structures in the 2000s and 2010s. These countries have in various ways always been pioneers in public sector reform, for instance in driving digital public services. It is perhaps more surprising that the European Commission’s scientifically minded Joint Research Centre established a Policy Lab, which in 2021 initiated the European Union’s ambitious design-inspired New European Bauhaus initiative. (In the autumn of 2021, the team even spun out a new “Bauhaus Lab”). Add to this that German Chancellor Angela Merkel recruited senior sociologists and psychologists to run a high-level innovation team embedded inside the Federal Chancellery (still running), and it appears that innovation labs are emerging from the most unlikely of places. We are also seeing the OECD beginning to play a highly constructive (and legitimising) role in providing a backbone, or infrastructure, for labs to interact at a global level with the authority and resources which its Observatory for Public Sector Innovation can bring to the table (OECD, 2017). From the philanthropic sector, Nesta, the UK innovation foundation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies have in numerous ways catalysed the rise of labs with funding, research, knowledge-sharing, training and other support activities. What Is a Design Lab? “Lab” organisations can be found in private businesses as well as in government and civic organisations, and they can act independently in terms of governance and funding, or they can be tightly connected within a larger organisation. Let us start with one of the broadest possible definitions. Innovation labs can be characterised, almost philosophically, as creative platforms. Danish academics Søren Hansen and Henning Sejer Jakobsen (2006) say that the creative process in organisations must be lifted away from the ‘swamp’ of everyday activities, which are often characterised by routine, fear of failure, prejudice, bureaucracy and rules. They point out that in order to thrive, creativity needs its own place. It has to be lifted high on the four pillars of trust (in each other, and in the creative process), concentration (ability to be present and aware), motivation (leveraging personal ambition to become selflessly and positively involved) and knowledge (allowing for new combinations of perspectives and disciplines). With a slightly more precise definition, The European Commission has proposed that innovation labs are characterised by some common traits, including: ● involvement of users at all stages of development (co-creation);

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● multiple partners from private and public sectors; ● bringing together different disciplines and approaches from design, science, technology and business; ● a dedicated space (real or virtual) for experimentation and developing new ideas (Thenint 2009). This definition embraces innovation labs in both the public sector and in business. When it comes to labs focusing on the public sector they continue to be ill-defined, both in terms of labels and terminology, and in terms of what they actually are (McGann et al. 2018; Lewis et al. 2020). Characteristics of public sector innovation labs have been proposed by, among others, the UK innovation foundation Nesta (Puttick et al. 2014; Nesta 2016) and by the OECD (OECD 2017). For instance, Nesta characterises them as dedicated teams, units and funds, to structure and embed innovation methods and practice in government. And the OECD describes public sector innovation labs as ‘dedicated spaces for investigating and experimenting through trial and error to understand better what works in public service design and delivery’ (OECD 2017, p. 153). McGann et al. (2018) propose the acronym “PSI labs” with typical characteristics including (1) organisational units operating with a certain degree of autonomy; (2) deploying experimental methods and approaches; (3) often drawing on design thinking as a particular set of theories, concepts and methodologies for innovation and user engagement. These characteristics largely match those proposed by Hattori and Wycoff (2002) where they suggested an emerging ‘second-generation’ of labs which were more strategically anchored organisationally, embedded within business units, and focused on strategy and value-creation, not least through user-centred approaches (Table 9.1). These properties also indicate that there may have been a move from labs as more independent and externally organised to being embedded organisationally (this goes for labs in business as well as in government). A recent study by the Danish Design Centre (DDC 2021) among innovation teams in Danish and Japanese corporate firms seems to confirm this on the private sector side. In a “deep dive” qualitative study among leaders of such labs, all the studied entities were fully or partly funded and anchored with its host organisation. There are many labels for labs: design teams, studios, i-teams, i-labs, X Labs, Innovation Units, Innovation Studios, Centres for Social Innovation, Future Centres, Public Spaces, Living Labs, Social Innovation Labs, Dream Spaces, Creative Platforms and Idea Factories, to name a few. And they can take many forms: physical or virtual, public, private or third sector, or cutting across multiple organisations and sectors. When it comes to public purpose innovation labs, just as in business, labs may be embedded and funded entirely inside a public sector organisation, or may be placed more on the fringes with activities both inside and outside the “host” institution. Finally, some labs act almost entirely independently and are only loosely connected to a public institution (Puttick et al. 2014). However, more often or not, there is

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Table 9.1

First- and second-generation labs

First generation (creative platform)

Second generation (strategic innovation)

Physical creativity centre

Innovation resources part of business units

Focus on ideation

Focus on strategy and value-creation

Employee-oriented

User-centred

Training and facilitation

Team-oriented innovation culture

Individual/small group recognition

Recognition of teams

Creativity tools

Tools scalable to entire organisation

Management passively supportive

Management actively involved

a close relationship to one or more government bodies. A study by McGann et al. (2018) shows that among 20 labs surveyed globally, only three were entirely independent of government funding. For the purpose of the further analysis and discussion in this chapter, with its emphasis on the cross-fertilisation of design labs and strategic public management specifically, I will make three delineations that narrow the scope of labs significantly. First, I focus on innovation labs that serve a public purpose. Second, I focus on labs that are based and funded within government, or that are mixed (partly based and funded by government). Third, I focus on labs that in terms of philosophy and methodology draw on design, including design thinking and human centred design (HCD) approaches. I will therefore generally use the term “design lab” for the remainder of the text. Organising Design Labs It should be clear from above that design labs can be viewed as instruments for focusing creative efforts and skills, enhancing one or more organisation’s ability to innovate. As such, they are positioned as resources for strategic management. But what are the components that together make up a design lab? What makes up the resources? What are the organisational elements? Figure 9.1 pinpoints some of the key dimensions which make up a design lab, all of which need to be taken into account when establishing and running it. I will consider each dimension briefly below, and highlight the bandwidth it contains in terms of strategic resource. Governance and funding structure Who makes decisions on the lab’s development, project and task portfolio, management, funding, and so on? This can span from fully internal to a public organisation, to a cross-cutting function spanning more organisations or a “hybrid” internal/ external model. As an example, MindLab, the Danish government’s innovation team, spanned multiple departments in central government and, for a period of time, also a local government (city) administration. Other labs, such as the Lab @ OPM in the

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Figure 9.1

Overall framework that pinpoints the various organisational elements

US government, report to a single public entity, while yet others have independent and multiple funding sources. Depending on the funding model, the lab as a resource can be more or less under the financial control of a host organisation; and depending on the governance (decision-making model), the lab can act more or less independently, for instance when it comes to its strategy and project portfolio. One might ask what the future trend currently is: are labs generally focusing on a single organisational entity, or multiple entities, or even networks? Methods, technology, space What kinds of innovation approaches and technologies do we expect the lab to utilise, and what kind of dedicated space should it have? What do we want the physical space, and its location, to say about the mission of the lab? This dimension concerns the resources made available by the lab in terms of intellectual and operational knowledge, and indicates what kind of value it intends to bring to the host organisation(s) and wider stakeholders. As mentioned above, many labs have settled on design thinking and HCD as key methodological approaches, entailing user research and involvement, co-creation processes, and front-end prototyping and testing. Some labs have more of a technology component, ranging from digital tools and platforms to physical infrastructure in a space (e.g. sound, lightning). Finally, physical space itself can be a strong manifestation of a lab; in some cases there is a very visual and highly designed interior making a statement that “innovation goes on here”; in other cases the space is more humble and is more or less identical to a typical public institu-

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tion. The question thus becomes what the methodological and infrastructural choices that in turn determine the offerings the lab can provide to the actors it engages with? Organisation, colleagues, culture This is the internal relational dimension. How should the lab itself be organised, what team with which competencies and track record should occupy it (and how big?), and what kind of internal culture should the lab build (and possibly spread)? How wide do we see the lab’s mandate and thus do we see it as part of an organisation or perhaps linked to an entire network of organisations? This is linked to governance, of course, but is more a question of organisation design. As Hattori and Wycoff’s model above illustrates, for instance, “2nd-gen labs” tend to prioritise innovation resources as part of (decentral) business units. Stakeholders, citizens, business This is the more externally oriented relational dimension of the lab, and concerns issues like what stakeholders are critical for the lab to engage with. How should the lab involve and engage citizens and business? Here, there is a key dimension spanning from deep user involvement in discrete service or policy design projects to wider and broader engagement of a stakeholder ecosystem, or both. Leadership Finally, one of the most critical decisions when establishing a lab is recruiting someone to run it. Should it be an internal candidate or an external one? To what extent should the lab director have “fresh eyes” and perhaps limited or no experience working in government? To what extent should it be an insider with existing legitimacy and relevant networks and relationships with stakeholders? What kind of professional background do we feel would give the leader the skills as well as the legitimacy to run the lab? These dimensions can all, of course, vary and they do when it comes to the individual set up of labs.

A STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE ON DESIGN LABS: FOUR ROLES What makes the emergence of design labs the more surprising is that in spite of their search for predictability, stability and control, governments are taking active steps to create something which, it is hoped, will help create new “solutions” to problems, without decision-makers knowing in advance what those solutions might look like. In other words, labs can be viewed as focusing on the intentional disruption of the status quo. Or, as Kattel et al. (2019) suggest, labs are created to ‘unstick’ the balance in government between change and permanence. They are designed to contribute to maintaining ‘agile stability’.

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As Zaid Hassan, one of the strong advocates of the “lab revolution” suggests, ‘we cannot generate new systems, new structures, and new realities that are verifiable prior to their coming into being’ (Hassan, 2014). Government administrations, and their political leaders, are taking a bet that if they build labs, the right solutions will come. From a strategic management perspective, this raises the question: what are the roles design labs take which underpin this ability to support the emergence of new types of systems, structures, realities – or simply, solutions? In the following I reflect on four perspectives on the cross-fertilisation between labs and strategic public management (Moore 1995, 2013). First, labs provide a centralised resource to be deployed for strategic innovation activity. Because labs are established to supply specialised innovation skills to the organisation, they can be viewed as a centralised resource that is “on call” for whichever strategic challenge or opportunity presents itself to the organisation. A case in point, as mentioned above, is the European Commission’s Policy Lab, which in the autumn of 2020 was given the task of building and executing a novel and ambitious policy programme to enable the European Green New Deal through design and architecture, titled the New European Bauhaus. Because the Policy Lab already contained skilled designers with strategic policy experience, the lab could quickly step into the task and, through a dedicated “Bauhaus Team” start the creative work of building what is essentially a large-scale experimental programme for citizen and business engagement in facilitating a social, sustainable and aesthetic built environment for Europe. Second, labs can be utilised for building distributed organisational capacity for innovation through engagement and training activities for the wider organisation. This points to the role of labs as support structures that provide skills, methods and tools to innovation activities in a more decentralised manner. For instance, the Chilean government leveraged the capabilities of its internal design lab to support rather large-scale training of “entrepreneurial” civil servants. Similar initiatives have been taken in Canada around the notion of “policy entrepreneurs”. This role implies a larger-scale impact, potentially, of labs as they build strategic innovation capacity across a policy system. Third, not least through design approaches and methodologies, labs can function as informing and challenging the strategic intent of policies and services. This is the case where labs indeed function as “disruptors” or, as was the phrase at now-terminated Mindlab, the Danish government’s design lab, ‘the loyal opposition’, which seeks to qualify or even more fundamentally question whether policy decisions and service operations really create the public value they intend. In what is typically top-down led policy departments and agencies, such a role can be fragile as labs act as a foreign element not taking policy briefs for granted. However, testing and challenging assumptions about current frames, theories of change and programme logics can potentially make a significant difference in the longer-term value creation of the institution. As Lewis et al. (2020) also suggest, with such practices a lab ‘has the potential to benefit governments wanting to address complex and open-ended challenges’, while reminding us that these practices may very well not fit with the constraints and realities of policymaking.

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Finally, labs can enable the strategic design of the institution itself. Donald Schön (1983, p. 77) observes that ‘Increasingly there has been a tendency to think of policies, institutions, and behaviour itself, as objects of design.’ Viewing the public institution itself as a design object, and its ability to create public value as the ultimate outcome of that object, is in a sense a higher strategic role of a lab. In fact, with its perceived independence, and taking this notion even further, the lab may be in a position to enable system-wide considerations of a needed transition, rather than solely an intra-organisational one. By positioning itself in such an outside-in perspective, the lab makes it the job to enable strategic and systemic transformation. Ultimately, the entire system connected to a policy problem becomes the design objective. The question remains, however, whether the design labs we see in today’s public sector landscape are truly able to take on these roles. And if so, what does the future hold? Let me in the final section below consider what more systems-focused design labs may look like.

SYSTEM ORCHESTRATORS: TOWARDS THIRD-​ GENERATION LABS? In the first edition of my book Leading Public Sector Innovation: Co-creating for a Better Society (Bason 2010) I suggested that the 2002 article by Hattori and Wycoff discussed earlier would be helpful in understanding the role and development of design labs from being “creativity centres” to more strategic units embedded organisationally, and with a focus on user engagement. At the time, it seemed as if “2nd-gen” labs would be what is needed to embed human-centred innovation practices in the public sector. In the following decade, that was generally the type of labs that evolved: mostly single-organisation, design-led, internally anchored. However, as discussed above, and as also highlighted by Tōnurist et al. (2017) as well as Lewis et al. (2020), current design labs may be limited in catalysing sector-wide changes. The argument goes that design thinkingand human-centred methodologies, as they have generally been deployed, are more suited to addressing the rethinking of discrete interactions between a government body and citizens rather than the workings of an entire system. (Even though methods such as user journey mapping and various stakeholder involvement methods were deployed, they may not have succeeded in making systems change the main objective.) The limits of the approach may also be, more simply, that they are relatively straightforward to adopt internally in host organisations and so at some point the labs’ unique contribution becomes less relevant. This – that design approaches were taken up across the system in any case – was one of the arguments put forward when MindLab was merged into a digital “disruption” team and ultimately terminated (Apolitical 2018). This raises the question whether the current “design of labs” – the very governance and organisational setup – is on par with the scale and complexity of problems governments are facing. Certainly, design labs offer no panacea (Lewis et al. 2020;

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Table 9.2

Potential characteristics of third-generation labs

Third generation (system focused) Resources centralised and distributed among organisational units across a wider network Focus on strategy, operations and value-creation User- and employee/actor and system oriented Involvement of project teams and senior management Recognition of teams and their leaders Tools openly available to wider stakeholders Top management ownership balanced with bottom-up engagement

Source:  Adapted from Hattori and Wycoff (2002).

Lewis 2021). After nearly two decades’ experience with public purpose design labs, the jury is still out: are they sufficiently effective? Can they be seen as an important resource for strategic public management? On the one side there is some evidence that labs have contributed to impacts ranging from much more powerful digital user experiences for citizens, more empathetic and outcome-oriented health services for patients, and precise nudges that shape large-scale behaviour and saves public costs (Bate and Robert 2007; Hassan 2014; Mager 2016; Bason 2017). On the other side there is still significant lack of research into evidence of the value-creation of labs, and it is unlikely that labs alone can facilitate the broader systemic shifts that are needed to bring public organisations on par with the daunting challenges of our time. As Lewis et al. (2020, p. 126) conclude, labs ‘… are still some distance from achieving wider impacts on policymaking’. The relevant question thus might be: with what we now know from research into first- and especially second-generation labs, what is the potential for labs to become (even) more relevant as a strategic resource for public management? What kind of design of design labs will raise the likelihood that relevant and impactful solutions will in fact emerge from the investment in labs? Could there be a third evolution of labs that might be needed? Based on the past couple of decades’ development in the lab world, an extension of Hattori and Wycoff’s original 2002 model could suggest a third generation of labs, which might be titled “System orchestrators” and which further underline the characteristics it takes for labs to achieve lasting real-world impact. An important example is that the current generation of labs generally recognise that they need to work both outside-in (user focused) and inside-out (employee, organisation and management focused) in order to achieve lasting change. But are they missing the broader, networked and systemic nature of the actors needed to act in concert to achieve policy outcomes? The model in Table 9.2 first and foremost suggests that labs would reorient themselves far beyond being a centralised strategic resource; they would work with, and build capacity among, a wider system of actors across a particular problem domain or policy field. They would include a consideration of what type of operations would

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need to change at scale in order to achieve a given change, and they would not only focus on (end) users but on actors more widely across a given system. Importantly, they would share their methodologies and resources widely so that system actors can build capacity and more easily engage with the lab and each other. A fast-growing approach to innovation that has emerged over the past few years is missions (European Commission 2018; Mazzucato 2021). This approach, which entails setting (top-down) long-term ambitious impact goals, mobilising research and innovation activities to enable (bottom-up) change, seems to open up a new type of space for labs to operate in a wider-ranging and systemic way. By placing a long-term (systemic) impact at the centre, often related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, mission-oriented innovation suggests a bigger, broader and wider-ranging role for labs. Potentially. An example of this could, again, be the JRC Policy Lab in the European Commission, which works in a networked fashion, for instance, to garner financial resources for the New European Bauhaus programme from other Directorate-Generals and their existing funding streams such as the Horizon Europe programme. The New European Bauhaus (NEB) itself is an ambitious policy agenda to mobilise design and architecture actors around realising the European Green Deal. Inspired rather clearly by mission-oriented innovation methodology, the NEB lab could foreshadow more of similar entities to come. As mentioned, this lab has now spawned an aptly named “Bauhaus Lab” to activate resources across the system. Another example could be the organisation I lead, the Danish Design Centre. A new strategy, taking a mission-oriented approach focusing on green, digital and social transitions, is enabling this independent, non-profit foundation to invite system actors to explore new avenues to realising missions. This raises all types of questions around convening power and legitimacy of “offering” resources to existing policy systems. However, there seems to be a potential of boundary- and sector-spanning actors to contribute with resources and capacity to support innovation activity in a relatively neutral manner – as the “honest broker”, so to speak. What the implications for the future of labs are may be too early to say. But if we assume that public problems will keep getting more complex and dynamic, then there may be an argument that labs must step outside of the relative comfort of their embeddedness inside organisations and become a type of boundary-spanning, mission-oriented, systems-orchestrating platform.

CONCLUSION As public organisations continue to grapple with the turbulent and complex challenges facing them in today’s world, the role of labs as a resource for strategic public management is likely to change as well. One perspective that is yet to emerge at scale empirically is the role of labs as strategic orchestrators across ecosystems. This role appears to be rising in relevance as the need to connect disparate actors around common long-term challenges becomes increasingly apparent. As the uptake of

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mission-oriented innovation currently demonstrates (Mazzucato 2021), there may be a need for “system oriented labs” which are not embedded in a single public organisation, but which pursue the realisation of public value more freely across a wider set of actors that share common problems and opportunities. Perhaps we will see a future category of labs which become essentially strategic systems orchestrators, using a unique positioning on the boundary of sectors and industries to build cross-cutting capacity and enabling new value-creating relationships.

NOTE 1.

This section builds on Bason (2018) chapter 6: The rise of labs: prospects and pitfalls.

REFERENCES Apolitical (2018) How Denmark lost its MindLab: the inside story, https://​apolitical​.co/​ solution​-articles/​en/​how​-denmark​-lost​-its​-mindlab​-the​-inside​-story. Bason, C. (2010) Leading public sector innovation: co-creating for a better society. Bristol: Policy Press. Bason, C. (2014) Design for policy. Farnham: Gower. Bason, C. (2017) Leading public design: discovering human-centred governance. Bristol: Policy Press. Bason, C. (2018) Leading public sector innovation: co-creating for a better society. Bristol: Policy Press (2nd edn). Bason, C. and R. D. Austin (2021) Design in the public sector: toward a human centred model of public governance?, Public Management Review, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​14719037​ .2021​.1919186. Bate, P. and G. Robert (2007) Bringing user experience to healthcare improvement: the concepts, methods and practices of experience-based design. Abingdon: Radcliffe Publishing. Benington, J. and M. Moore (2011) Public value: theory and practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Buchanan, R. (1990) Wicked problems in design thinking (essay based on paper presented at Colloque Reserches sur le Design: Incitations, Implications, Interactions, at l’Université de Technologie de Compiègne, Compiègne, France). Carlsson, B. (2004) Public policy as a form of design, in R. J. Boland and F. Collopy (eds), Managing as designing, Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books. Carstensen, H. V. and C. Bason (2012) Powering collaborative policy innovation: can innovation labs help?, The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 17 (1), article 4. DDC [Danish Design Centre] (2021) Deep dive study of innovation in complex organisations, https://​ddc​.dk/​?s​=​Deep​%20dive​%20study​%20of​%20innovation​%20in​%20complex​ %20organisations. Du Gay, P. (2000) In praise of bureaucracy: Weber, organizations, ethics. London: Sage Publications. Dunleavy, P. et al. (2006) Digital era governance: IT corporations, the state, and e-government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. European Commission (2018) Mission-oriented research & innovation in the EU: a problem-solving approach to fueling innovation-led growth, https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​info/​

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publications/​mission​-oriented​-research​-innovation​-eu​-problem​-solving​-approach​-fuel​ -innovation​-led​-growth​_en. Hansen, S. and H. S. Jakobsen (2006) Idéudvikling på en kreativ platform [Idea development on a creative platform], in Innovationsledelse, Center for Industrial Production, Aalborg Universitet, http://​innovation​.cip​.dk. Hassan, Z. (2014) The social labs revolution: a new approach to solving our most complex challenges. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Hattori, R. A. and J. Wycoff (2002) Innovation DNA: a good idea is not enough. It has to create value, Training and Development, 56 (2), pp. 25–39. Kattel, R., W. Drechsler and E. Karo (2019) Innovation bureaucracies: how agile stability creates the entrepreneurial state. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper Series (IIPP WP 2019-12), https://​www​.ucl​.ac​.uk/​bartlett/​public​-purpose/​wp2019​ -12. Lewis, J. M. (2021) The limits of policy labs: characteristics, opportunities and constraints, Policy Design and Practice, 4 (2), pp. 242–51. Lewis, J. M., M. McGann and E. Blomkamp (2020) When design meets power: design thinking, public sector innovation and the politics of policymaking, Policy and Politics, 48 (1), pp. 111–30. Mager, B. (2016) Impact report public sector. https://​www​.service​-design​-network​.org/​ uploads/​sdn​-impact​-report​_public​-sector​.pdf. Mazzucato, M. (2021) Mission economy. London: Allan Lane. McGann, M., E. Blomkamp and J. M. Lewis (2018) The rise of public sector innovation labs: experiments in design thinking for policy, Policy Sciences, 51 (3), pp. 249–67. McGann, M., T. Wells and E. Blomkamp (2021) Innovation labs and co-production in public problem solving, Public Management Review, 23 (2), pp. 297–316. Michlewski, K. (2014) Design attitude. Farnham: Gower. Moore, M. (1995) Creating public value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moore, M. (2013) Recognizing public value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nesta (2014) i-teams: The teams and funds making innovation happen in governments around the world. London: Nesta with Bloomberg Philanthropies. Nesta (2016) Designing for public services. London: Nesta. http://​www​.nesta​.org​.uk/​sites/​ default/​files/​nesta​_ideo​_guide​_021216​.pdf. OECD (2017) Fostering innovation in the public sector. Paris: OECD Publishing, https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1787/​9789264270879​-en. Puttick, R., P. Colligan and P. Baeck (2014) I-teams: the teams and foundations making innovation happen in governments around the world. London: Nesta. Roberts, A. (2014) Establishing, running and closing a public sector innovation lab – a reflection on the DesignGov experiment, https://​innovation​.govspace​.gov​.au/​establishing​ -running​-and​-closing​-public​-sector​-innovation​-lab​-reflection​-designgov​-experiment. Schön, D. A. (1983) The reflective practitioner. Aldershot: Ashgate. The Economist (2014) Test-tube government. December 4. Thenint, H. (2009) Labs for a more innovative Europe. Inno GRIPS, European Commission. Tõnurist, P., R. Kattel and V. Lember (2017) Innovation labs in the public sector: what they are and what they do?, Public Management Review, 19 (10), pp. 1455–79, https://​doi​.org/​ 10​.1080/​14719037​.2017​.1287939. Weber, M. ([1947] 2012) The theory of social and economic organization. New York: The Free Press. Wetter-Edman, K. (2014) Design for service: a framework for exploring designers’ contribution as interpreter of users’ experience. PhD Dissertation, University of Gothenburg. Wren, D. A. and A. G. Bedeian (2009) The evolution of management thought (6th edn). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

10. Magic PILs to cure the ills of public management? The rise of public innovation labs as design-for-policy entrepreneurs Emma Blomkamp and Jenny M. Lewis

INTRODUCTION Governments are increasingly creating and turning to public innovation labs (PILs) to address the perceived shortcomings of conventional approaches to public policy and public management. With researchers identifying 52 PILs in Australia and New Zealand (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018), 13 in Latin America (Acevedo and Dassen 2016), 212 in Europe (Gofen and Golan 2020) and 36 in Canada (Evans 2020), we can presume there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these units in existence around the world. This global proliferation has prompted claims that PILs have become ‘a pervasive part of the social infrastructure of modern public organisations’ (Carstensen and Bason 2012, 5) as governments face pressure to respond to wicked problems and growing citizen expectations. Public managers are compelled to innovate, that is, to step outside usual approaches to generate and apply new ideas that produce benefits for the public. Establishing a PIL has become a common response to the perceived need for public sector innovation. The spread of PILs can be explained by examining these units and their proponents as entrepreneurial actors within the context of public sector systems. PILs represent broader changes in policy systems and the enhanced place of market and civil society actors through network governance arrangements and co-production practices. Some PILs, for instance, are not formally part of the public sector, yet work extensively with governments. Prominent examples include Nesta’s Futurelab then Innovation Lab in London, La 27e Région in Paris, MaRS Solutions Lab in Toronto, and GovLab in New York. These groups became key influencers ‘in the global circulation of policy lab ideas’ (Williamson 2015, 4), particularly in the diffusion of design-led practice as a framework for public innovation. Working to shape the debate on policy innovation in ways that promote a particular set of approaches to problem solving, these labs function as policy entrepreneurs (Mintrom 1997). Their place within policy systems is perhaps best understood if they are regarded as similar to ‘instrument constituencies’ or ‘design coalitions’, but they do not perfectly fit either of these categories. The discrepancy invites us to reframe our understanding of what is involved in the management of public sector organisations and its relationship to policymaking. 147

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This chapter draws on our international analysis of the rise of policy labs (McGann, Blomkamp and Lewis 2018), an examination of design-for-policy and the policymaking process (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020), and our survey and case study research on PILs in Australia and New Zealand (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018; McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021).1 A total of 52 labs took part in our online survey in 2018, which defined PILs broadly as any unit or team that was ‘established for the purposes of supporting public or social innovation’, including ‘units within government, or the public sector, as well as non-government organisations and labs that work with governments on public sector innovation’. The survey of PILs gathered data on the stages of innovation at which they work; the extent to which they undertake policy-related projects and activities; and the different levels of government and other types of policy actors with whom they work. The research also included detailed case studies of five labs in Australia and New Zealand to further explore their collaborative governance arrangements and the challenges and opportunities they experience in contributing to policy innovation and reform at different jurisdictional levels. Results from this research are used throughout this chapter, supplemented by analysis and observations from PIL workers, supporters and researchers in other countries. We present a new lens on PILs as policy actors by analysing the ways in which they function as policy entrepreneurs and considering the extent to which they can be considered or compared with instrument constituencies, and the related concept of design coalitions. These concepts are defined following an outline of the unique characteristics of labs and what makes them distinct entities. We then demonstrate the four main ways in which PILs function as policy entrepreneurs, following Mintrom and Norman (2009). We argue that PILs can be considered design-for-policy entrepreneurs. They are exemplars of the championing and application of design thinking in the public sector as well as participatory approaches to policymaking practice. Not all PILs focus on design thinking and designerly methods – open data and behavioural insights are also common approaches – nor are they the only place where design is infiltrating public sector organisations. Along with think tanks, charitable foundations and design consultancies, labs are part of a ‘complex and diffuse ecosystem of organisations’ promoting the value of design in the public sector to address societal challenges (Buchanan 2020, 230). Yet one of the most important ways in which human-centred and participatory design is being taken up and applied within policy systems is through the proliferation of PILs. This chapter accordingly focuses on design-led labs.

WHAT MAKES PILs UNIQUE? Many different terms are used for similar entities, which in this chapter we refer to as public innovation labs (PILs). To take a prominent (though no longer existing) example, the Danish Government’s MindLab was variously labelled an innovation unit, i-team, i-lab, public policy lab, government innovation lab, change lab, design

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lab, and social innovation lab (McGann, Blomkamp and Lewis 2018). We use the label PILs broadly to include all of these concepts. Despite the confusing nomenclature, we have identified a number of important characteristics of public innovation labs. First, PILs are commonly understood as ‘change agents’ (Schuurman and Tõnurist 2017, 9) or ‘safe spaces’ for experimentation and innovation in the public sector (Carstensen and Bason 2012, 5). Second, international research on PILs suggests that most of them work across government agencies and departments, and traverse multiple policy sectors, performing a network role across traditional departmental and sectoral boundaries. They specialise more in methods than in content, and are thus not usually limited to any particular policy domain. Third, they operate with high levels of autonomy and are rarely subject to specific performance measures or strenuous evaluations (Tõnurist, Kattel and Lember, 2017). PILs offer a new organisational form that is smaller and more flexible than large public bureaucracies. The people attracted to work in these labs typically have different or additional skills and training to civil servants. In particular, professional designers and others who embrace ‘design thinking’ are often central to the creation and promotion of these labs. A key distinction between PILs and other agents of public administration is their emphasis on applying ‘design thinking’, or a ‘designerly’ approach (Bailey and Lloyd 2016; McGann, Blomkamp and Lewis 2018; see also Laursen and Haase 2019). While other types of labs can be identified, such as those whose predominant approach is classified as open government/data (McGann, Blomkamp and Lewis 2018), evidence-based, or agile (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018), what typically differentiates PILs from other kinds of policy actors is their embrace of designerly methods, inspired by the disciplines of product and service design. The most frequently employed methodology used by PILs in Australia and New Zealand is human-centred design (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018). It is associated with the use of interviews, ethnographic methods, user testing and prototyping, and citizen and stakeholder engagement through workshops, walkthroughs and other collaborative approaches. In line with the findings from our survey of PILs, many commentators explicitly define them in terms of their adoption of ‘design thinking’ techniques and collaborative approaches to innovation (Bason and Schneider 2014; Kieboom 2014; Fuller and Lochard 2016; Olejniczak et al. 2020). Within the literature on PILs, ‘design’ is often portrayed as a tool for involving stakeholders and communities in reframing problems and in generating ideas for solutions. Design methods are seen to better respond to complex public problems by enabling a richer understanding and supporting more relevant and effective options to emerge. While labs differ in the extent to which they meaningfully engage non-traditional policy actors in this process, their application of design (thinking) invites a more diverse range of voices and inputs into the policy process. Some PILs are even dedicated to applying and promoting co-design and related participatory approaches (Blomkamp 2018; McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021).

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In short, we argue that PILs can be understood as a specific kind of design-for-policy entrepreneur. That is, they are entities whose contribution to policy systems lies in their capacity to develop creative policy options using design principles and methods (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020). PILs also promote and spread the use of design-based approaches in the public purpose sector, making them design entrepreneurs in their methodological advocacy. A recent review of policy innovation lab scholarship has similarly suggested that PILs can be considered to represent ‘street-level policy entrepreneurship’ as they seek to diffuse policy innovation and improve implementation (Wellstead, Gofen and Carter 2021, 202). How Are PILs Different from Other Actors in Policy Systems? Most literature on policy actors focuses on their role in relation to policy problems and solutions, either implicitly or explicitly conceiving of the policy process as rational-analytical (Howlett 2014) or deliberative-argumentative (Fischer and Forester 1993). These perspectives tend to overlook the role of craft in policymaking practice (Freeman, Griggs and Boaz 2011; Considine, Alexander and Lewis 2013). Research on PILs helpfully draws our attention to the methods, techniques and tools used within public sector organisations and networks. The methods and approaches promoted by PILs differ to the capabilities that civil servants tend to be trained in and rewarded for. Their authority and influence lies in their claims to methodological rather than subject matter expertise, particularly as PILs tend to work across agencies and policy sectors rather than being geared towards a specific policy domain. If we wish to compare PILs with other policy actors, both ‘instrument constituencies’ and ‘design coalitions’ appear useful concepts to explain the strategic promotion of innovation labs and human-centred design methods in public administration. As Voss and Simons (2018, 184) explain, instrument constituencies are ‘practices and actors that are oriented towards developing, maintaining and expanding a specific instrumental model of governing’. They can become ‘entrepreneurial’ as they ‘actively seek to nurture demand and give shape to policy problems’ (Voss and Simons 2018, 182). The related but distinct concept of design coalitions is defined by Haelg, Sewerin and Schmidt (2020) ‘as relational structures of actors who gather around and advocate for specific policy design elements’. These authors note the distinguishing characteristic of design coalitions: ‘they are dynamic and strategic’. Like instrument constituencies, the conceptual category of design coalitions is based on an instrumental logic of policymaking as problem-solving. Design-for-policy entrepreneurs, in contrast, conceive of policymaking as a craft, involving skills, values and emotions. As Rebolledo (2016, 43) argues, ‘design may offer a fundamental reinvention of the art and craft of policymaking’ as it reorients policymaking in a post-positivist direction away from universalist understandings of scientific rigour and objectivity, and towards a model that incorporates a more diversified range of values, norms and sources of evidence. The networks that PILs form are not built around particular problems (c.f. the subject matter experts within epistemic communities; Béland, Howlett and

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Mukherjee 2018) or solutions (c.f. instrument constituencies; Voss and Simons 2018). They instead focus on how problems are framed and options are developed. Nonetheless, if we expand the concept of instrument constituencies or design coalitions to include not only subject matter experts and ideologically connected actors but also design-based methodological experts as ‘policy entrepreneurs’, they may fit. As we elaborate below, while PILs are portrayed as solutions to systemic failures in policymaking, they are put forth as a means to explore options, rather than the policy instruments that are typically understood to be the ultimate focus of instrument constituencies.

HOW DO LABS FUNCTION AS POLICY ENTREPRENEURS? Having established that PILs are a unique form of policy actor, centred on applying design-based methods to public problems, we now further explore how they function as policy entrepreneurs. There are several reasons to see PILs as policy actors who promote ‘design-for-policy’ ideas through their advocacy and pursuit of designerly approaches to public problem solving. First, important proponents of design have been centrally involved as directors of PILs, for example, Christian Bason at MindLab in Denmark (see, e.g., Bason 2017). Second, the role of PILs, for some, is about spurring ‘motivation and commitment to design thinking for policymaking’ (Mintrom and Luetjens 2016, 400). Third, recent analyses have shown that PILs continue to be established and indeed rely heavily on design thinking and practice (Acevedo and Dassen 2016; Fuller and Lochard 2016; McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018; Olejniczak et al. 2020). In these ways, PILs fit Mintrom and Norman’s (2009) conceptualisation of policy entrepreneurs as disruptive forces that seize opportunities ‘when new challenges appear so significant that established systems of managing them are judged inadequate’. Our qualitative study of five labs in Australia and New Zealand found that many of these actors indeed saw themselves as policy entrepreneurs, even if they did not use this term. One participant described their lab’s contribution as ‘a voice that can disrupt their [government’s] system’, while others suggested their work offers an alternative to ‘business-as-usual’, especially by modelling ‘a different way of doing things’ (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). This kind of policy entrepreneurship ‘requires creativity, energy, and political skill’ according to Mintrom and Norman (2009) who describe four central characteristics of policy entrepreneurs: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Displaying social acuity; Defining problems; Building teams; and Leading by example.

We consider the effectiveness of PILs as design-for-policy entrepreneurs, in relation to each of these four elements. In the following sections, we identify in which of

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these areas they are stronger, and what prevents them from having greater success in growing the appetite for adopting and applying designerly practices and principles in public management. PILs Display Social Acuity There are two ways that policy entrepreneurs display social acuity, which Mintrom and Norman (2009) define as ‘perceptiveness, in understanding others and engaging in policy conversations’, in order to take advantage of ‘windows of opportunity’. The first form of social perceptiveness is policy entrepreneurs’ effective engagement in relevant policy networks; the second is building on their understanding of the local policy context to secure policy change. PILs indeed display social acuity through their relationship-building in local policy networks as well as their responsiveness to the latest trends in public management and innovation. In the section on building teams below, we also show how PILs form and make use of national and international networks. The emergence of PILs has been associated with various policy trends, including growing interest in evidence-based policymaking and the pursuit of ‘open government’ agendas to foster trust and transparency through making publicly held data more accessible. Nevertheless, the application of design-based approaches remains a focal concern for many PILs, as demonstrated above, despite the tensions it creates within public bureaucracies. The collaborative methods of design resonate with principles of network governance, and the more recent focus on co-production in public management, especially within social and health services. The development and dissemination of design capabilities both within and by labs remains, however, a real challenge for public sector innovation. These new logics and practices require significant cultural and structural change to embed within government (Christiansen 2016; Blomkamp 2018; Malmberg and Holmlid 2018; Buchanan 2020). Our research in Australia and New Zealand found that PILs may be helping to drive a more participatory and design-oriented approach to public service innovation, yet they are still some distance from achieving wider impacts on policymaking. The surveyed PILs were very frequently in communication with other government agencies and departments, although cooperation across different levels of government was less common (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018). ‘Consultation with stakeholders’ was a priority for these labs, with over 90 per cent reporting they frequently undertake this activity. ‘Enhancing government–citizen or stakeholder communication/engagement’ was also an activity commonly undertaken by independent PILs, with 75 per cent reporting they do this ‘very frequently’. In addition, several labs have focused efforts on spreading mindsets for design thinking and building public servants’ capability in designerly tools and techniques – for example: BizLab Academy for the Australian Government and Auckland Co-Design Lab’s role in various local, national (New Zealand) and international learning events. This type of work is effectively ‘increasing demand for accessing knowledge and expertise’, as one survey respondent stated, noting however that their small lab faced the challenge

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of ‘potentially not being able to meet demand’. Drawing on their competencies in communication design and a widely held assumption ‘that design has inherent value and the potential to make things better’ (Buchanan 2020, 242), PILs often develop and share well-presented messages and artefacts that promote their work. For many PILs, design constitutes a ‘bottom-up’ approach where the gap between policy designers and citizens is narrowed through decisions being informed and sometimes driven by those who are most affected by public policies and services (Kolko 2018). Participants in our case study research saw their respective lab’s role as providing a ‘conduit’ between government and the public. To quote several of them, by ‘bringing the voice of the citizen into the solution development process’, PILs are able to offer ‘a way of involving people in the decisions that shape their lives, which in and of itself produces outcomes for them’ and ensures that people affected by a particular issue ‘feel meaningfully involved in the policy process’ (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). This participatory, democratic orientation is supported by arguments that policy is enhanced when it is created through participation and dialogue (Hartley, Sørensen and Torfing 2013) and that co-designing and co-producing public policy and services more effectively meets citizens’ needs and builds joint ownership for solutions (Durose and Richardson 2016; Torfing and Ansell 2017). Multi-actor collaboration can change the way that public problems are perceived and thus prevent public sector organisations ‘from wasting money, time and energy on solving the “wrong” problem’ (Sørensen and Torfing 2015, 152). The emergence of PILs can thus be seen as part of a broader shift in public management, whereby the public sector is increasingly governed by networks of public, private and civil society actors. In this context, labs act ‘as catalysts, brokers and fixers who construct new ideas through processes that are networked, bottom-up, and interactive rather than elite and top down’ (Williamson 2014, 299). This pluralisation of actors is considered an antidote to the ‘technocratic policy-making spearheaded by policy experts and executive civil servants’ associated with older models of public management (Torfing and Ansell 2017, 48). Despite these enabling shifts in policy systems, a critical challenge to labs’ policy and social impact is their political and economic precarity. PILs are still nascent institutions and remain highly vulnerable to the loss of political patronage. Accordingly, some of their relational, network-building work is motivated more by pragmatic concerns than targeted at building capacity for strategic policy work. Because they are easy to shut down, compared with more established public sector organisations, the survival of PILs is highly contingent on ongoing political patronage. This is illustrated by the closure of the longstanding and much celebrated MindLab, following a change in the Danish government’s political priorities (Guay 2018). Innovation labs that endure tend to be backed by ‘senior champions’ and high-level secretaries ‘who are able to open doors and offer protection’ (John 2014, 264). Our examination of five labs identified several threats to their political support and survival: ministerial changes and departmental staff turnover, a resistance to new ways of working from mid-level civil servants, and tension between the resources needed to authentically apply design approaches and the political pressures to

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quickly deliver ‘announceables’ (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). Combined with electoral cycles, the high turnover of staff in both political and administrative positions promotes short-term responses and creates an environment where lab workers are impatient for change and keen for rapid innovations that ministers can announce. PIL employees also report that the powerful administrative traditions of public bureaucracies stop new ways of working, particularly via the ‘permafrost’ of middle managers whose narrow performance indicators motivate them to block change (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). In summary, PILs display social acuity through their deliberate relationship building and capability building in policy networks and communities as well as their responsiveness to the latest trends in public management and innovation. However, designers’ abductive and empathetic reasoning styles differ fundamentally from the rational-analytic model of the policy cycle and ideal evidence base that is expected in public management (Dorst 2011; O’Rafferty, de Eyto and Lewis 2016). Design practices require significant cultural and structural change to build and embed capacity within public sector organisations. While PILs reside comfortably in networked policy settings, their limited capacity, precarity and ‘outsider’ status all prevent them from capitalising on this to a similar extent to more established policy entrepreneurs who are well resourced and longstanding ‘insiders’. PILs Define and Reframe Problems Mintrom and Norman (2009) argue that policy entrepreneurs define problems by ‘presenting evidence in ways that suggest a crisis is at hand’ as well as ‘finding ways to highlight failures of current policy settings … and drawing support from actors beyond the immediate scope of the problem’. In line with this, labs are both political actors and policy entrepreneurs in how they define and reframe public problems, and how they build up evidence of policy failures to justify their existence and growth. PILs tend to demonstrate, through their project and advocacy work, where governments are not serving communities well and how existing policies are making problems worse rather than improving outcomes or addressing causes of systemic issues, such as unemployment and homelessness. PILs are often presented as a solution to the failure of governments to address complex policy problems. Many commentators perceive innovation labs as enhancing governments’ capacity for long-term, systemic public problem-solving. Labs purportedly do this by enabling policy workers to overcome barriers to innovation, such as risk-aversion and the gap between design and implementation (Carstensen and Bason 2012; Timeus and Gascó 2018). Like their counterparts overseas, PILs in Australia and New Zealand work to address ‘daunting challenges, such as the global financial and economic crisis, increased social stratification, demographic change and the rise of health costs’ (Carstensen and Bason 2012, 3). Social issues (including housing and welfare) were by far the main policy area that PILs reported working on in our 2018 survey. This was followed by public administration and governance, health and education, along with transport and policing, and crime and the justice

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system (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018). The wide range of policy issues that PILs in these two countries focus on reflects Kieboom’s (2014, 9) observation that ‘The latest trend in our quest to fix the global challenges of the twenty-first century is to “lab” complex issues.’ PILs promise ‘better ways of generating new ideas’ (Puttick, Baeck and Colligan 2014, 3) and to build the capabilities, culture and structure ‘to develop the radical new solutions that are needed’ (Carstensen and Bason 2012, 3–5). As described earlier, PILs are often explicitly linked to a shift towards more participatory forms of policymaking, which emphasise the empowerment of citizens and diverse stakeholders in driving public innovation. PILs and their proponents follow the arguments of collaborative innovation scholars in emphasising the benefits of involving citizens throughout all stages of the design process: in defining and framing problems; generating new and creative solutions; and implementing effective responses (Carstensen and Bason 2012; Hartley, Sørensen and Torfing 2013; Schuurman and Tõnurist 2017). Of all the phases of the policy and innovation cycles they work on, however, PILs predominantly focus on the ‘front end’ of defining problems. For example, 94 per cent of independent labs and 60 per cent of government-based labs reported through our 2018 survey that their unit or team is ‘very frequently’ involved in ‘identifying or scoping problems’. In contrast, fewer than one in five PILs reported ‘very frequently … developing policy proposals or reforms’. Principal component analysis identified three distinct domains of innovation in which PILs are involved: policy development and reform, evaluation and systems improvement, and user or customer experience. Many labs undertake work in all three domains of innovation, although activities at the ‘front end’ of user or customer experience and policy development and reform are their predominant focus (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018). Along with identifying or scoping problems, the most commonly reported activities of these labs were consulting with stakeholders, understanding user experience, and generating ideas. Non-government labs tend to see themselves as providing an alternative to established consulting firms in providing new approaches to problem solving centred on the lived experience of community members. Independent PILs were much more likely than government labs to report that they ‘very frequently’ engage in ‘understanding user experience’ and ‘enhancing government–citizen or stakeholder communication/engagement’. They are uniquely positioned to provide a conduit to government for those who would not otherwise have a voice in the decisions that directly impact them (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). However, the long history of governments using citizen participation as merely a means of education, manipulation or placation (Damgaard and Lewis 2014) suggests that the application of co-design by labs will not always be directed at gaining meaningful input. Proponents of design-for-policy emphasise its usefulness in understanding citizens’ views and experiences during the stages of problem definition and testing solutions. Design researchers embrace situated and abductive forms of reasoning that require deep, experiential immersion in policy contexts (Bailey and Lloyd 2016; Kimbell 2016). A policy designer taking this approach must first search for the

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central paradox of a problem, then work iteratively towards a solution once the nature of the core paradox is understood (Dorst 2011). Supporters of design-for-policy claim that the application of design is helping to generate an entirely different decision-making model for public policy and management (Bailey and Lloyd 2016), suggesting it involves far more than an extension to the existing repertoire of policy design tools, but ‘a different way for policymaking to be done’ (Bason 2014, 3). These statements mirror those of the research participants shared above, who position themselves against traditional approaches to public policy and management, such as the rational-process models found in policy handbooks (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020). Participatory design approaches, which some PILs espouse, require humility and an emotional connection to those involved in the design process (Kolko 2018). Within this paradigm, emotion and intuition are treated as valid bases for determining viable options (Bason 2013), and pragmatic agreement between policy designers and people with lived experience about the desirability and practicality of solutions – rather than statistical validity – determines the evidence base for decision-making. Accordingly, the legitimacy of PILs’ decisions is often more a function of the extent of participant involvement in the design process than the rigour of analytical techniques. This participatory emphasis is thought to not only increase the probability of finding transformative solutions but also add democratic legitimacy to any enacted results. Any such legitimacy would, however, depend on the representativeness of ‘who actually participates in the design thinking process’ (Mintrom and Luetjens 2016, 393), which is seldom transparent in the actual practice of PILs. The design practices used by PILs have indeed proven helpful in building shared understanding of complex issues and reframing policy options. Labs often champion participatory approaches and appear to spend much of their energy on the ‘front end’ of the policy cycle, understanding and reframing what the problem is. But there are significant challenges in getting the kind of deep public involvement that designers advocate, which might result in non-useful and even damaging results for citizens. For these policy entrepreneurs to achieve real and lasting change, they would need to move beyond their current focus on standalone projects to reshape the processes, structures and strategies of public sector systems (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020). The capacity of PILs to do this type of systems-level transformation is largely unproven. PILs Build Teams and Communities of Practice The real strength of policy entrepreneurs, according to Mintrom and Norman, is ‘their ability to work effectively with others’. As foreshadowed in our discussion of social acuity, this involves working with local policy networks and extends to coalition building. This collaborative capacity requires balancing ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ perspectives, as Mintrom and Norman (2009) explain: ‘Policy entrepreneurs must be able to understand the workings of a given context without becoming so acculturated to it that they lose their critical perspective and their motivation to promote change.’

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One of the most important ways that PILs demonstrate this strength is in bringing together ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ in lab teams. It is commonly asserted that PILs provide methodological expertise and skills ‘beyond what most trained civil servants usually possess’ (Carstensen and Bason 2012, 5) and that they help to bring knowledge and practices from design and other fields into the public service. PILs frequently draw in external expertise, or second staff from other agencies and departments, to carry out their work. We found PILs in Australia and New Zealand – both within and outside of government – draw heavily on contractors and/ or consultants. In the six months prior to the 2018 survey, government-based labs each hired about four consultants or contractors on average, while labs based outside government hired on average over six consultants or contractors to carry out work on their behalf. Given the typically small size of labs, this meant that more consultants/ contractors than lab employees undertook work for independent PILs (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018). Those who work in PILs see them as distinct organisational forms that have an outsider position, non-traditional structures, and more fluid ways of working (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). However, this small scale, novelty and unique positioning also makes them comparatively easy to shut down (for internal labs), defund, or ignore (for external labs), compared with more established public sector organisations. Whether they are large or small, or internal or external to government, PILs struggle to survive long term. Those with high organisational autonomy and research capacity will likely have a greater impact but these features also mean they face more uncertain conditions. Labs that focus their efforts on policy change tend not to be successful, encountering more resistance both inside and outside the public sector (Tõnurist, Kattel and Lember 2017). This hostility makes it even more important for labs to build coalitions and support each other through international networks and communities of practice. They are strongly engaged in ‘inter-organisational communities of practice’ (Sørensen and Torfing 2015, 154) in driving public innovation. Our 2018 survey data suggest that networking with other PILs is common, with half of the government-based teams reporting at least monthly communication with a representative from a public sector innovation network or professional association within their own country. They also have a high level of quarterly contact with PILs overseas, pointing to strong international linkages. Forty per cent (21) of the 52 PILs reported having at least some contact with UK-based innovation foundation Nesta and with the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI). Eight of them were in contact, respectively, with someone at Nesta and someone at OPSI at least once every three months. A range of organisations have pioneered labs through organising events and publishing overviews and practice guides, such as Nesta (Puttick, Baeck and Colligan 2014), the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DeSIS) Network (Selloni and Staszowski 2013), La 27e Région in France (Fuller and Lochard 2016) and MaRS Solutions Lab in Canada (Torjman 2012). Influential public innovation teams and networks identified by the Australian and New Zealand survey respondents in 2018 included:

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● Nesta (10 respondents) ● An Australian Federal Government innovation lab or network (BizLab, PSIN or DIIS; 8 respondents) ● A behavioural insights unit or team (BETA, DPC VIC, DPC NSW or BIT UK) (7 respondents) ● Australian not-for-profit social innovation agency TACSI (6 respondents) ● UK Policy Lab (4 respondents) ● Victorian State Government’s Department of Premier and Cabinet (4 respondents). Martin Stewart-Weeks (Stewart-Weeks and Kastelle 2015), a board member of TACSI who describes the spread of ideas within and from PILs as ‘catching the innovation bug in the public sector’, argues that supporting and rewarding organisational and cultural connections like those listed above is key to embedding innovation in public management. It appears that this local and international networking and community of practice building is a key way in which PILs operate as policy entrepreneurs. The relationships and forums they build enable labs to share evidence and ideas with each other, as they collectively endeavour to strengthen the case for design-for-policy as a vehicle for transformative change in public sector practice. This can bolster labs facing political precarity and limited resources, yet even those that are well-connected remain a threatened species. Their outsider status enables PILs to engage creatively and deeply with citizens and stakeholders, applying unconventional methods and proposing innovative solutions, yet it is also an impediment to embedding their practices within the larger public policy and management ecosystem. PILs Lead by Example Through Experimentation PILs epitomise the policy entrepreneur’s approach to risk taking and ‘genuine commitment to improved social outcomes’, through discourse and actions that can help them gain credibility while sometimes making ‘legislators look out of touch’ (Mintrom and Norman 2009). As explored above, PILs model how design-for-policy offers a novel, more collaborative and experimental approach to policymaking. Innovation labs show governments how to experiment with the creative processes used by designers to generate, test and iterate solutions with potential policy ‘users’. This ability to engage users, communities and stakeholders in design processes and to creatively engage with field data to imagine and shape possible futures is valued by organisations and managers (Sangiorgi and Prendiville 2017). PILs are experimental sites for addressing public problems in three related senses: as organisations, in their approaches and methods, and in policymaking systems (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020). First, they are often ‘in and of themselves experimental initiatives’ in that they are predominantly small-scale and ‘nascent structures’ rather than mature entities (Fuller and Lochard 2016, 1). For example, the 35 PILs surveyed by Tõnurist and colleagues (2017) had an average of just six to seven staff and a life-span between three and four years. Approximately half

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of the 26 government-based labs we surveyed had fewer than six staff and were established within the past two years (McGann, Lewis and Blomkamp 2018). The second sense in which PILs can be understood as experimental concerns their role as structures for applying ‘experimental methods’ (Puttick 2014, 4). Design-led labs advocate and model an iterative and adaptive approach to policymaking through the connected processes of scoping, defining and reframing problems; ideating, prototyping and testing solutions; and learning by doing (Torjman 2012). PILs typically employ a toolbox of innovation approaches that combine a hybrid of digital, data and especially design-oriented methodologies. The third way in which they are experimental reflects their often deliberate shift towards more participatory forms of policymaking, which emphasise the empowerment of citizens and the collaboration of a diverse range of stakeholders. In this way, they build on user-driven perspectives of innovation often associated with contemporary co-design practice that challenges conventional approaches to policymaking (Blomkamp 2018). In positioning PILs as part of a shift towards ‘a new kind of experimental government’ (Puttick, Baeck and Colligan 2014) or as ‘experiments with collaborative policy innovation’ (Torfing and Ansell 2017, 51), design-for-policy entrepreneurs emphasise not only the new methods that labs are bringing to policy design. They highlight how labs are facilitating more collaborative approaches to public problem solving, which involve multi-actor networks and long-term policy solutions that better correspond with the complex nature of contemporary societal challenges. PILs are presented in this way as new institutional structures for enabling the participation of ‘a wide set of public and private actors who can perturb existing assumptions and paradigms and contribute to new change theories’ (Torfing and Ansell 2017, 50). The collaborative and networked approach of PILs is seen to enhance implementation outcomes by promoting greater awareness of citizens’ needs among public managers and ensuring that designs are responsive to people’s actual experiences and interactions (Clarke and Craft 2018). Labs often demonstrate new ways of working with citizens using ethnographic and interview research – taking back both their novel methods and outputs to the commissioning government agency (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). Typically in a design-led approach, prototyping and iteration should follow on to take this research beyond the conventions of formal reporting. But this seldom happens. As Kimbell and Bailey (2017) report, design-based ways of generating and communicating ideas through visual, performative and material means struggle for legitimacy against the formal written texts that are conventionally used to communicate policy. The playful and immersive nature of problem reframing and the physical making of prototypes is likely to look unproductive to those accustomed to seeing proposals presented as written reports (McGann, Wells and Blomkamp 2021). Yet, if PILs are to bridge the gap between design research and impact, they will need to go beyond the ‘front end’ of problem definition, to iteratively test and learn from prototype solutions and demonstrate effective examples of policy implementation. While PILs might help drive a more participatory and design-oriented approach to public service innovation, they are rarely achieving wider impacts on policymaking (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020). Innovative, collaboratively

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proposed ideas must still be diffused into the larger policymaking process and ‘pitched’ to decision-makers within a broader institutional and cultural context. Design-for-policy and the work of PILs may be valued simply as a novel tool for generating policy-relevant knowledge and increasing the pool of ideas available to decision-makers, without reshaping public management or policymaking (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020). As Timeus and Gascó (2018, 995) conclude: [Labs’] role in developing the public sector’s innovation capacity was to provide an organisational structure within the public sector where innovation capacity could be expanded without disrupting the traditional bureaucratic structures. This made them a practical and seemingly effective way for governments and public managers to meet external pressures to “be more innovative” while avoiding large-scale reforms.

In summary, PILs lead by example by modelling the value of experimentation in the public sector, yet in doing so they encounter risk aversion and systemic constraints. This institutional ‘immune system’ (Stewart-Weeks and Kastelle 2015, 64) makes it difficult for these policy entrepreneurs to gain sufficient credibility to embed design-for-policy more deeply in public management.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, we have considered what makes PILs design-for-policy entrepreneurs: they display social acuity, define problems, build teams, and lead by example (Mintrom and Norman 2009). PILs’ potential contributions to policy systems lie in their capacity to develop responsive policies using design-based approaches outside traditional bureaucratic structures. The design practices used by PILs have proven helpful in engaging diverse perspectives and building shared understanding of complex issues. Design-for-policy entrepreneurs have been successful in helping turn ‘design thinking’, ‘co-design’ and ‘innovation labs’ into buzzwords in the public sector. They have contributed to the proliferation of public innovation labs and design toolkits throughout the world. Design is increasingly regarded as an essential capability for public organisations in the twenty-first century, with much potential in offering human-centred, flexible and creative approaches to improve public services, organisations, systems and social outcomes (Sangiorgi and Prendiville 2017; Buchanan 2020). But if PILs are to have a larger-scale impact, design-based practices need to be embedded within organisations and integrated in practices and knowledge, including through fit-for-purpose procurement, recruitment and training (Christiansen 2016; Dorst and Watson 2019; Buchanan 2020). In addition, stronger evaluation of labs’ practice and impact would help to determine the legitimacy of the claims made by these design-for-policy entrepreneurs (Buchanan 2020; Wellstead, Gofen and Carter 2021). Design-oriented approaches may remain little more than ‘tools’ for generating policy options, rather than forums for designing and making policy

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decisions (Bailey and Lloyd 2016). That is, design-for-policy and the work of PILs may be valued simply as the latest novel way for generating policy relevant knowledge and increasing the pool of ideas available to decision-makers, without realising either greater creativity or its potential to challenge and reshape policymaking into a more democratic and participatory process (Kimbell 2016). In this way PILs, as design-for-policy entrepreneurs, could be effectively conceived of as instrument constituencies (Voss and Simons 2018), promoting tools with limited success. They also appear to function as design coalitions, which gather around and advocate for specific policy design elements (Haelg, Sewerin and Schmidt 2020). The advances that PILs have made to strategic public management notwithstanding, their innovative and collaboratively generated ideas must still be diffused into the larger policymaking process, taken up by public managers and accepted by decision-makers (Lewis, McGann and Blomkamp 2020). Applying a systemic lens to these design-for-policy entrepreneurs, we have observed that the outsider status and divergent methods of PILs threatens their ability to influence change in the public sector. Those that are lacking strong links to mainstream institutions will likely have little impact on strategic public management. Whether PILs are capable of systems-level strategy transformation will require more rigorous research and evaluation to track their practices and impact over time, and a close examination of the type of organisational form that breeds the most change. That will require influential labs to last long enough, both to have a significant impact and for appropriate research to be undertaken.

NOTE 1.

We would like to acknowledge the important contributions of our co-researchers Michael McGann and Tamas Wells whose co-authorship of previous publications informed this chapter. The research study was supported by The Australia and New Zealand School of Government and The Policy Lab (Faculty of Arts) at The University of Melbourne.

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Bason, C. (2017) Leading Public Design: Discovering Human-Centered Governance. Bristol: Policy Press. Bason, C. and A. Schneider (2014) “Public Design in Global Perspective: Empirical Trends.” In C. Bason (ed.), Design for Policy, 23–40. Farnham: Routledge. Béland, D., M. Howlett and I. Mukherjee (2018) “Instrument Constituencies and Public Policy-Making: An Introduction.” Policy and Society 37 (1): 1–13. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​ 14494035​.2017​.1375249. Blomkamp, E. (2018) “The Promise of Co-Design for Public Policy.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 4 (77): 729–43. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​1467​-8500​.12310. Buchanan, C. (2020) What is strategic design? An examination of new design activity in the public and civic sectors. PhD thesis, Lancaster University. Carstensen, H.V. and C. Bason (2012) “Powering Collaborative Policy Innovation: Can Innovation Labs Help?” The Innovation Journal 17 (1): 2–26. Christiansen, J. (2016) “Embedding Design: Towards Cultural Change in Government.” In B. Mager (ed.), Service Design Impact Report: Public Sector, 48–59. Cologne: Service Design Network. Clarke, A. and J. Craft (2018) “The Twin Faces of Public Sector Design.” Governance, March. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​gove​.12342. Considine, M., D. Alexander and J.M. Lewis (2013) “Policy Design as Craft: Teasing Out Policy Design Expertise Using a Semi-Experimental Approach.” Policy Sciences 47 (3): 209–25. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​s11077​-013​-9191​-0. Damgaard, B. and J.M. Lewis (2014) “Accountability and Citizen Participation.” In Mark Bovens, Robert Goodin and Thomas Schillemans (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability, 258–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dorst, K. (2011) “The Core of ‘Design Thinking’ and Its Application.” Design Studies, Interpreting Design Thinking, 32 (6): 521–32. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.destud​.2011​.07​ .006. Dorst, K. and R. Watson (2019) “Reframing the public sector” (conference paper), IRSPM annual conference, Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand, April. Durose, C. and L. Richardson (2016) Designing Public Policy for Co-Production: Theory, Practice and Change. Bristol: Policy Press. Evans, B. (2020) “Catalogue of Canadian-Based Government Innovation Labs Updated April 2020.” Government Policy Innovation Labs. Toronto: Ryerson University. Fischer, F. and J. Forester (1993) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Freeman, R., S. Griggs and A. Boaz (2011) “The Practice of Policy Making.” Evidence & Policy 7 (2): 127–36. Fuller, M. and A. Lochard (2016) Public Policy Labs in European Union Member States. Luxembourg: European Union. Gofen, A. and E. Golan (2020) “Laboratories of Design: A Catalog of Policy Innovation Labs in Europe.” SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3684515. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. https://​doi​.org/​10​.2139/​ssrn​.3684515. Guay, J. (2018) “How Denmark Lost Its MindLab: The Inside Story.” Apolitical, June 5. https://​apolitical​.co/​solution​_article/​how​-denmark​-lost​-its​-mindlab​-the​-inside​-story/​. Haelg, L., S. Sewerin and T.S. Schmidt (2020) “The Role of Actors in the Policy Design Process: Introducing Design Coalitions to Explain Policy Output.” Policy Sciences 53 (2): 309–47. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​s11077​-019​-09365​-z. Hartley, J., E. Sørensen and J. Torfing (2013) “Collaborative Innovation: A Viable Alternative to Market Competition and Organizational Entrepreneurship.” Public Administration Review 73 (6): 821–30. Howlett, M. (2014) “From the ‘Old’ to the ‘New’ Policy Design: Design Thinking beyond Markets and Collaborative Governance.” Policy Sciences 47 (3): 187–207.

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John, P. (2014) “Policy Entrepreneurship in UK Central Government: The Behavioural Insights Team and the Use of Randomized Controlled Trials.” Public Policy and Administration 29 (3): 257–67. Kieboom, M. (2014) Lab Matters: Challenging the Practice of Social Innovation Laboratories. Amsterdam: Kennisland. Kimbell, L. (2016) “Design in the Time of Policy Problems.” In P. Lloyd and E. Bohemia (eds.), Proceedings of DRS 2016: Design + Research + Society, 3605–18. Brighton: Design Research Society. Kimbell, L. and J. Bailey (2017) “Prototyping and the New Spirit of Policy-Making.” CoDesign 13 (3): 214–26. Kolko, J. (2018) “The Divisiveness of Design Thinking.” Interactions 25 (3): 28–34. Laursen, L.N. and L.M. Haase (2019) “The Shortcomings of Design Thinking when Compared to Designerly Thinking.” The Design Journal 22:6, 813–32. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​ 14606925​.2019​.1652531. Lewis, J.M., M. McGann and E. Blomkamp (2020) “When Design Meets Power: Design Thinking, Public Sector Innovation and the Politics of Policymaking.” Policy & Politics 48 (1): 111–30. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1332/​0305​57319X1557​9230420081. Malmberg, L. and S. Holmlid (2018) “Learning to Design in Public Sector Organisations: A Critique towards Effectiveness of Design Integration.” In ServDes 2018. Milan: Linköping University Electronic Press. McGann, M., E. Blomkamp and J.M. Lewis (2018) “The Rise of Public Sector Innovation Labs: Experiments in Design Thinking for Policy.” Policy Sciences 51 (3): 249–67. McGann, M., J.M. Lewis and E. Blomkamp (2018) “Mapping Public Sector Innovation Units in Australia and New Zealand: 2018 Survey Report.” Melbourne: The Policy Lab, The University of Melbourne. McGann, M., T. Wells and E. Blomkamp (2021) “Innovation Labs and Co-Production in Public Problem Solving.” Public Management Review 23 (2): 1–20. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1080/​14719037​.2019​.1699946. Mintrom, M. (1997) “Policy Entrepreneurs and the Diffusion of Innovation.” American Journal of Political Science 41 (3): 738–70. https://​doi​.org/​10​.2307/​2111674. Mintrom, M. and J. Luetjens (2016) “Design Thinking in Policymaking Processes: Opportunities and Challenges.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 75 (3): 391–402. Mintrom, M. and P. Norman (2009). “Policy Entrepreneurship and Policy Change.” Policy Studies Journal 37 (4): 649–67. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​j​.1541​-0072​.2009​.00329​.x. Olejniczak, K., S. Borkowska-Waszak, A. Domaradzka-Widła and Y. Park (2020) “Policy Labs: The Next Frontier of Policy Design and Evaluation?” Policy & Politics 48 (1): 89–110. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1332/​0305​57319X1557​9230420108. O’Rafferty, S., A. de Eyto and H.J. Lewis (2016). “Open Practices: Lessons from Co-Design of Public Services for Behaviour Change.” In P. Lloyd and E. Bohemia (eds.), Proceedings of DRS 2016: Design + Research + Society, 3573–90. Brighton: Design Research Society. Puttick, R. (2014) “Innovation Teams and Labs: A Practice Guide.” London: NESTA. http://​ www​.nesta​.org​.uk/​publications/​innovation​-teams​-and​-labs​-practice​-guide. Puttick, R., P. Baeck and P. Colligan (2014) I-Teams: The Teams and Funds Making Innovation Happen in Governments around the World. London: Nesta and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Rebolledo, N. (2016) “The Value of Service Design in Policy Making.” In B. Mager (ed.), Service Design Impact Report: Public Sector, 40–46. Cologne: Service Design Network. Sangiorgi, D. and A. Prendiville (2017) Designing for Service: Key Issues and New Directions. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Schuurman, D. and P. Tõnurist (2017) “Innovation in the Public Sector: Exploring the Characteristics and Potential of Living Labs and Innovation Labs.” Technology Innovation Management Review 7 (1): 7–14.

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Selloni, D. and E. Staszowski (2013) “Gov Innovation Labs Constellation 1.0.” New York: PARSONS DESIS LAB. http://​nyc​.pubcollab​.org/​files/​Gov​_Innovation​_Labs​ -Constellation​_1​.0​.pdf. Sørensen, E. and J. Torfing (2015) “Enhancing Public Innovation through Collaboration. Leadership and New Public Governance.” In A. Nicholls, J. Simon and M. Gabriel (eds.), New Frontiers in Social Innovation Research, 145–69. London: Palgrave Macmillan. http://​ link​.springer​.com/​10​.1057/​9781137506801. Stewart-Weeks, M. and T. Kastelle (2015) “Innovation in the Public Sector.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 74 (1): 63–72. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​1467​-8500​.12129. Timeus, K. and M. Gascó (2018) “Increasing Innovation Capacity in City Governments: Do Innovation Labs Make a Difference?” Journal of Urban Affairs, 1–17. Tõnurist, P., R. Kattel and V. Lember (2017) “Innovation Labs in the Public Sector: What They Are and What They Do?” Public Management Review 19 (10): 1455–79. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1080/​14719037​.2017​.1287939. Torfing, J. and C. Ansell (2017) “Strengthening Political Leadership and Policy Innovation through the Expansion of Collaborative Forms of Governance.” Public Management Review 19 (1): 37–54. Torjman, L. (2012) “Labs: Designing the Future.” Ontario: MaRS Discovery District. Voss, J.-P. and A. Simons (2018) “Instrument Constituencies: Promoting Policy Designs.” In M. Howlett and I. Mukherjee (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Policy Design. London: Routledge, pp. 180–200. Wellstead, A.M., A. Gofen and A. Carter (2021) “Policy Innovation Lab Scholarship: Past, Present, and the Future – Introduction to the Special Issue on Policy Innovation Labs.” Policy Design and Practice, 4 (2): 193–211. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​25741292​.2021​ .1940700. Williamson, B. (2014) “Knowing Public Services: Cross-Sector Intermediaries and Algorithmic Governance in Public Sector Reform.” Public Policy and Administration, 29 (4): 292–312. doi:10.1177/0952076714529139. Williamson, B. (2015) “Testing Governance: The Laboratory Lives and Methods of Policy Innovation Labs.” Stirling: University of Stirling. https://​codeactsineducation​.wordpress​ .com/​2015/​03/​30/​testing​-government/​.

11. A public innovation strategy from the frontline: everyday innovation Anne Reff Pedersen, Vibeke Kristine Scheller and Ditte Thøgersen

INTRODUCTION In public management research, public innovation is described as an intended radical change strategy to improve reforms, policies, or political agendas (Ansell & Torfing 2021; Bommert 2010; Brown & Osborne 2012; Crosby et al. 2017; Harris & Albury 2009; Hartley et al. 2013), whereas a key purpose of organizational studies is to describe innovation practices situated in concrete organizational settings (Akrich et al. 2002; Bartel & Garud 2009; Lippke & Wegener 2014; Pedersen 2019; Pot et al. 2017; Van de Ven 1986). The challenge of a strategic focus on public innovation is that policy-development is often decoupled from its real-world implementation (Pihl-Thingvad & Klausen 2020). Neglecting practice-based experience from the everyday operations of public organizations is a missed opportunity to ensure the relevance of strategic goals and to reap the benefits of professional experience. The underlying strategy behind this chapter is to present an organizational view of public innovation and to discuss the concept of everyday innovation in terms of what it has to offer public management and strategic management studies. The research question guiding this chapter is: What theoretical assumptions define the concept of everyday innovation and what are the empirical preconditions of these assumptions? To answer this question, three theoretical assumptions of innovation are presented, along with an empirical vignette related to each of these assumptions to illustrate how each assumption works as an organizational precondition in concrete empirical settings. The chapter demonstrates how everyday innovation is characterized by its underlying foundation in the context of the everyday organizational operations (Pedersen 2019). Though everyday innovations may seem small in isolation, they can gradually accumulate into big changes driven from the bottom up (Kickert & van der Meer 2011; Wihlman et al. 2015). The chapter is structured as follows. First, three assumptions regarding public innovation from organizational literature are presented. Each assumption is illustrated using an empirical vignette to demonstrate how strategic innovation ideas and intentions are informed by existing organizational realities to allow their implementation into practice. These vignettes present empirical knowledge derived from three first-hand studies of local innovation projects in public healthcare and childcare settings. The chapter concludes by discussing how public innovation literature can 165

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include organizational concepts and ideas into innovation thinking to align organizational responses with policy-oriented goals and intentions.

AN ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON PUBLIC INNOVATION “No strategy survives the first contact with the enemy,” Field Marshal Moltke famously wrote in 1871, and while we do not intend to compare innovation in public organizations to a war zone, the organizational reality of the matter entails understanding innovation as an emerging process and accepting that even the best plans often do not turn out exactly as expected (Akrich et al. 2002; Bartel & Garud 2009; Dougherty et al. 2013; Lippke & Wegener 2014; Pedersen 2019). This understanding suggests an approach to innovation that is inspired by the classic garbage can decision model, which states that problems and solutions emerge simultaneously in chaotic, non-linear, and intertwined sensemaking processes (Cohen et al.1972). The underlying assumption of this model is that decision-making processes do not follow a rational, linear path, wherein a problem is defined, followed by the development of a solution. Contrarily, both solutions and problems are identified and interpreted simultaneously. Following this school of thought, traditional organizational studies describe innovation processes as ongoing organizational development in which idea generation and problem solving are inextricably linked to their implementation, making them impossible to separate from one another, because the innovation process comprises a diverse and chaotic set of factors (Akrich et al. 2002; Garud et al. 2013; Van de Ven 1986). Van de Ven (1986) describes various processual features of innovation, including the initiation period, which represents the time of the initiative of innovative ideas; the development period, wherein the ideas proliferate into numerous activities, including setbacks and parallel understandings of the problem; and the implementation period, which involves integrating the new and the old to fit the local circumstance. Notably, Van de Ven proceeds to argue, rather than imagining formal organizations as stable entities, they remain in a constant state of change and development, wherein routines, values, habits, and practices are continuously interpreted, reinterpreted, and enacted in social interactions. Consequently, innovations evolve and are introduced within these continuous processes and, by identifying a specific focus, the innovation process brings certain routines and practices to center stage. Van de Ven’s view of the continuous state of change in organizations suggests that even the most meticulous plans for innovation are embedded in messy pathways of different activities, including ideas, people, transactions, context, outcomes, and processes, which are considered to be important elements that will sometimes occur in stable, fixed, open, or cumulative stages. The deep embeddedness in everyday, messy organizational realities is acknowledged in the term “everyday innovation.” When studied empirically, everyday innovation processes appear chaotic, and problems, conflicts, power relations, and unexpected events are part of the organizing (Lippke

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& Wegener 2014; Pedersen & Johansen 2012). This further implies that public innovation does not always come from policy reforms or strategically formulated policy problems but is equally likely to reflect a local concern emerging from the everyday organizational operations. When local innovations are detached from global policy problems, they can become strategic in other ways, as policies and top management strategies are not always key factors in public innovation, but sometimes present barriers to more micro-living innovative practices, which are mobilized by the participants who identified the problems and are engaged in their solution. The empirical setting of everyday innovation studies is often found in public service organizations, where the core task is embodied in the practice of professionals (e.g., nurses (Ferlie et al. 2005), teachers (Lippke & Wegener 2014), caregivers (Fuglsang & Sørensen 2011)). Sensemaking is therefore an important aspect of everyday innovation, as the participants only take part when they can find meaning within the projects and innovative ideas. Everyday innovation starts with participants’ voluntary engagement, and this engagement begins with spokespersons (Akrich et al. 2002) or other frontline managers (Pedersen & Johansen 2012) sparking ideas and these ideas making sense for organizational members. Due to ongoing conversations with staff, frontline managers are uniquely positioned to know what the employees are currently interested in and where they might benefit from new advancements that have been made in their field. Stimulating sensemaking in innovation processes is based on the notion that doing something new begins by learning something new (Wegener & Tanggaard 2013). One of the challenges of innovating everyday routines and practices is that they are embodied in professionals’ practices. This can make some professionals sensitive to critique and can also make it difficult to observe one’s own practice from others’ perspectives. However, sensemaking is a fundamentally social endeavor, and facilitated collegial debates play an important role in explicating the continuous, interactive process of interpreting and keeping score of the various positions in the team (Raelin 2001; Vossen & van Gestel 2019). The sensemaking perspective in innovation thinking is not new (Drazin et al. 1999) but highlights the influence that participants’ sensemaking has in evolving innovation processes. The following text unfolds these assumptions one by one. 1. Assumption: Everyday innovation happens in an organizational context of already existing practices. 2. Assumption: Frontline managers, as first-level supervisors, are in a unique position to inspire and support employees. 3. Assumption: Participants make sense of the innovation problems to mobilize other participants. Together, these three theoretical assumptions contribute to a definition of everyday innovation which takes place in an organizational context of already existing routines and practices. Managers do not plan processes, but inspire and support local

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spokespersons who are part of mobilizing participants through their engagement and sensemaking. The three assumptions are described below in turn. Assumption 1: Everyday Innovation Happens in an Organizational Context of Already Existing Practices In organization studies, the practice-based perspective on innovation focuses on how people act in organizational contexts and develops theories about the relationship between practice and structure in organizational life. It builds on the philosophical assumption that action plays a constitutive role in the ongoing production and reproduction of organizations (Feldman & Orlikowski 2011). Martha Feldman’s (2000) study of organizational routines demonstrated the importance of acknowledging the power of dynamic routines in organizations. The study highlights the difficulties of making change in organizations without taking routines and power relations into account. These insights remind us that innovation must be implemented by someone (Pyrko et al. 2017). Several organizational scholars argue that researchers should consider work (Barley & Kunda 2001) when studying phenomena such as quality improvement (Allen 2016) and innovation (Dixon-Woods et al. 2012). Innovative ideas emerge from the junctures between different communities of practice in the workplace, and as such, the pre-existing practices should be regarded as a “melting pot” for innovation (Quick & Feldman 2014). Organizational practices and practitioners are central contexts for innovation (Thakur et al. 2012), with practices and processes often the object of what an innovative idea is trying to improve (Dougherty et al. 2013). Practitioners and their interaction with technology (Orlikowski 2007) are also central in relation to innovation (Nicolini 2007), where the emergence of new artifacts can foster new identities and the modification of routines. Whittington (2006) defines three types of practices in contemporary organization studies: (1) practices, shared routines, traditions, and norms that guide actions; (2) praxis, the unfolding of the actions (i.e., what people do); and (3) practitioners, the actors who perform actions in a community of practice. These concepts are derived from research in strategy work, which has many similarities with innovation, since both focus on adding value to an organization. Specifically, practitioner engagement has been highlighted in the literature, for example, that social aspirations, differentiated expertise, external inspiration, and organizational support are central features of successful innovation in knowledge-intensive organizations (Anand et al. 2007). The advantage of a practice perspective on innovation is that innovations are tailored to the local organizational context and to the current circumstances of the organization itself. This embeddedness in the daily practice of operations, however, sometimes makes the micro actions conducted to improve the professional practice seem small or even invisible to outside observers (Lippke & Wegener 2014). This perspective requires in-depth understandings of the local level, traditions, actions, and the practitioners who are responsible for the innovation. For organizational researchers, this implies an obligation to engage in the field, observe, or participate with practitioners while performing their work (Feldman & Orlikowski 2011).

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Practice vignette: organizing new ideas in old routines – chemo at home An award-winning local innovation project in a haematology department called “Chemo at home” was proposed by one of the department’s nurses. Her hugely successful idea was to provide chemotherapy using portable infusion pumps so that leukaemia patients could receive treatment in their own homes rather than at the hospital (Fridthjof et al. 2018). Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, at-home treatment and telemedicine have been central to protecting vulnerable patients by limiting their exposure to infection risks in hospitals (Bashshur et al. 2020). “Chemo at home” represents a new idea that connects to everyday organizational routines in the hospital (i.e., the routine of providing chemotherapy), but in a new way in which professionals and patients must interact with new technology. The following presents three examples of innovation practices that emerged during the project. Practices: Introducing at-home chemotherapy is a major change compared to traditional patient care in which the patient can be monitored and engage in ongoing conversations with nurses. As a nurse explains, “Well, it’s always hard to change because it’s easy to do what you’ve always done. So, it’s definitely been the hardest part, and where you should be most persistent, right? And it initially required me to check the whiteboard every morning and say that this patient is a candidate and can go home.” As the nurse describes, it is easy to fall back on the familiar practices and persistence is required to maintain the new routine. Patient contact is at the heart of the nursing profession, which they trained for in their education and developed throughout their careers. A practice perspective identifies established practices and how they can create challenges in relation to innovation, particularly when innovation projects intervene in professional traditions. Praxis: It can be difficult to innovate in a busy organization where deadlines must be considered. As a manager explains, “… innovation and development of patient care is easier if you also have some resources and some power to do it, i.e., some dedicated people who have to do it – because if you’re going to do it in a hectic manufacturing company, then it’s just insanely hard to make it happen …” Accordingly, the ability to actually implement innovation has been highlighted as one of the main challenges for organizations. The manager emphasizes work pressure and lack of resources as a barrier to innovation and that he, as a manager, does not want to put too much pressure on employees. In the “Chemo at home” project, the top-management added extra resources to actually implement the innovation, which the actors emphasize as a prerequisite for the project’s success. Practitioners: Special support is needed for developing and implementing innovative ideas, which is a key management task. Practitioners need to feel that the innovation is congruent with what they want to accomplish in their practice. As a nurse explains, “… I knew that that’s how I wanted it, and … say that this is not a project that comes from above … it’s actually our project, it’s ours … We are the ones who can make it what we want it to be.” When innovation is linked to practitioners’ interests, it has a better chance of success, because they can “make it what they want to be.” When innovation happens in the organizational context of already existing practices, practitioners play a significant role in the innovation because (1)

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they are linked to practices (through professional traditions and routines), (2) they are the ones who must “do” the practice on a day-to-day basis, and (3) practitioners are developing ideas and require special support. These examples demonstrate how new organizational structures do not always provide the scaffolding for innovation, which can also emerge based on criticism and improvement of pre-existing practices. This is often where unique ideas originate. Assumption 2: Frontline Managers, as First-level Supervisors, Are in a Unique Position to Inspire and Support Employees In the previous section, we established that everyday innovation is deeply embedded into organizational routines, norms, and practices. Naturally, it follows that professionals play a vital role in these innovative activities. We also mentioned that the process of invention and implementation is often inseparably intertwined in everyday innovation (Pedersen & Johansen 2012) and the sensemaking of the individual professional is the engine that drives both (Bartel & Garud 2009; Hjorth & Steyaert 2010; Pedersen 2020). While some everyday innovation may take place “under the radar” or may be initiated by innovative professionals, the frontline manager has a critical role to play. Building on Weick’s (1995) concept of sensemaking, which is central to organization studies, some organizational scholars have developed the idea of “managing meaning” (Smircich & Morgan 1982) or sense giving (Gioia & Chittipeddi 1991). In this perspective, leadership is primarily about paving the way for sensemaking, and it is understood that this type of leadership is not only performed by leaders in formal management positions, but can also be assumed by experts or respected peers. In this section, we focus on the role as it can be performed by frontline managers. The frontline manager is not to be confused with the often-studied middle manager. The frontline manager often carries the title of team leader, daily manager, or section manager. They are the closest manager to the staff, and they refer to someone in a middle manager’s position. Frontline managers are an integrated part of frontline public organizations, as they often share the same professional background of the staff and interact with both staff members and clients on a daily basis (Hupe & Keiser 2019). Frontline managers play an active role in the daily operations of organizations and some even take part in the service provision of the team. They are responsible for coordinating daily activities and are often assigned responsibility for ensuring the quality of the professional practice of the team. Therefore, they are uniquely positioned to facilitate and support employees’ sensemaking processes in relation to innovation. The concepts of sense giving and meaning making were developed based on numerous empirical observations of failed strategy processes, wherein a growing consensus came to suggest that the core problem was that the strategies simply did not make sense to the employees, who were unable to see themselves in the organizational future envisioned by their top managers (Rouleau 2005). While managers – both at the top and the bottom of the bureaucratic hierarchy – may not be able to

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simply make decisions and then expect them to be realized, due to their proximity to the staff, frontline managers are able to apply practical methods that invite professionals to engage in sensemaking processes. The following empirical vignette will provide three examples of such methods that have been applied to facilitate sensemaking among professionals in public childcare organizations working with everyday innovation. Practice vignette: the role of facilitating everyday innovation by managing meaning in childcare In this vignette, frontline managers in five Danish public childcare organizations are working to include children’s perspectives more in the planning and execution of activities in their facilities. This more collaborative way of organizing will be familiar to many other public service areas, where staff work to increase the involvement of patients or citizens. In this case we found three methods applied to facilitate the innovation process. The managers introduced the methods to guide the sensemaking of the professionals and to maintain focus in the ongoing conversations throughout the ten months the project lasted. Concurrently with the application of the methods, the managers worked to stimulate the engagement of the staff’s sensemaking process by continuously asking for updates or referring to dilemmas concerning the involvement of children’s perspectives in various sparring situations. In the first method, managers work to provide their staff with new knowledge from the latest research in their profession or from innovations applied in similar organizations. This new knowledge is disseminated and debated at professional seminars or staff meetings, or through documents given as homework for the staff to read and interpret based on their prior knowledge. One manager elaborates: “Just because we’ve heard the same talk, it doesn’t mean that we interpret it in the same way. … We all carry a lot of baggage from many years of experience and have different professional starting points.” Based on prior experience, the managers therefore combined the presentations with reflection exercises that were designed to aid the professionals’ interpretation and collegial debates. In the second method, the managers plan and encourage micro experimentation during practice. In the childcare profession, many organizations are influenced by variations of action learning. In practice, these experiments can be shaped differently but can be applied systematically to encourage staff to try out new things. These managers developed written templates for the experiments, where the staff would fill in an identified problem, a goal, and a possible solution. The staff then monitored the experiments by logging observation notes to aid their memory for future rounds of feedback with co-workers and the manager. One of the professionals explains why she likes the templates for experiments: “You increase your focus on the essence of the theory, but also on how you can actually use it in practice. […] It made me think: How can I do this? How do I change my own perspective?” Finally, the third method utilizes the collective pool of professional experience by inviting employees to recount and reflect on experiences from their practice. In this case it was accounts of dilemmas or challenges the professionals encountered when

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attempting to include children’s perspectives in practice. The hypothetical explorations of alternative ways of handling concrete situations move the taken-for-granted routines and habits of everyday practices from the personal to the professional sphere. While concluding a staff meeting during which employees took turns sharing experiences from their experiments to increase the inclusion of children’s perspectives, one frontline manager exclaimed: “Well done! A year ago, we would have all agreed that that was some excellent pedagogical work. But now our world has been rocked. Very interesting to have these talks!” This quote shows that although experiments involving daily practice might take place at a micro level, they can challenge taken-for-granted norms in an organization and therefore have far-reaching consequences. This vignette serves to illustrate how frontline managers can utilize practical, hands-on methods to guide the sensemaking processes of the professionals. Because of their closeness to the staff and familiarity with the daily operations of the organization, frontline managers are uniquely positioned to consistently keep the collective conversation alive and to frame the sensemaking of the staff as the process evolves. Assumption 3: Participants Make Sense of the Innovation Problems to Mobilize Other Participants Literature on organizational innovation often refers to stakeholders as “participants” and one assumption is that their engagement in the innovation process mobilizes them, and that their degree of participation is a function of how they interpret and make sense of the innovation process. Arkich et al. (2002) describe the innovation process through the mobilization of the participants. One of the problems of translating innovative ideas into everyday routines in organizations is the task of mobilizing participants to change their routines and persuading them to follow new ideas, even if doing so means that their everyday work risks becoming more difficult because the new requirements do not necessarily immediately remove or reduce old routines and the associated workload. Instead, new layers of work are added, sometimes leaving professionals skeptical about replacing old routines with new ones (Ferlie et al. 2005; Fitzgerald et al. 2002). Hjorth and Steyaert (2010) describe how the innovation process involves sensemaking, and how one aspect of making sense is through narratives, which can create meaning, direction, and a common shared belief in the innovation process. Bartel and Garud (2009) highlight the coordinating effect of innovation narratives, demonstrating how both structures and more provisory narratives have the capacity to coordinate innovation activities. Pedersen and Johansen (2012) emphasize the need to include distinct types of innovation narratives, ranging from managers’ strategic spokesperson narratives to employee counter-narratives, which allows participants to express positive and negative feelings regarding new routines and work practices. Pedersen (2019) also highlights the importance of sensemaking in innovation processes, as participants are being mobilized in their process of making sense of the problems and solutions. These studies indicate the importance of innovation narratives as sensemaking

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devices in innovation processes, as participants collaborate when they can make sense of what is going on. They also emphasize the tensions and multiple meanings in the processes, where unexpected and conflicting events can occur during innovation implementation processes. Practice vignette: the role of spokespersons in mobilizing participants in patient-centered care As this vignette demonstrates, the sensemaking process in narratives is long. The empirical setting is a neurology ward at a hospital in the Copenhagen region, where the frontline manager hired a voluntary patient ambassador to introduce systematic patient feedback in the wards. The concrete aim of the local health innovation project was to provide patients with a postcard to write about what they had experienced while on the ward. The idea was to then collect this feedback and harvest the low-hanging fruit by locally translating patients’ ideas into practice (Pedersen 2015). The idea of introducing feedback postcards came from a patient ambassador (a volunteer worker and former patient). The following quote from the patient ambassador is an example of an engagement narrative which expresses how she makes sense of her role: I’m a spokesperson for patient involvement, which is a battle I take to the doctors. We can’t learn from this without knowing if it’s the case 5 or 35 times a year; we try to learn anyway. The patients can point out so many problems that reflect other problems, so, for the individual patient, one communication problem is relevant, but the interesting part is if we can ask, ‘Does this have anything to do with the way we are organized?’

This example illustrates how the patient ambassador sees her role as bridging the individual experiences of the patients with the quantitative and generalizable requirements of the doctors. When the professionals worked with the idea of collecting patient feedback, conflicts regarding the postcard design and how to spread and collect the postcards emerged. The following comments of the chief nurse regarding the use of postcards are an example of another type of narrative that emerged in the process, a materiality narrative: I think it’s important that the staff on the ward read the postcards, get them in their hands, and look at them. It has a much stronger effect when you look at the written word. It’s much more personal than looking at statistics. In one ward, the postcards were lying on a desk, freely available where the staff could easily read them. Later they were put in a folder. I read some postcards where the patients complained about the noise. The head nurse simply had the doors soundproofed without a big discussion or lots of planning. She just did it.

The healthcare professionals explained how the postcards tangibly helped them to understand patients and the project, giving the implementation process more direction. The materiality is presented by the postcards, which offers a concrete work task in which a tangible object must be spread, written on, collected, and read.

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After the design of the postcard, handing out the postcards, and collecting them, the participants told stories of why reading and using postcards was a promising idea. In the next quote, which is an example of a legitimation narrative, a project nurse talks about her participation in the project and how she tried to validate the project, a task she did not like: We had to hurry to get the postcards out, so we could measure the effect. That was difficult in the short timeframe we had, but we had to, so Marie could analyze our data to show the effect of the cards.

This account indicates an unwillingness to participate in collecting valid quantitative and qualitative data from the project, but the external demands to demonstrate the effects of the innovation meant that they had to generate a report. Legitimacy was important for the participants, but the project was simultaneously perceived as a waste of time and an activity that they attempted to avoid taking part in. In sum, this vignette describes how narratives of engagement, materialization, and legitimation are important in innovation processes in terms of sensemaking. It also demonstrates how tensions and different meanings are part of sensemaking processes.

CONCLUDING DISCUSSION: WHAT EVERYDAY INNOVATION OFFERS STUDIES OF STRATEGIC PUBLIC MANAGEMENT In this chapter, we argue that innovative capacity that can be derived from resources within organizational contexts should not be underestimated, as frontline professionals are privileged in terms of training, relational knowledge of the citizens they serve, and familiarity with existing routines and processes with which the innovations are to be integrated. Accordingly, public reforms and strategies will not have the desired impact if they remain decoupled from implementation into everyday operations. And while overarching global problems, such as pandemics and climate change, can certainly not be solved by any one organization alone, it remains necessary for individual organizations to make sense of the problem in relation to their local contexts and potentially available remedies. Based on three core assumptions that define everyday innovation from an organizational perspective, we derive three insights that should be brought into studies of public management to reconnect strategy and implementation in a public sector context. Firstly, we argue that a strategic view on public innovation should acknowledge the significant role of a living organizational context and take into account that innovation processes are always embedded in existing practices. Secondly, a strategic view of public innovation should involve the inclusion of frontline managers, as their role in engaging and supporting employees is vital to successful innovation processes. And finally, a strategic view on public innovation should include employees’

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sensemaking processes and how unexpected organizing and legitimacy are natural aspects of innovation processes. Taken together, the concept of everyday innovation also implies that informal collaborative networks, and new platforms, as well as formal bureaucratic structures and existing work practices, are all part of the organizational body and can be utilized in the innovation process. In fact, the inclusion of such organizational conditions ensures the relevance, applicability, and usefulness of the solutions developed. Disregarding the pre-existing situated organizational context in public innovations seems to be a way to guarantee strategy failure.

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Pihl-Thingvad, S., & K.K. Klausen (2020) ‘Managing the implementation of innovation strategies in public service organization: how managers may support employees innovative work behaviour. International Journal of Innovation Management, 24(4), 1–29. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1142/​S1363919620500747. Pot, F.D., P. Totterdill, & S. Dhondt (2017) ‘European policy on workplace innovation.’ In P. Oeij, D. Rus, & F. Pot (eds.), Workplace innovation: theory, research and practice (pp. 11–26). Cham: Springer. Pyrko, I., V. Dörfler, & C. Eden (2017) ‘Thinking together: what makes communities of practice work?’ Human Relations, 70(4), 389–409. Quick, K.S., & Feldman, M.S. (2014) ‘Boundaries as junctures: collaborative boundary work for building efficient resilience.’ Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 24(3), 673–95. Raelin, J.A. (2001) ‘Public reflection as the basis of learning.’ Management Learning, 32(1), 11–30. Rouleau, L. (2005) ‘Micro-practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: how middle managers interpret and sell change every day.’ Journal of Management Studies, 42(7), 1413–41. Smircich, L., & G. Morgan (1982) ‘Leadership: the management of meaning.’ The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18(3), 257–73. Thakur, R., S.H.Y. Hsu, & G. Fontenot (2012) ‘Innovation in healthcare: issues and future trends.’ Journal of Business Research, 65(4), 562–9. Van de Ven, A.H. (1986) ‘Central problems in the management of innovation.’ Management Science, 32(5), 590–607. Vossen, E., & N. van Gestel (2019) ‘Translating macro-ideas into micro-level practices: the role of social interactions.’ Scandinavian Journal of Management, 35(1), 26–35. Wegener, C., & L. Tanggaard (2013) ‘The concept of innovation as perceived by public sector frontline staff – outline of a tripartite empirical model of innovation.’ Studies in Continuing Education, 35(1), 82–101. Weick, K.E. (1995) Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Whittington, R. (2006) ‘Completing the practice turn in strategy research.’ Organization Studies, 27(5), 613–34. Wihlman, T., M. Hoppe, U. Wihlman, & H. Sandmark (2015) ‘Employee-driven innovation in welfare services.’ Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 4(2), 159–80.

12. What a democratically anchored public administrator needs to understand about artificial intelligence and strategic management Christopher Koliba and Emma Spett

INTRODUCTION At the time of the writing of this chapter, an estimated 2.5 billion people are in possession of a “smart phone” that contains more computational power than the computers NASA used to put the first humans on the moon (Pew Research Center, 2019). The tools used by these smart phone users to search for products, the nearest grocery store, or a plumber to fix a leak are informed by a classification of data science that is loosely described as early forms of “artificial intelligence” (AI). Within the next few decades it is predicted that AI-enabled autonomous vehicles will be commonplace on ribbons of roadway spanning the globe. Currently, algorithms are being used to determine eligibilities for social services, issue prison sentences, and target tax audits (Berryhill et al., 2019; Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020). Human–computer interactions like those found in films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Her are at our doorstep, and with them comes a new generation of questions and concerns that all public administrators, especially those accountable to democratic principles, will need to concern themselves with. In a landmark strategic plan relating to artificial intelligence, the United State’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) deemed AI a “transformative technology” capable of great economic and social benefit, and the ability to “revolutionize how we live, work, learn, discover, and communicate” (NSTC, 2016, 3). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) AI Policy Observatory defines AI systems as “machine-based systems” that can, “for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. AI systems are designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy. In addition, AI systems are ‘machines performing human-like cognitive function’” (OECD, 2021a). The potential for the autonomy of such systems is perhaps the biggest point of concern facing policymakers and public administrators. The power of AI for societal transformation has led policymakers across the world to work to better understand the potential uses and misuses of AI technology. Policy leaders have touted the transformative capacity of AI, and sounded an alarm about the potential unintended consequences that may arise from the widespread uses of 178

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AI, including concerns about transparency, privacy, fairness, and accountability. Debates have ensued regarding the extent to which AI development should be regulated and, at the very least, guided by a series of principles of practice. These debates have included calls by some libertarians for “permissionless innovation” of AI (Thierer et al., 2017), claiming that the over-regulation of AI could stifle creativity. Others call for more “process-based regulations” undertaken in partnership with technology companies, while still others call for a more collective approach to regulation of AI grounded in clearly defined international law. Regardless of what prescription is called for, it is clear that a better understanding “of the varied sector of artificial intelligence technologies from the outset” is imperative, and that the development of “an appreciation for limitations of our ability to forecast either future AI technological trends or crises that may ultimately fail to materialize” (Thierer et al., 2017, 5) is also needed. The specific roles that governments take on in the development, use, and regulation of AI systems are varied in practice, and those wide-ranging roles are important to lay out early (Berryhill et al., 2019). These roles, particularly in democratic societies, are multifaceted and sometimes can lie in contraction with one another. They include: ● Government as convener and standard-setter: To date, at least 48 countries have adopted some form of AI strategy (Berryhill et al., 2019). ● Government as financier or direct investor: The development of any AI system requires resources in the form of human, physical, intellectual, and financial capital. To this end, governments can, through the allocation of research funding, invest in AI systems across government scales. ● Government as data steward: Open government, e-governance, and related initiatives focus on the availability and use of data. To this end, the digitization of government data continues to serve as a vast reservoir of information and potential knowledge production through AI systems. ● Government as smart-buyer and co-developer: Examples of governments employing AI systems for innovation are growing (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020; Microsoft and Ernst & Young, 2020). In many cases, these initiatives are being developed using internal talent and resources, or through partnering with third-party providers. ● Government as user and service provider: As a large source of both data and needs, governments are using AI systems to inform and deliver public services (see Boxes 12.1–12.4). ● Government as a regulator or rule maker: The challenges that AI systems pose to such basic public values as transparency, privacy, security and equity, as well as the growing potential of autonomous AI to take over discretionary authority of and in public organizations, underscores the need for public accountability and oversight over AI uses.

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WHAT IS AI? AI is both a computer system and the data that it produces. AI systems possess the ability to learn from the past, and in the process “solve complex problems in different situations – abilities we previously thought were unique to mankind” (NDPA, 2018, 4). AI is an umbrella term used to describe a range of different types of “machine learning.” To put it simply, machine learning tools are mathematical algorithms that are fueled by large amounts of data. There are two primary types of AI: General and Narrow. General AI seeks to achieve human-like qualities, and refers to the idea that general human intelligence can be matched or even surpassed by machines. This is countered by Narrow AI, which offers a more granular view of AI that assumes that no AI algorithm, machine, or computer can outperform humans on a wide range of tasks. This approach recognizes that humans and computers have different relative strengths and competencies (Berryhill et al., 2019, 14). In past decades, these mathematical algorithms have taken the form of artificial neural networks that mimic the structure of the neural networks in brains, including the capacity of the system to learn using a variety of “deep learning” approaches that aid in self learning (NDPA, 2018, 6). In some cases, these systems rely on “reinforcement” approaches that imitate the experiential learning processes of humans. Other approaches include “unsupervised” learning that seeks out latent patterns of variables, allowing us to see novel relationships between variables. Table 12.1 provides an overview of the types of machine learning techniques currently in use. Although many of these techniques (classification, regression, clustering, and ranking) can be undertaken using less sophisticated statistical modeling approaches, machine learning applications allow for fundamentally larger datasets and larger numbers of variables to be included in the analysis. They also allow for “unsupervised” applications that do not require a priori deduction of model features and dynamics. The range of applications (Table 12.2) of machine learning techniques is also what sets this generation of computational algorithms apart from the past. Natural language processing applications can be used to convert speech into text or translate text from one language into another. The processing of visual information is also possible, enabling new forms of computer vision, leading to cutting edge facial recognition and facial replication practices. Anomalies in data can more readily be detected, identifying instances of fraud, and any deviations from the norm, for that matter. Machine learning applications work well for time series data, as well as data that span scale, allowing for better prediction and forecasting capacity, while recommender or recommendation systems are forms of sophisticated information filtering systems used in search engines for targeted marketing and profiling. The characteristics of AI systems are appearing to have many of the following qualities: autonomy, foreseeability, and posing new insights into causation. One of the real values of AI systems is that they are not limited by inherent “preconceived notions, rules of thumb, and conventional wisdom upon which most human decision-makers rely.” Because of this, “AI systems have the capacity to come up

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Table 12.1

Machine learning techniques

Machine learning technique Description

Examples of machine learning technique

Classification

● deciding if a consignment of foods under-

Learns the characteristics of a given

goes border inspection

category, allowing the model to classify unknown data points into existing

● deciding if an email is spam or not

categories Predicts a value for an unknown data point ● predicting the market value of a house

Regression

from information such as its size, location, or age ● forecasting the concentrations of air pollutants in cities Clustering

Identifies groups of similar data points in

● grouping retail customers to find sub-

a dataset

groups with specific spending habits ● clustering smart-meter data to identify groups of electrical appliances, and generate itemized electricity bills

Dimensionality reduction or Narrows down the data to the most manifold learning

● used by data scientists when evaluating

relevant variables to make models more

and developing other types of machine

accurate, or make it possible to visualize

learning algorithms

the data Trains a model to rank new data based on ● returning pages by order of relevance

Ranking

previously seen lists

when a user searches a website

Source:  Adapted from United Kingdom (2019).

Table 12.2

Machine learning applications

Machine learning application

Description

Examples of machine learning

Natural language processing (NLP)

Processes and analyzes natural

● converting speech into text for auto-

application language recognizing words, their meaning, context and the narrative

matic subtitle generation ● automatically generating a reply to a customer’s email

Computer vision

The ability of a machine or program to ● identification of road signs for emulate human vision

self-driving vehicles ● face recognition for automated passport controls

Anomaly detection

Finds anomalous data points within

Time-series analysis

Understands how data varies over time ● conducting budget analyses

Recommender systems

Predicts how a user will rate a given

a data set

● identifying fraudulent activity in a user’s bank account

to conduct forecasting and monitoring item to make new recommendations

● suggesting relevant pages on a website, given the articles a user has previously viewed

Source:  Adapted from United Kingdom (2019).

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Table 12.3

National AI Research and Development strategic plan categories

NAIRD AI Category

Description

Increased economic

New products and services can create new markets, and improve the quality and efficiency

prosperity

of existing goods and services across multiple industries. More efficient logistics and supply chains are being created through expert decision systems. Products can be transported more effectively through vision-based driver-assist and automated/robotic systems. Manufacturing can be improved through new methods for controlling fabrication processes and scheduling work flows.

Manufacturing

Technological advances can lead to a new industrial revolution in manufacturing, including the entire engineering product life cycle. Increased use of robotics could enable manufacturing to move back onshore. AI can accelerate production capabilities through more reliable demand forecasting, increased flexibility in operations and the supply chain, and better prediction of the impacts of change to manufacturing operations. AI can create smarter, faster, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly production processes that can increase worker productivity, improve product quality, lower costs, and improve worker health and safety. Machine learning algorithms can improve the scheduling of manufacturing processes and reduce inventory requirements. Consumers can benefit from access to what is now commercial-grade 3D printing.

Logistics

Private-sector manufacturers and shippers can use AI to improve supply-chain management through adaptive scheduling and routing. Supply chains can become more robust to disruption by automatically adjusting to anticipated effects of weather, traffic, and unforeseen events.

Finance

Industry and government can use AI to provide early detection of unusual financial risk at multiple scales. Safety controls can ensure that the automation in financial systems reduces opportunities for malicious behavior, such as market manipulation, fraud, and anomalous trading. They can additionally increase efficiency and reduce volatility and trading costs, all while preventing systemic failures such as pricing bubbles and undervaluing of credit risk.

Transportation

AI can augment all modes of transportation to materially impact safety for all types of travel. It can be used in structural health monitoring and infrastructure asset management, providing increased trust from the public and reducing the costs of repairs and reconstruction. AI can be used in passenger and freight vehicles to improve safety by increasing situational awareness, and to provide drivers and other travelers with real-time route information. AI applications can also improve network-level mobility and reduce overall system energy use and transportation-related emissions.

Agriculture

AI systems can create approaches to sustainable agriculture that are smarter about the production, processing, storage, distribution, and consumption of agricultural products. AI and robotics can gather site-specific and timely data about crops, apply needed inputs (e.g., water, chemicals, fertilizers) only when and where they are needed, and fill urgent gaps in the agricultural labor force.

Marketing

AI approaches can enable commercial entities to better match supply with demand, driving up revenue that funds ongoing private sector development. It can anticipate and identify consumer needs, enabling them to better find the products and services they want, at lower cost.

Communications

AI technologies can maximize efficient use of bandwidth and automation of information storage and retrieval. AI can improve filtering, searching, language translation, and summarization of digital communications, positively affecting commerce and the way we live our lives.

What a democratically anchored public administrator needs to understand  183 NAIRD AI Category

Description

Science and Technology AI systems can assist scientists and engineers in reading publications and patents, refining theories to be more consistent with prior observations, generating testable hypotheses, performing experiments using robotic systems and simulations, and engineering new devices and software. Improved educational

Lifelong learning can be possible through virtual tutors that develop customized learning

opportunity and quality plans to challenge and engage each person based on their interests, abilities, and educational of life

needs. People can live healthier and more active lives, using personalized health information tailored and adapted for each individual. Smart homes and personal virtual assistants can save people time and reduce time lost in daily repetitive tasks.

Source:  Adapted from NSTC (2016).

with solutions that humans may not have considered, or that they considered and rejected in favor of more intuitively appealing options” (Scherer, 2015, 365). It is this embedded capacity to learn from itself that becomes the distinguishing feature of AI systems, allowing for AI-supported decision-making to optimize a range of goals, including security and efficiency. The enhanced learning models of AI systems may be used to “clarify the basis for and reliability of outputs, to operate with a high degree of transparency, and to move beyond narrow AI to capabilities that can generalize across broader task domains” (NSTC, 2016, 14). This is accomplished when AI systems are programmed with the capacity to “construct explanatory models for classes of real world phenomena, engage in natural communication with people, learn and reason as they encounter new tasks and situations, and solve novel problems by generalizing from past experience.” Taken a step further, the explanatory models of AI systems “might be constructed automatically” to achieve high rates of rapid learning (NSTC, 2016, 14). It is this ability to learn in rapid fashion, to process large amounts of data, and seek out new patterns of causal mechanisms, most of which are shaped by many nonlinear and emergent features of explanatory power, that makes AI such a transformative enterprise. The realms of social, environmental, and economic benefit stemming from these technologies have been touted to include increased economic prosperity, improved educational opportunity and quality of life, and improved security. These perceived benefits are spelled out in the National AI Research and Development (NAIRD) Strategic Plan for the United States, and are replicated in Table 12.3. There have been many assessments of use cases for AI applications across the United States and Europe. In a 2020 study submitted to the Administrative Conference of the United States, Freeman Engstrom et al. (2020, 6) found that nearly 45 percent of U.S. federal agencies have experimented with AI tools and applications, and document 157 use cases across 64 different agencies. The distribution of policy areas found in their sample saw the most cases in law enforcement, followed by health, financial regulation, social welfare, commerce, environment, and science & energy (Figure 12.1). Selected use cases are explored in Boxes 12.1–12.4, with examples from around the world bringing to life the challenges and opportunities associated with AI systems in the public and civic sectors.

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Figure 12.1

Application of AI in U.S. federal government

BOX 12.1 THE PROMISES AND PITFALLS OF AI IN EDUCATION Category: Education Description: In a review of the work that AI can do in education, Chen et al. identified administration, instruction, and learning as tools that schools can utilize. Some scenarios of AI use in education include the use of adaptive learning methods and personalized learning approaches in the assessment of students and school, image recognition and computer-vision for grading and evaluation of papers and exams, and online and remote education that utilizes edge computing, real time analysis, and virtual personalized assistants (Chen et al., 2020). Challenges to Public Administrators: In England in 2020, computer-generated scores used by the British government to replace exams wound up generating scores that were significantly lower than anticipated by students. This scandal followed warnings to the test administration agency that their algorithm was flawed. Source:  Adapted from Chen et al. (2020) and Satariano (2020).

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BOX 12.2 USING AI AND MACHINE LEARNING TO REDUCE GOVERNMENT FRAUD Category: Finance Description: AI is being used, with budgetary oversight, to assist in financial management and fraud detection for public- and private- sector organizations who have large budgets to manage. AI algorithms can spot abnormalities and outliers that can be referred to investigators to determine if fraud has occurred. AI can also improve budget audits, and facilitate technology use with respect to personnel performance and organizational activities. Challenges to Public Administrators: Bureaucratic obstacles that plague public sector organizations must be overcome in order to advance the use of AI responsibly. They include procurement obstacles, insufficiently trained workers, data limitations, a lack of technical standards, barriers to organizational change, and ensuring anti-fraud applications adhere to responsible AI principles. Source:  Adapted from West (2021).

BOX 12.3 CANADA’S “BOMB-IN-A-BOX” SCENARIO: RISK-BASED OVERSIGHT BY AI Category: Transportation Description: Transport Canada, the department responsible for the Canadian Government’s transportation policies and programs, works to promote safe, secure, efficient, and environmentally responsible transportation. Transport Canada is adopting AI to enhance processes and procedures, starting with the use of AI for risk-based reviews for air cargo records. This program was piloted by using data from previous air cargo records and manual risk assessments to explore unsupervised and supervised approaches. Both steps led to new insights about hidden patterns that can indicate risk, and Transport Canada was able to use AI to automatically generate risk indicators. Challenges to Public Administrators: The Transport Canada team made it clear that AI was not going to replace human activity, and would rather handle triage, filtering, and prioritization, all of which are currently done using simple Excel filters. Additionally, this project was fueled by data, all of which had to be cleaned into a consumable AI algorithm format by the team prior to use. The creation of a data pipeline would make this process more efficient. Source:  Adapted from Berryhill et al. (2019, 159).

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BOX 12.4 USING AI TO CROWDSOURCE PUBLIC DECISION-MAKING IN BELGIUM Category: Civic Engagement Description: Digital participation platforms are important tools for facilitating the development of citizen-driven policies and services. Belgium’s CitizenLab is a civic technology company that aims to empower civil servants and provide them with machine-learning augmented processes that will help them analyze citizen input, make better decisions, and collaborative more efficiently internally. Results of this platform have been largely positive, and allow public servants to cluster ideas into main topics and share results of the analysis with citizens. This results in real dialogue rather than a top-down initiative. Challenges to Public Administrators: CitizenLab has dealt with two major challenges; classification algorithms and human adoption. Classification algorithms in this Belgian program must be able to support multiple languages on the same platform and make semantic links, and had to first translate every comment to the same language before processing. This might miss certain elements of importance from the public input. Additionally, human adoption has proved challenging due to product promotion without public understanding of its uses and benefits. Issues of trust must be addressed before proceeding. Source:  Adapted from Berryhill et al. (2019, 142).

Additional examples include the use of facial recognition tools by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), via computer vision techniques that are used to identify certain border crossers of interest. CBP has relied on private contractors to build their facial recognition programs that are now being used in airports and land borders (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020, 30–36). Freeman Engstrom et al. highlight how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses unstructured pre- and post-market surveillance of drugs and medical devices to identify adverse events through their Federal Adverse Event Reporting Systems (FAERS). The use of these tools may signal FDA’s “broader shift away from pre-market approval and toward post-market surveillance efforts” (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020, 56). In Denmark, the Danish Business Authority, Erhvervsstyrelsen, developed a system to process 180,000 applications for business assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review system combined machine learning classification and clustering algorithms with logical controls and network analysis to identify qualified applicants and calculate return on investments (Microsoft and Ernst & Young, 2020, 47). In Italy, the Istituto Nazionale per I’Assicurazione (INAIL), a group that manages workmen’s’ compulsory insurance claims, has had great success with “chatbots” to process large volumes of inquiries, collecting more comprehensive intake data to better service the needs of their customers. These intakes are used to conduct studies of 300,000 unstructured intake documents to better identify risk and provide

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guidance for risk mitigation (Microsoft and Ernst & Young, 2020, 51). Norway’s Sporveien, a public transit system in Oslo, uses deep learning algorithms to optimize train-switching in railyards to improve efficiencies and safety. A variety of data collection tools are used in this case, including computer vision (Microsoft and Ernst & Young, 2020, 55). We may infer from these examples a wide and game-changing set of features of AI systems that may be implemented to improve efficiencies, provide greater security, and enhance learning. The applications of AI to these more public-facing and impacted domains is leading some scholars and practitioners to consider the implications of a “New Algorithmic Governance” paradigm. Freeman Engstrom et al. (2020) provide a summary of AI-enhanced policy tools that are being applied to public service (Table 12.4). Additional classifications of the uses of AI in the public sector can be found in a 2020 report conducted by Microsoft and Ernst & Young (2020) looking at AI adoption across the European Union. Their classification of applications also includes enhancement of policy analysis and policy performance forecasting. The U.S. General Accountability Office has recently established the Data Innovation Lab that is driving “problem-centric” experiments across audit and operational teams using machine learning tools and techniques. The development of the Data Innovation Lab signifies an important integration of AI systems analysis into the auditing and policy evaluation functions of the U.S. government. Meanwhile, academics are partnering with policymakers in the design of computer simulation models that test out different policy and governance design scenarios using agent-based models that rely on classification and simulated times-series analysis techniques (see Bitterman and Koliba, 2020). Relative to the types of machine learning applications found in the Freeman Engstrom et al. use cases, classification methods were by far the most frequent, followed by regression, structured prediction (chatbots), and clustering methods (2020, 19). One troubling feature of their findings: for most government applications (61 percent), there was insufficient publicly available technical documentation “to determine with precision what methods are deployed” (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020, 19). They also found that over half of the use cases identified in Table 12.4 (53 percent of 84 use cases) were built in-house (2020, 18), suggesting the development of increasing internal capacities of governments to design and implement these tools.

WHY AI SHOULD MATTER TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS Public administrators have been drawing on the explanatory powers of computational tools for quite some time. The first bureaucrats were charged with counting and tracking bushels of grain, devising the first systems of numeracy. Advances since that time have evolved with each generation of new computational tools, beginning with the Sumerian abacus and extending to the current generation of high-speed computing. During this time, our abilities to not only track the flow of resources across

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Table 12.4

Algorithmic governance: tools by use categories

Use type

Description

Enforcement

Tasks that identify or prioritize targets ● Securities and Exchange Commission, Centers of agency enforcement action

Examples for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Internal Revenue Service predictive enforcement tools ● CBP and Transportation Security Administration facial recognition systems ● Food Safety and Inspection Service prediction to inform food safety site testing

Regulatory research,

Tasks that collect or analyze

analysis, and monitoring

information that shapes agency policymaking

● Consumer Financial Protection Bureau analysis of consumer complaints ● Bureau of Labor Statistics coding of worker injury narratives ● DA analysis of adverse drug events

Adjudication

Tasks that support formal or informal agency adjudication of benefits or rights

● Social Security Administration system for correcting adjudicatory errors ● U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tools for adjudicating patient and trademark applications

Public services and

Tasks that support the direct provision ● U.S. Postal Service autonomous vehicles

engagement

of services to the public or facilitate communication with the public for regulatory or other purposes

project and handwriting recognition tool ● Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services chatbots ● Agency analysis of submitted rulemaking comments

Internal management

Tasks that support agency management of resources, including employee management, procurement, and maintenance of technology systems

● Department of Health and Human Services tool to assist procurement decision-making ● General Services Administration tool to ensure legal compliance of federal solicitations ● Department of Homeland Security tool to counter cyber attacks on agency systems

Source:  Adapted from Freeman Engstrom et al. (2020, 10).

societies and markets have advanced, so too have our abilities to employ emerging computational and algorithmic methods to detect new patterns of interaction and causality, deepening our understandings of complex causes and effects in the process. Beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, such algorithmic methods have been integrated into analysis of public policy and to a lesser extent, the management of public institutions to support and deepen situational awareness (Endsley, 1995). Referring to AI applications in government as “algorithmic governance tools” Freeman Engstrom et al. (2020) assert that they can “modernize public administration, prompting more efficient, accurate, and equitable forms of state action.” They

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also warn that when managed poorly, these tools can lead to the further “hollowing out” of human expertise in administrative settings and increase “opacity” in public decision-making (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020, 8). As the use cases in Boxes 12.1–12.4 suggest, the integration of these tools into the administrators of the public sector comes with “deep accountability” challenges (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020, 7). Our growing reliance on AI systems raises several critical concerns, including instances of “algorithmic bias,” where AI systems lack the ability to draw inferences from conditions and contexts and lack the ability to know when to deviate from standards or prescribed actions (Thierer et al., 2017, 10). In other words, when humans collaborate with AI, humans begin to loosen their grip on their discretion. The importance of the discretion of public administrators to render “quasi-judicial” judgments of situations and cases has long been a point of consideration in the literature and in practice (Maynard-Moody et al., 2003). A key question facing the future of an AI-enhanced field of public administration concerns the matter of how and to what extent do public service values translate into and through “non-human” mechanisms? These considerations have been a theme within a growing body of literature loosely organized around the concept of “fairness AI.” There is growing evidence of algorithmic bias in automated systems that, for instance, issue bails and criminal sentencing or scan résumés for qualified job applicants. These cases raise deep concerns about racial discrimination (Sweeney, 2013; Edelman and Luca, 2014; Marantz, 2015; Garvie and Frankle, 2016) and bias against poor people (Calo, 2013) by using such methods. The legal landscape for mitigating these issues is still largely underdeveloped. Considering the legal context in the United States, Scherer observes, “With the exception of a few states’ legislation … very few laws or regulations exist that specifically address the unique challenges raised by AI, and virtually no courts appear to have developed standards specifically addressing who should be held legally responsible if an AI causes harm” (Scherer, 2015, 356). It also “does not appear that any existing scholarship examines AI regulation through the lens of institutional competence—that is, the issue of what type(s) of governmental institution would be best equipped to confront the unique challenges presented by the rise of AI” (Scherer, 2015, 356). Public administrators need to be at the forefront of thinking through what the NSTC calls “values-based conflict resolution” arising from and through AI systems. They assert that, “AI needs adequate methods for values-based conflict resolution, where the system incorporates principles that can address the realities of complex situations where strict rules are impracticable” (NSTC, 2016, 27). NSTC suggests that the basis of such oversight systems could be guided by a set of standards including: ● Safety: to evaluate risk management and hazard analysis of systems, human– computer interactions, control systems, and regulatory compliance;

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● Interoperability: to define interchangeable components, data, and transaction models via standard and compatible interfaces; ● Security: to address the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information, as well as cybersecurity; ● Privacy: to control for the protection of information while being processed, when in transit, or being stored; and ● Traceability: to provide a record of events (their implementation, testing, and completion), and for the curation of data (NSTC, 2016, 33). The United Kingdom’s guidance for understanding AI ethics and safety suggests that these four goals be woven into the oversight of AI systems through the following principles: ● Ethically permissible: consider the impacts it may have on the well-being of affected stakeholders and communities; ● Fair and non-discriminatory: consider its potential to have discriminatory effects on individuals and social groups, mitigate biases which may influence your model’s outcome, and be aware of fairness issues throughout the design and implementation lifecycle; ● Worthy of public trust: guarantee as much as possible the safety, accuracy, reliability, security, and robustness of its product; ● Justifiable: prioritize the transparency of how you design and implement your model, and the justification and interpretability of its decisions and behaviors (United Kingdom, 2019). The OECD has developed an AI Policy Observatory and has taken steps to lay out a set of principles to guide what they frame as “trustworthy” AI. These include harnessing AI for the explicit benefits for people and the planet by “enhancing creativity, advancing inclusion of underrepresented populations, reducing economic, social, gender and other inequalities, and protecting natural environments, thus invigorating inclusive growth, sustainable development and well-being” and respect for the rule of law, human rights and democratic values, throughout the AI system lifecycle. These include freedom, dignity and autonomy, privacy and data protection, non-discrimination and equality, diversity, fairness, social justice, and internationally recognized labor rights. To this end, AI actors should implement mechanisms and safeguards, such as capacity for human determination, that are appropriate to the context and consistent with the state of art. The OECD also recommends the pursuit of public-private partners for the development and regulation of AI systems and close working relationships with stakeholders across government, business and civil society. (OECD, 2021a)

Norway has issued a report on Artificial Intelligence and Privacy that provides readers with user-friendly explanations of AI terms and technologies and further offers recommendations for the integration of legal considerations including matters of data access and privacy (Datailsynet, 2018), and the United Kingdom has taken

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the further step of offering practical guidance for the management of AI (United Kingdom, 2019). Harnessing the capacity of AI for good governance within a democratic context will, according to Freeman Engstrom et al. (2020, 91), “require a relentlessly interdisciplinary approach that engages with, rather than abstracting away from, the technical and operational details of the government’s new algorithmic toolkit.” Public administrators will need to partner with data and computer scientists to design and anticipate the need for embedding public service values into AI systems. They will also need to consider and pursue avenues for holding AI systems, and their creators and/or handlers accountable.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS IMPLEMENTING AI The effective implementation of AI systems within public service delivery requires thoughtful planning, with consideration given to issues of coordination, capacity building, responsibility, and standards. These recommendations reflect best practices from artificial intelligence users and administrators in the public sector, and offer tangible pathways toward application. Capacity Building The importance of partnerships in the development and deployment of AI systems has been previously emphasized, and is complemented by the need for increased capacity. This refers both to the technical capacity required to maintain the data infrastructure required of AI systems, and the internal capacity required to use the tools effectively, as intended, and in compliance with rules of law. Both technical capacity and internal expertise are essential to building trust with AI systems, and contribute to accountability (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020, 74). A key capacity question that public administrators must ask themselves is whether to externally source their AI systems. In an assessment of 157 use cases in the United States federal government, 53 percent of AI uses were developed in-house by agency technologists, while 47 percent came from external sources, including 33 percent from private commercial sources via the procurement process and 14 percent through non-commercial collaborations, including agency-hosted competitions and government–academic partnerships (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020, 88). There are both costs and benefits to internal and external sourcing, including how tailored the program is to the specific need of the organization, how cutting edge the program is, and the available budget. Reform to government procurement processes is cited as a key barrier to the successful implementation of AI systems (West, 2021).

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Coordination The coordination of services requires considerations of how AI systems are embedded within institutions, who has input into the development and execution of the AI systems, and who manages the AI systems. Effective AI policy implementation needs to be coordinated across scales. AI governance models range from assigning oversight to existing bodies or departments, to creating new oversight bodies dedicated to AI. AI programs should be piloted on small scales to launch innovation in a less-risky manner, then safely scaled up to the organizational scale (West, 2021). Coordination with the public is also a key component of building trustworthy AI systems. Governments and organizations can solicit input on the design of their AI policies and strategies, involve a broad range of stakeholders, and use this input to build public trust. These dialogues should be done inclusively, and solicit a range of perspectives from potential end-users (OECD, 2021b). Workforce development also poses a coordination challenge to the implementation of AI systems. Public and civic sector organizations must compete in the employer marketplace for AI talent, and often departments, organizations, and agencies don’t know how to manage AI talent. One tangible proposal is the creation of a Digital Corps, which recruits, trains, and places personnel within the United States government. The Digital Corps could also operate in a similar fashion to the National Reserve, which allows for short-term commitments from AI professionals on a contractual basis (Tracy, 2021). Additional recommendations for addressing workforce challenges in AI systems include expanding remote and hybrid opportunities, developing partnerships with higher education, community colleges, technical institutes, and firms offering personalized learning and certificate programs to train current and future workers through professional development programming (West, 2021). Standards Standards refers both to mechanisms of AI system development, and rules surrounding the collection, standardization, and evaluation of data inputs. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, within the United States Department of Commerce, outlines four fundamental properties for explainable AI systems. These standards encompass the following: ● Explanation: AI systems should deliver accompanying evidence or reasons for all their outputs; ● Meaningful: AI systems should provide explanations that are meaningful or understandable to individual users; ● Explanation Accuracy: The explanation should correctly reflect the system’s process for generating the output; ● Knowledge Limits: The system should only operate under conditions for which it was designed or when the system reaches sufficient confidence in its output (OECD, 2021b).

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AI systems also require data to be in an appropriate format, which often demands standardized data inputs that improve AI algorithms (West, 2021). Data standardization can occur across phases of the data life cycle, including at the collection phase, or at the processing phase, which would require the development of advanced tools to standardize unstructured data (Freeman Engstrom et al., 2020), while the values to be conveyed through AI standards have been advanced by various policymaking bodies across the world, which have been mentioned earlier.

CONCLUSION The integration of AI systems into all aspects of our governmental, communications, and physical infrastructure offers both great promise and peril. Do the promises of improved efficiencies and greater access to knowledge and information outweigh the perils of lost administrative discretion, and the inability to anticipate outcomes or track and trace activities undertaken by AI systems? These are the types of considerations that public administrators now have to face. Understanding how AI systems function and are being used is the first step toward garnering some level of oversight over the advancement of these technologies. The extent to which public service values and democratic anchorage persist in this new AI-enhanced reality will be a matter of central importance for public administration for generations to come.

REFERENCES Berryhill, J., K.K. Heang, R. Clogher, and K. McBride (2019) Hello, world: artificial intelligence and its use in the public sector. OECD Working Papers on Public Governance 36. Bitterman, P., and C.J. Koliba (2020) Modeling alternative collaborative governance network designs: an agent-based model of water governance in the Lake Champlain basin, Vermont. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 636–55. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1093/​ jopart/​muaa013. Calo, R. (2013, October 9). Digital market manipulation. George Washington Law Review 82. http://​dx​.doi​.org/​10​.2139/​ssrn​.2309703. Chen, L., P. Chen, and Z. Lin (2020) Artificial intelligence in education: a review. IEEE Access, 8, 75264–78. Datailsynet (2018) Artificial intelligence and privacy. https://​ www​ .datatilsynet​ .no/​ globalassets/​global/​english/​ai​-and​-privacy​.pdf. Edelman, B.G., and M. Luca (2014) Digital discrimination: the case of Airbnb.com. Negotiations, Organizations, and Markets Unit, 14-054. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School. Endsley, M.R. (1995) Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 32–64. Freeman Engstrom, D., D.E. Ho, C.M. Sharkey, and M.-F. Cuellar (2020) Government by algorithm: artificial intelligence in federal administrative agencies. https://​law​.stanford​.edu/​ wp​-content/​uploads/​2020/​02/​ACUS​-AI​-Report​.pdf.

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Garvie, C., and J. Frankle (2016, April 7) Facial-recognition software might have a racial bias problem, Atlantic. https://​www​.theatlantic​.com/​technology/​archive/​2016/​04/​the​-underlying​ -bias​-of​-facial​-recognition​-systems/​476991/​. Marantz, A. (2015, July 29) When an app is called racist, New Yorker. https://​www​.newyorker​ .com/​business/​currency/​what​-to​-do​-when​-your​-app​-is​-racist. Maynard-Moody, S.W., M. Musheno, and M.C. Musheno (2003) Cops, Teachers, Counselors: Stories from the Front Lines of Public Service. University of Michigan Press. Microsoft and Ernst & Young (2020) Artificial intelligence in the public sector. https://​info​ .microsoft​.com/​rs/​157​-GQE​-382/​images/​EN​-CNTNT​-eBook​-artificial​-SRGCM3835​.pdf. NDPA [Norwegian Data Protection Authority] (2018) Artificial intelligence and privacy. https://​www​.datatilsynet​.no/​globalassets/​global/​english/​ai​-and​-privacy​.pdf. NSTC [National Science and Technology Council] (2016) The national artificial intelligence research and development strategic plan. United States Government. https://​www​.nitrd​.gov/​ pubs/​national​_ai​_rd​_strategic​_plan​.pdf. OECD (2021a) OECD AI principles overview. https://​oecd​.ai/​en/​ai​-principles. OECD (2021b) State of implementation of the OECD AI principles. OECD Digital Economy Papers 311. OECD Publishing. Pew Research Center (2019) Smartphone ownership is growing rapidly around the world, but not always equally. https://​www​.pewresearch​.org/​global/​2019/​02/​05/​smartphone​ -ownership​-is​-growing​-rapidly​-around​-the​-world​-but​-not​-always​-equally/​. Satariano, A. (2020, August 20) British grading debacle shows pitfalls of automating government. The New York Times. https://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2020/​08/​20/​world/​europe/​uk​ -england​-grading​-algorithm​.html. Scherer, M.U. (2015) Regulating artificial intelligence systems: risks, challenges, competencies, and strategies. Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, 29, 353. Sweeney, L. (2013) Discrimination in online ad delivery. Association for Computing Machinery, 11(3). https://​doi​.org/​10​.1145/​2460276​.2460278. Thierer, A.D., A. Castillo OʼSullivan, and R. Russell (2017) Artificial intelligence and public policy. Mercatus Research Paper. https://​papers​.ssrn​.com/​sol3/​papers​.cfm​?abstract​_id​=​ 3021135. Tracy, R. (2021, April 6) How can government attract the AI talent it needs? The Wall Street Journal. https://​www​.wsj​.com/​articles/​how​-can​-government​-attract​-the​-ai​-talent​-it​-needs​ -11617724802. United Kingdom (2019) The Centre for Date Ethics and Innovation’s Approach to the Governance of Data-Driven Technology. https://​www​.gov​.uk/​government/​publications/​ the​-centre​-for​-data​-ethics​-and​-innovations​-approach​-to​-the​-governance​-of​-data​-driven​ -technology/​the​-centre​-for​-data​-ethics​-and​-innovations​-approach​-to​-the​-governance​-of​ -data​-driven​-technology. West, D.M. (2021, September 10) Using AI and machine learning to reduce government fraud. Brookings Institution. https://​www​.brookings​.edu/​research/​using​-ai​-and​-machine​-learning​ -to​-reduce​-government​-fraud/​.

PART III REFLECTIONS ON THE WAY FORWARD: STRATEGICALLY ACTING PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS FOR VALUE CREATION SYSTEMS

13. Strategic planning: the way forward Bert George, Rowie Huijbregts, Maria Tiggelaar, Laure Vandersmissen, Sven Vanhengel and Bishoy Louis Zaki

INTRODUCTION Strategic planning has long been one of the most popular managerial approaches in organizations across sectors and worldwide (Rigby & Bilodeau, 2018). Typically, strategic planning is considered a meso-level approach to strategy formulation, implying that it is used to formulate an organizational strategy following a somewhat systematic and deliberate process (Bryson, 2018; Bryson & George, 2020). At this meso-level, strategic planning has been linked to a range of beneficial outcomes – including indicators of organizational performance and, especially, organizational effectiveness (see meta-analysis of George et al., 2019). It is, however, important to emphasize that strategic planning is not any one “thing”; it is an approach where people who engage with it need to carefully, or, perhaps better, strategically reflect on the process steps they are going to follow, the tools they are going to employ and who they are going to involve during strategic planning (Bryson & George, 2020; Bryson et al., 2018). In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to strategic planning, and good strategists are able to tailor strategic planning to fit the needs of their organization. Critical readers might now argue that our strategic planning conceptualization is so broad that it encompasses everything, and thus nothing. This was not our aim, and to really be considered as strategic planning there are a range of theories that need to be incorporated, including goal setting theory (i.e., elucidating what the organization wants to achieve in terms of purposes and priorities, how it proposes to do so and why, namely the value it creates for its stakeholders), the Harvard Policy Model (i.e., formulating strategies that acknowledge the organization’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to the opportunities and challenges in its environment), stakeholder management theory (i.e., carefully and deliberately considering which stakeholders to involve during strategic planning, in which specific process steps and how), synoptic planning theory (i.e., following an informed and deliberate process centered on analysis, evidence and facts, avoiding purely kneejerk decision-making based on gut-feeling) and complexity theory (i.e., understanding causes and consequences behind different strategic options, and maintaining a degree of flexibility and experimentation to avoid overly “programming” strategy implementation) (see Bryson & George, 2020; Bryson, 2018; George et al., 2019). At the very heart of strategic planning one can thus find several tensions, between planning and incrementalism, 196

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Table 13.1

Tensions underlying strategic planning

Tension

Explanation

Examples of tools

Planning and

Providing a strategic framework to offer overall

● Mission, vision, values statements,

incrementalism

long-term direction without overly “programming”

good governance codes

strategy implementation into fixed, extensive

● Strategic issues, design thinking,

implementation plans that leave no room for

prototyping, scenario planning

experimentation and adaptability Openness and

Involving stakeholders throughout the process to identify ● Open stakeholder forums, brain-

closedness

creative ideas, needs and create commitment while avoiding unmanageable decision-making and equity issues due to dominance of specific stakeholder groups

Analysis and

Grounding strategies in analysis, evidence and facts

intuition

(i.e., evidence-based) while acknowledging bounded rationality, cognitive biases, group dynamics and the importance of creativity, inspiration and intuition during

storm sessions, co-creation ● Structured electronic surveys, focus groups, Delphi method ● SWOT-analysis, stakeholder analysis, PESTEL-analysis ● Strategic offsites, team building exercises, cognitive mapping

decision-making Aspirations and

Setting aspirations that are ambitious and result in actual ● Balanced scorecards, performance

capabilities

value creation but, simultaneously, are feasible taking into account the current capabilities of the organization and/or its potential to develop future capabilities needed

dashboards, business model analysis ● Core competency analysis, feasibility analysis, financial planning

to meet aspirations

openness and closedness, analysis and intuition, and aspirations and capabilities. Table 13.1 summarizes these different tensions and offers examples of tools typically used to meet these tensions during strategic planning. Table 13.1 demonstrates that there is much more to strategic planning than simply “writing” a plan for the organization. Similarly, it also demonstrates that the perspective of strategic planning as a meso-level approach unilaterally centered on the organization is not necessarily accurate. Indeed, in practice strategic planning encompasses both micro-level activities in terms of “how” individuals actually configure strategic planning to meet their needs as well as the role of behavior and leadership therein (George, 2021a, 2021b), meso-level activities in terms of typically focusing on an organization (or other entity like a network, collaboration or community) as the subject for which a strategy is stipulated (Bryson & George, 2020) and macro-level activities in terms of acknowledging pressures coming from the broader authorizing environment made concrete through stakeholder expectations (Bryson, 2018). Strategic planning thus bridges all three levels of analysis, and, when conducted well, can act as a boundary spanner tying together macro, meso and micro forces to create sustainable organizational success (Bryson et al., 2009; George et al., 2021). Despite the importance of strategic planning as this cross-level boundary spanner, most empirical research on the subject has looked at its direct relationship with organizational outcomes. While very valuable, such research tends to operationalize strategic planning in terms of specific process steps that were conducted in the organization in relation to different dimensions of organizational performance, thus not

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necessarily acknowledging underlying micro- and macro-level forces. Integrative, systematic reviews have indeed laid the jigsaw puzzle of what we already know from empirical research on strategic planning and what is missing (e.g., Bryson et al., 2010; George & Desmidt, 2014; Poister et al., 2010). However, by focusing exclusively on existing empirical research on strategic planning, these reviews have integrated a rather “siloed” body of literature to identify missing pieces of the puzzle without necessarily linking strategic planning to other concepts and bodies of knowledge. Some recommendations from these reviews thus include: Focusing on different dimensions of organizational performance, focusing on different process characteristics of strategic planning, moving from strategic planning to strategic management and identifying optimal configurations of strategic planning based on different organizational characteristics. Again, very valuable and needed research but somewhat siloed and centered on the meso-level of analysis.

MOVING STRATEGIC PLANNING FORWARD: FIVE THEMES The aim of this chapter is to offer some fresh ideas on how to advance strategic planning research, both theoretically and empirically, by linking strategic planning to a number of important, contemporary public management and governance themes, namely: Transnational and network governance, public values and stakeholder expectations, rules, regulations and bureaucracy, organizational and societal change, and public governance in complex systems. These themes were selected because of (a) their clear salience for our field, (b) the specific expertise present in the author team and (c) ongoing discussions between the team for the better part of the past two years. As such, this chapter does not have the ambition to offer a systematic, integrative review of strategic planning literature – others have recently done this – but, rather, offers what is called a problematizing review (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2020). Such a review implies that the article seeks to establish links between strategic planning and other concepts with the aim of providing new ways of thinking about strategic planning. In doing so, this article complements existing integrative reviews on the subject and adds to contemporary knowledge of strategic planning by moving outside the strategic planning “box” and removing some typical blinders often observed in contemporary public management and governance research and theory. Indeed, much stereotypical thinking surrounds strategic planning and has also pushed specific groups of scholars away from the concept even though, in practice, it remains one of the most used managerial approaches worldwide – and not just in “traditional” organizations but also in networks, collaborations and larger governance systems. Hopefully, this approach can inspire more researchers to focus on strategic planning and reflect on how it links to their core expertise; indeed, strategic planning is so widely used and touches upon so many issues that we cannot envision too much research on the subject any time soon. Figure 13.1 visualizes the proposed links, which are discussed in the remainder of this chapter.

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Figure 13.1

Strategic planning: the way forward

THEME 1: TRANSNATIONAL AND NETWORK GOVERNANCE While the bulk of strategic planning research has focused on “traditional” organizations within one specific country (e.g., local governments – see, for instance, Johnsen, 2018), many societal issues require a transnational approach that crosses country and organizational borders. International and supranational (public) organizations, such as the European Commission, United Nations and International Labour Organization, play a key role in governing such transnational approaches. These organizations typically constitute different member states and collective decision-making processes and procedures, and have their own bureaucratic or administrative bodies staffed by international civil servants or related positions – also labeled as international public administrations (Ege, 2019). Like many other organizations, they too often have their own strategic plans as well as other management systems (Amici & Cepiku, 2020). For example, the International Labour Organization has its “Strategic Plan for 2022–25”, which includes specific policy priorities, such as global recovery after COVID-19, strategies explaining how the organization is going to increase its performance, such as improving knowledge capacities, and an elaboration of its strategic vision for 2025 (International Labour Organization, 2020). The European Commission requires its departments to develop strategic plans and management

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plans for 2020–24 explaining how their work contributes to the Commission’s overall policy objectives and makes the most efficient use of resources (European Commission, 2021). Finally, the United Nations Development Programme has a strategic plan for 2018–21 aimed at helping countries actually achieve the millennium goals as well as elaborating on the program’s business model moving forward (United Nations Development Programme, 2017). Despite their clear importance for transnational governance, international and supranational (public) organizations are fiercely criticized for making inefficient use of financial resources, being ineffective in translating ideas and goals into fruitful actions and lacking legitimacy, especially in terms of output (Amici & Cepiku, 2020; Dijkzeul & Beigbeder, 2003). This criticism links to the overall functioning of such organizations, their actual management processes. Yet, despite this criticism and the importance of sound management, very little effort has been invested into research concerning management approaches within international and supranational (public) organizations. We know of very little research explicitly focusing on this topic (for some exceptions, see Amici & Cepiku, 2020; Bauer et al., 2017; Ege, 2019), and, to the best of our knowledge, no studies focusing specifically on strategic planning. Taking into account that many of these organizations typically do have strategic plans, which are often publicly available, makes this lack of research even more astonishing. Moreover, as mentioned in the introduction, we know that strategic planning, when done well, can indeed be a performance driver that could particularly help to tackle issues concerning effectiveness at least in more “traditional” organizations. But how would strategic planning differ between organizations in one specific country versus international and supranational (public) organizations covering different member states? Would it be equally useful? Would it perhaps center more on accountability and transparency, or generating commitment among member states (and/or internal staff)? Would similar tensions emerge as mentioned in the introduction, or would those tensions become even more pertinent due to these organizations’ complexity? Many fruitful research avenues remain to better understand the practice of strategic planning in international and supranational (public) organizations and how it can contribute to better transnational governance. Similarly, and this call has been raised by other strategic planning (Bryson & George, 2020; George et al., 2019) and network governance (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2020) scholars more recently as well, the practice of strategic planning within networks and collaborations merits more attention. Because this argument has been put forward before, we do not expand on it much in this problematizing review, but it is very clear that like international (public) organizations, networks and collaborations in practice often rely on strategic planning as an approach to identify an overall strategic framework. What that framework looks like in practice could be very different from the strategic plans one would find in many organizations, but the overarching idea of having some sense of a common purpose, shared strategic issues and collaborative advantages clearly links to strategic planning (Bryson, 2018). While they might not label the followed process as strategic planning due to the often stereotypical and prejudiced thinking about the concept, in practice many similarities

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exist between strategic planning and strategy approaches stipulated by the broader network and collaborative governance literature. Additionally, strategic planning can include approaches to collaborative governance as a way to implement strategic plans, co-create innovation, crowdsource ideas and/or create buy-in from core stakeholders – as has been demonstrated especially in the urban and spatial planning literature (e.g., Agger & Sørensen, 2018; Sørensen & Torfing, 2019). In other words, more work on strategic planning in network and collaborative governance could help advance both fields of study.

THEME 2: PUBLIC VALUES AND STAKEHOLDER EXPECTATIONS Strategic planning is not a “values-free” activity. Clearly, during strategic planning a set of decisions are made that exemplify specific values preferences among those doing the planning. Whether or not to make the strategic planning process more open versus more closed to stakeholders is one example of how values preferences might influence strategic planning. Do we favor inclusiveness? Even when it might make the process less efficient? But also in terms of actual content, the type of strategies formulated, specific priorities are identified and this identification implies a balancing act of what one finds most important for the organization and its stakeholders (Bryson, 2018). In other words, strategic planning is not a machine or program where you can input a set of parameters and get a specific output almost automatically, free from values preferences and emotions. Human beings plan, not machines, and we are constrained by bounded rationality, emotions and our own preferences in terms of what we think matters most (George, 2021a). In public management and governance research, the idea that policymakers and public managers have to balance different, equally legitimate, values has been core to a variety of studies focused on public values (typically inspired by seminal work by Bozeman, 2007; Moore, 1995; Nabatchi, 2012). More recently, the process of identifying, reflecting and deciding on public values for given policy issues has been labeled as public values assessment and a variety of tools can be used to do such assessment, involving different stakeholders (e.g., experts, citizens) and methods (e.g., more quantitative approaches versus more qualitative approaches or mixed) (Huijbregts et al., 2022). Indeed, clearly, strategic planning necessitates some type of public values assessment due to the importance of the decisions that are made (and the multiplicity of stakeholders and public values that need to be addressed), both in terms of process and content. But has research followed suit, or, better said, has strategic planning research focused on how public values are identified, reflected and decided upon during strategic planning? Not explicitly, no. While there have been studies centered on stakeholder involvement during strategic planning more generally and stakeholder management techniques for strategic planning (e.g., Bryson, 2004; Elbanna et al., 2016; George et al., 2016; Poister & Streib, 2005), research has rarely adopted a public values perspective to strategic planning. This is especially problematic

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for strategic planning in settings where many stakeholders are involved with many different interests and expectations towards the organization, and where it is impossible to meet all these expectations during strategic planning. Indeed, in practice, choices are made in terms of which public values are prioritized. But how are these choices made, or, how are public values being assessed during strategic planning? Does such an assessment occur through specific strategy tools like a Power/Interest Matrix or a SWOT Confrontation matrix? Does it involve specific stakeholders? Are other tools not typically presented in the strategy toolbox used? Are these choices made deliberately, or do they occur more incrementally where, after the fact they are recognized as specific choices? In line with these questions, it is important to emphasize that a recent meta-analysis on strategic planning demonstrates that stakeholder participation in and of itself does not drive organizational performance (George et al., 2019). This finding further corroborates the importance of researching public values assessment during strategic planning – it is not only about allowing stakeholders to participate, but about organizing public values assessment in such a way that it actually helps identify stakeholders’ value preferences, and provides a legitimate basis for decision-making.

THEME 3: RULES, REGULATIONS AND BUREAUCRACY There are several reasons why organizations engage with strategic planning, and one of those reasons relates to rules, regulations and bureaucracy (George & Desmidt, 2014; Poister et al., 2010). In the public sector, some public organizations have to do strategic planning (or at least elements of it) to meet legislative requirements put upon them by their authorizing environment. Examples of such requirements imposing (aspects of) strategic planning include the Government Performance Results and Modernization Act for U.S. federal agencies, Best Value for English and Welsh local government, and the Policy and Management Cycle for Flemish local government. But also in the nonprofit and private sector, writing a strategic plan is often a requirement to attract funding from investors or other types of budget holders, or to officially register the organization with the government. Due to its sometimes imposed nature, strategic planning could be considered as a form of red tape, which can be defined as “rules, regulations and procedures that entail a compliance burden without advancing the legitimate purposes they were intended to serve” (Bozeman, 1993). And even when strategic planning is not imposed externally, it can still be perceived as red tape by an organization’s employees. Specifically, strategic planning often takes place when new leadership arrives (Berry, 1994), new leaders want to write new strategic plans and impose upon their employees the rules, regulations and procedures that need to be followed to formulate, implement and evaluate the new plan. If strategic planning is indeed considered as red tape, it is unlikely to yield many benefits apart from demonstrating that the organization has a plan as required, and, as a recent meta-analysis suggests, it can even be detrimental for employee well-being and organizational performance (George et al., 2021).

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Red tape research is well established especially in the field of public administration. Many scholars have linked red tape to a range of organizational and employee outcomes (e.g., Brewer, 2006; Pandey & Moynihan, 2006; Walker & Brewer, 2009). But most of these studies tend to operationalize red tape as an overall aggregate perception towards rules, regulations and procedures, thus not differentiating between the potential sources of red tape. Whether strategic planning can indeed be a source of red tape, and under which conditions, remains at the moment unanswered. This is particularly problematic because the idea that strategic planning could be considered as red tape offers a potential explanation as to why there is much criticism towards strategic planning. Indeed, just doing strategic planning because one has to is hardly strategic and might be called strategic planning but fails to meet the theoretical requirements put forth in the introduction of this article. In such a case, strategic planning no longer has a legitimate purpose for those engaging with it but just feels like rules, regulations, procedures that take time and money without delivering much value. There are, thus, several fruitful avenues that can be considered when combining red tape with strategic planning research. Are some forms of strategic planning more prone to be considered as red tape than others? Can strategic planning processes be optimized to avoid red tape perceptions among employees? What are the legitimate purposes of strategic planning in the eyes of employees, and how can they be convinced that the time and resources spent on strategic planning are worthwhile (even when it is imposed upon them)? Equating strategic planning to red tape is clearly a danger for the future of strategic planning as an approach to achieving sustainable organizational success, and more research into the matter is desperately needed. While the preceding paragraphs highlight a rather negative association between strategic planning and red tape, more research is also desperately needed that investigates how strategic planning can help to uphold important bureaucratic values. There is a reason why public organizations and related entities operate within a framework of rules and regulations, namely to ensure a rule of law as well as legitimate organizational activities (Du Gay, 2000, 2005). Of course, this Weberian bureaucratic thought is well known by most public administration scholars and really lies at the heart of public governance and management in many countries to date. Models of strategic planning thus often incorporate an analysis of formal and informal mandates as a crucial aspect of strategic planning (Bryson, 2018), but most research does not really explore what exactly such a mandate analysis entails. How are rules, regulations and bureaucracy assessed during strategic planning? Can strategic planning help to ensure the legitimate nature of organizational activities, and under which conditions? We might be mistaken to label strategic planning as a purely managerial approach as opposed to perhaps also considering it a bureaucratic approach that helps public organizations and related entities find a way through an ever so complex legal framework and ensure legitimacy of organizational action based on the rule of law. Similarly, strategic plans can become important legal documents shaping organizational action, accountability and reflection as well as acting as contracts between an

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organization and its stakeholders. Here, clearly, more collaboration between legal scholars and strategic planning scholars could prove especially fruitful.

THEME 4: ORGANIZATIONAL AND SOCIETAL CHANGE There is a reason why one of the most-cited and popular strategic planning models is labeled the “Strategic Change Cycle” (Bryson, 2018). Strategic planning and change are clearly connected, in a variety of ways. Implementing strategic plans often requires significant changes throughout the organization, but embarking on a strategic planning journey can also be the result of a specific change coming from in- or outside of the organization (e.g., new leadership, see Berry, 1994). And learning during strategy implementation can, again, spark changes in the initially formulated strategy in order to embrace more emerging strategies and adapt to changes in the environment (Kools & George, 2020). It is thus no surprise that linking strategic planning and organizational change perspectives has been argued as crucial to move towards continuous strategic management in organizations (Bryson, 2010; Bryson & George, 2020; Poister, 2010). In other words, successful change is a prerequisite for successful strategic planning (or is it the other way around?). Yet, evidence suggests that around 70 percent of all change programs fail, in part because change is often simplified to following a fixed set of steps or best practices irrespective of the context or the type of change one wants to achieve (Kuipers et al., 2014). Indeed, popular change management models (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017; Kotter, 2012) adopt a rather generic perspective on change that does not necessarily link it to strategic planning in organizations but, rather, considers change management as somewhat of a stand-alone process – assuming the requested change (and the reasoning behind it, how it fits the overall strategy and creates value) has already been developed and is thus somewhat of a “given”. Hence, there is indeed a bulk of literature focusing on change management in organizations (for literature overviews, see, for instance, By, 2005; Kuipers et al., 2014) – but this literature and the strategic planning literature in general have seemingly developed in silos from each other, with little cross-fertilization. In practice, strategic planning and change are inherently connected – and both are part of a broader, holistic management model in organizations. Change management models talk about the importance of vision, coalition building, ensuring the need for change, creating support and commitment internally and externally, embedding change throughout the organization (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017; Kotter, 2012). If we had removed “change management” in the earlier sentence and added “strategic planning” instead, the same components would still work. Strategic planning models typically also center on formulating and communicating a vision of the future, building support and commitment towards strategies, aligning strategies with other organizational management processes (Bryson, 2018). So, are we talking about two different sides of the same coin here? Is managing change a continuous attention point during strategic planning, an enabler of “good” strategic planning? Or does

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strategic planning facilitate change, is change easier to achieve and more likely to succeed when it is preceded by strategic planning? Indeed, there is evidence suggesting that there is a clear link between how strategic planning is conducted in practice and eventual successful strategy implementation (e.g., Elbanna et al., 2016; George, 2021b). We desperately need more theorizing on the complex causality underlying strategic planning and change in organizations that also takes into account the type of change one wants to achieve as well as characteristics of the organization and its environment. Moreover, strategic planning does not limit itself to organizational change, especially in the public sector. For instance, strategic plans in local government often discuss changes in the community and broader urban environment. Similarly, strategic plans in federal or national government entities often focus on societal outcomes that require change not only from the organization itself but from many different societal actors with whom there is not necessarily any hierarchical relationship. Is there a difference between strategic planning’s role in achieving organizational versus societal change? Does the latter require other forms of strategic planning that are perhaps more open, inclusive and participatory? Would the tools differ based on the type of change one is aiming for? While there have been some qualitative case studies looking at strategic planning’s role in achieving broader societal change typically through national-level priorities (e.g., Elliott, 2020; Nakrošis et al., 2020; Ongaro et al., 2021), more research is needed to better understand whether different levels of change require a different type of strategic planning and how integration between levels can be achieved. Other fields have acknowledged this need for focusing on the management of places and spaces, and not just organizations, for instance, as part of the public leadership and urban planning literature (e.g., Albrechts et al., 2016; Beer et al., 2019; Budd and Sancino, 2016), and can provide inspiration for strategic planning scholars.

THEME 5: PUBLIC GOVERNANCE IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS The bulk of strategic planning research has been conducted by management or public management scholars (see the reviews of, for instance, George & Desmidt, 2014; George et al., 2019). Hence, typically, strategic planning is looked at as a managerial approach – part of a manager’s toolbox. Yet, in practice, strategic planning does not only belong to the realm of management. Indeed, strategy in general has long served public purpose and has been an inherent part of political science, military studies and international relations (Freedman, 2015). Policymakers are increasingly required to develop strategic plans in part for accountability and transparency purposes, which might not always be called a strategic plan, and think and act more strategically in general (George, 2021a). Be it policy plans, policy visions, and so on – all of these popular policymaking tools relate clearly to strategic planning. The earlier cited example of the United Nations Development Programme is a good example; such a program is clearly a policy initiative for which a strategic plan is developed to

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optimize its performance and elaborate on its business model. Following this line of reasoning, strategic planning becomes not only an approach to managing organizations but an approach to governance that helps policymakers identify strategies to reach specific policy objectives within or across policy domains, or for specific long-term policy programs. So does the practice of strategic planning differ when it is conducted for an organization versus when it is conducted for a specific policy domain, sector or program or across such domains? While there have been several conceptual papers already decades ago that discussed strategic planning’s value for policymaking (e.g., Blair, 1998; Kaufman & Jacobs, 1987; Marx, 1986), empirical research into this question remains incredibly scarce. There is, clearly, a family resemblance between strategic planning, public governance, policy planning, urban planning and policymaking more generally. These concepts are discussed in separate journals and domains, often by scholars from different disciplines. Again, disciplinary silos imply little cross-fertilization. In part, we believe that this lack of integration is also the result of the stereotypical thinking of strategic planning as a corporate tool made popular in the broader public sector thanks to New Public Management reforms emphasizing business-like thinking. Again, this is not a nuanced perspective as strategic planning in the public sector precedes New Public Management and has a long history of serving public purpose (Bryson & George, 2020). There has also been a recent trend to put “strategic” in front of other planning concepts to emphasize the importance of integrating strategic planning ideas into these concepts, examples including strategic policy planning (e.g., Delphin, 2021), strategic regional planning (e.g., Gordon & Champion, 2021) and strategic urban planning (e.g., Mäntysalo et al., 2015). While we argue that this integration is crucial and vital, it also implies a clear responsibility for strategic planning research. What exactly makes planning “strategic”? How would strategic planning insights help advance policymaking and other forms of planning? Is strategic planning within policymaking and for policy initiatives different from strategic planning for organizations? Can we see different tools, methods and involved stakeholders or are there similarities? All in all, more integration between strategic planning and public governance research could help advance both fields and build knowledge on how policymakers can be stimulated to think and act more strategically. This idea that strategic planning is an important governance tool and not “just” a managerial tool has also been raised in the academic work surrounding the concept of the “Strategic State” (e.g., Drumaux & Joyce, 2018; Joyce, 2015), but apart from mostly conceptual papers and books very little empirical research has further explored this idea of strategic planning as a tool of governance across a complex system.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION In this chapter, a problematizing review was conducted with the aim of providing new ideas to advance theory and research on strategic planning. Importantly, we need

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to acknowledge that the five themes proposed in this article are not an exhaustive list. Indeed, other ideas are out there on the market place of academic knowledge, including but not limited to studying strategic planning from a strategy-as-practice perspective (e.g., Brorström, 2020; Höglund et al., 2018), or by adopting a behavioral strategy lens (e.g., George, 2021a; Powell et al., 2011). There are so many approaches to future research and theorizing on strategic planning, and we argue that there is some “idea pluralism” going on here – all ideas are good and equally valid. And which idea to follow is an individual choice depending on the researcher’s interest and expertise. With that said, we hope to have demonstrated that there are a great many links to make between strategic planning and important public management and governance concepts. Strategic planning is indeed a transversal concept, in that it touches upon so many aspects of modern public management and governance. Identifying how it works in international and supranational (public) organizations as well as networks and collaborations can help us better understand its importance and role within transnational and collaborative governance. Assessing how public values and stakeholder preferences are assessed (or not) during strategic planning elucidates the effectiveness of strategic planning as an approach to coping with public values pluralism. Linking strategic planning to rules, regulations and bureaucracy provides more insights into legitimate purposes of strategic planning and how those relate to the amount of time and money strategic planning typically requires as perceived by organizational employees and other stakeholders. An organizational and societal change perspective on strategic planning fully acknowledges its place within a much broader set of approaches, capabilities, outcomes and so on, and provides insights into how strategic planning fits within a holistic understanding of change. Finally, a public governance perspective on strategic planning acknowledges its role not only as a managerial approach but as an approach used by policymakers worldwide, and also helps to identify how strategic planning insights can help to achieve policy objectives through ambitious yet feasible strategies in or across specific policy domains, or for specific policy programs. Strategic planning is here to stay. Attempts to minimize its importance (and popularity) have, however, had a negative effect on the number of researchers engaging with it. Interestingly enough, much of the recent research on the subject comes from the public administration field (see recent special issues on the subject from, for instance, Bryson et al., 2018; George et al., 2021) while many other disciplines (especially in terms of articles in journal citation report-included publications) have somewhat neglected the subject. It is safe to say that prejudice and stereotypical thinking surrounding strategic planning have inhibited the advancement of theory and research on the subject (Wolf & Floyd, 2017). This is, of course, undesirable as it further widens the often-cited gap between academia and practice. It is time to rethink theory and research on strategic planning, and this article has aimed at providing some avenues for new research ideas while, hopefully, planting a seed in the mind of the reader in terms of how their expertise can move strategic planning forward.

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REFERENCES Agger, A., and E. Sørensen (2018) Managing collaborative innovation in public bureaucracies. Planning Theory, 17(1), 53–73. Albrechts, L., A. Balducci, and J. Hillier (eds.) (2016) Situated practices of strategic planning. New York: Routledge. Alvesson, M., and J. Sandberg (2020) The problematizing review: a counterpoint to Elsbach and Van Knippenberg’s argument for integrative reviews. Journal of Management Studies, 57(6), 1290–304. Amici, M., and D. Cepiku (2020) Performance management in international organizations. In Performance management in international organizations. Dordrecht: Springer International Publishing. Bauer, M. W., S. Eckhard, J. Ege, and C. Knill (2017) A public administration perspective on international organizations. In M. W. Bauer, C. Knill, and S. Eckhard (eds.), International bureaucracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Beer, A., S. Ayres, T. Clower, F. Faller, A. Sancino, and M. Sotarauta (2019) Place leadership and regional economic development: a framework for cross-regional analysis. Regional Studies, 53(2), 171–82. Berry, F. S. (1994) Innovation in public management: the adoption of strategic planning. Public Administration Review, 54(4), 322–30. Blair, R. (1998) Strategic planning for economic development: a suggested model for program evaluation. Public Administration Quarterly, 22(3), 331–48. Bozeman, B. (1993) A theory of government “red tape”. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 3(3), 273–303. Bozeman, B. (2007) Public values and public interest: counterbalancing economic individualism. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Brewer, G. A. (2006) All measures of performance are subjective: more evidence on US federal agencies. In Public service performance: perspectives on measurement and management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brorström, S. (2020) The strategy process as a result of learning, questioning, and performing in a city organization. International Public Management Journal, 23(5), 611–30. Bryson, J. M. (2004) What to do when stakeholders matter: stakeholder identification and analysis techniques. Public Management Review, 6(1), 21–53. Bryson, J. M. (2010) The future of public and nonprofit strategic planning in the United States. Public Administration Review, 70(s1), 255–67. Bryson, J. M. (2018) Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: a guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Bryson, J. M., and B. George (2020) Strategic management in public administration. In B. Guy Peters and I. Thynne (eds.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bryson, J. M., F. S. Berry, and K. Yang (2010) The state of public strategic management research: a selective literature review and set of future directions. The American Review of Public Administration, 40(5), 495–521. Bryson, J. M., B. C. Crosby, and J. K. Bryson (2009) Understanding strategic planning and the formulation and implementation of strategic plans as a way of knowing: the contributions of actor-network theory. International Public Management Journal, 12(2), 172–207. Bryson, J. M., L. H. Edwards, and D. M. Van Slyke (2018) Getting strategic about strategic planning research. Public Management Review, 20(3), 317–39. Budd, L., and A. Sancino (2016) A framework for city leadership in multilevel governance settings: the comparative contexts of Italy and the UK. Regional Studies, 3(1), 129–45.

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By, R. T. (2005) Organisational change management: a critical review. Journal of Change Management, 5(4), 369–80. Delphin, H. (2021) Above the fog and the fury: EU strategic policy planning and the EU’s future in times of global uncertainty. European Foreign Affairs Review, 26(1), 35–54. Dijkzeul, D., and Y. Beigbeder (2003) Introduction: rethinking international organizations. In Rethinking international organizations: pathology and promise. New York: Berghahn Books. Drumaux, A., and P. Joyce (2018) Strategic management for public governance in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Du Gay, P. (2000) In praise of bureaucracy: Weber-organization-ethics. London: Sage. Du Gay, P. (2005) The values of bureaucracy. New York: Oxford University Press. Ege, J. (2019) Learning from the Commission case: the comparative study of management change in international public administrations. Public Administration, 97(2), 384–98. Elbanna, S., R. Andrews, and R. Pollanen (2016) Strategic planning and implementation success in public service organizations: evidence from Canada. Public Management Review, 18(7), 1017–42. Elliott, I. C. (2020) The implementation of a strategic state in a small country setting – the case of the ‘Scottish Approach’. Public Money & Management, 40(4), 285–93. European Commission (2021) Strategic plans 2020–2024, https://​ ec​ .europa​ .eu/​ info/​ publications/​strategic​-plans​-2020​-2024​_en (accessed 05/06/2021). Fernandez, S., and H. G. Rainey (2017) Managing successful organizational change in the public sector. In Debating public administration. New York: Routledge. Freedman, L. (2015) Strategy: a history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. George, B. (2021a) Behavioral public strategy. Behavioural Public Policy, https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1017/​bpp​.2020​.30. George, B. (2021b) Successful strategic plan implementation in public organizations: connecting people, process, and plan (3Ps). Public Administration Review, 81(4), 793–8. George, B., and S. Desmidt (2014) A state of research on strategic management in the public sector. In P. Joyce and A. Drumaux (eds.), Strategic management in public organizations: European practices and perspectives. New York: Routledge. George, B., S. Desmidt, and J. De Moyer (2016) Strategic decision quality in Flemish municipalities. Public Money & Management, 36(5), 317–24. George, B., R. M. Walker, and J. Monster (2019) Does strategic planning improve organizational performance? A meta-analysis. Public Administration Review, 79(6), 810–19. George, B., S. K. Pandey, B. Steijn, A. Decramer, and M. Audenaert (2021) Red tape, organizational performance and employee outcomes: meta-analysis, meta-regression and research agenda. Public Administration Review, 81(4), 638–51. Gordon, I., and T. Champion (2021) Towards a sustainable, negotiated mode of strategic regional planning: a political economy perspective. Regional Studies, 55(1), 115–26. Höglund, L., M. Holmgren, M. Mårtensson, and F. Svärdsten (2018) Strategic management in the public sector: how tools enable and constrain strategy making. International Public Management Journal, 21(5), 822–49. Huijbregts, R., B. George, and V. Bekkers (2022) Public values assessment as a practice: integration of evidence and research agenda. Public Management Review, 24(6), 840–59. International Labour Organization (2020) The ILO’s strategic plan for 2022–25. Geneva: International Labour Organization. Johnsen, Å. (2018) Impacts of strategic planning and management in municipal government: an analysis of subjective survey and objective production and efficiency measures in Norway. Public Management Review, 20(3), 397–420. Joyce, P. (2015) Strategic management in the public sector. New York: Routledge. Kaufman, J. L., and H. M. Jacobs (1987) A public planning perspective on strategic planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 53(1), 23–33.

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Klijn, E. H., and J. Koppenjan (2020) Debate: strategic planning after the governance revolution. Public Money & Management, 40(4), 260–61. Kools, M., and B. George (2020) Debate: the learning organization—a key construct linking strategic planning and strategic management. Public Money & Management, 40(4), 262–4. Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Kuipers, B. S., M. Higgs, W. Kickert, L. Tummers, J. Grandia, and J. Van der Voet (2014) The management of change in public organizations: a literature review. Public Administration, 92(1), 1–20. Mäntysalo, R., K. Jarenko, K. L. Nilsson, and I. L. Saglie (2015) Legitimacy of informal strategic urban planning—observations from Finland, Sweden and Norway. European Planning Studies, 23(2), 349–66. Marx, T. G. (1986) Integrating public affairs and strategic planning. California Management Review, 29(1), 141–7. Moore, M. H. (1995) Creating public value: strategic management in government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nabatchi, T. (2012) Putting the “public” back in public values research: designing participation to identify and respond to values. Public Administration Review, 72(5), 699–708. Nakrošis, V., J. Šiugždinienė, J., and I. Antanaitė (2020) New development: between politics and strategic planning—the management of government priorities in Lithuania. Public Money & Management, 40(4), 299–303. Ongaro, E., A. Sancino, I. Pluchinotta, H. Williams, M. Kitchener, and E. Ferlie (2021) Strategic management as an enabler of co-creation in public services. Policy & Politics, 49(2), 287–304. Pandey, S. K., and D. Moynihan (2006) Bureaucratic red tape and organizational performance: testing the moderating role of culture and political support. In G. A. Boyne, K. J. Meier, L. J. O’Toole, Jr., and R. M. Walker (eds.), Public service performance: perspectives on measurement and management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Poister, T. H. (2010) The future of strategic planning in the public sector: linking strategic management and performance. Public Administration Review, 70(s1), 246–54. Poister, T. H., and G. Streib (2005) Elements of strategic planning and management in municipal government: status after two decades. Public Administration Review, 65(1), 45–56. Poister, T. H., D. Pitts, and L. Edwards Hamilton (2010) Strategic management research in the public sector: a review, synthesis, and future directions. The American Review of Public Administration, 40(5), 522–45. Powell, T. C., D. Lovallo, and C. R. Fox (2011) Behavioral strategy. Strategic Management Journal, 32(13), 1369–86. Rigby, D., and B. Bilodeau (2018) Management tools & trends 2018. Boston, MA: Bain & Company. Sørensen, E., and J. Torfing (2019) The Copenhagen metropolitan ‘finger plan’: a robust urban planning success based on collaborative governance. In M. Compton and P. ‘t Hart (eds.), Great policy successes. New York: Oxford University Press. United Nations Development Programme (2017) UNDP Strategic Plan, 2018–2021. New York: United Nations. Walker, R. M., and G. A. Brewer (2009) Can management strategy minimize the impact of red tape on organizational performance? Administration & Society, 41(4), 423–48. Wolf, C., and S. W. Floyd (2017) Strategic planning research: toward a theory-driven agenda. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1754–88.

14. Business model innovation and the financial dimension of strategy in the public sector Kuno Schedler

INTRODUCTION The view of strategic leadership in public organisations is entering a next generation. In the classic publications, the question was asked how strategies are developed and implemented in public organisations. In doing so, the literature generally used the planning approach of strategy work, which largely separates development from subsequent implementation (Bryson, 1995). In particular, however, the strategic view encompasses more the content dimension of the strategy, and this with a focus on the administrative organisation under consideration. The financial dimension was usually dealt with under the heading of “budgeting” and was thus not very much included in the strategy. A more open approach to strategic public management is to look at collaborative arrangements for delivering public value. The literature is full of studies on collaborative governance embracing public and private actors that aim to create public value (Klijn, 2002; Torfing, Andersen, Greve, & Klausen, 2020). However, they are often based on the political science approach of governance networks and less on managerial, strategic thinking. In the latter, developments can be observed in practice that focus on the analysis and innovation of business models (Mogyorósy, n.d.). At the centre of these considerations are questions of the design of value chains, the design of customer-centred services or innovative financing models that go far beyond the classic financing with tax money. The question arises: How must collaborative arrangements between the state and the private sector be designed so that value creation systems emerge that exist sustainably and develop themselves further, while at the same time generating a high public value? This chapter explores this question by understanding innovative business and financing models as strategic options chosen by the state to achieve public value as effectively as possible. The focus is primarily on the financial dimension, and related to this, the opportunities and risks that arise for the different partners. I will argue that a strategically acting public organisation must not only understand its own business model, but also the business models of all actors involved. Only then will it be possible to develop a value creation system that provides sustainable benefits to all stakeholders. Using selected examples of innovative financing models, I will show

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that such arrangements can be successfully constructed, but that they also have their own pitfalls and vagaries.

THE CHANGE IN FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE Financial management in the state – as accounting and budgeting – is often treated quite technically. Accounting in particular is primarily intended to document how public funds are used by the administration and how the financial situation in a public budget is presented (Broadbent & Laughlin, 2003). The budget, on the other hand, also has a highly political function: it reflects political priorities, serves as a political steering instrument and as the basis for the administration’s accountability to politicians, as well as politicians’ accountability to the population (Rubin, 2006). As an instrument of strategic management, the budget in its traditional form was hardly considered at all, as it was too short-term with its one-year horizon and, as a line-itemised budget, contained too many operational details. Interestingly, this contrasts with early approaches to a more strategic perspective on the budget, such as those developed in the USA in the Department of Defense under Robert McNamara, which tried to combine systems analysis with budget analysis: The Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (Barzelay & Campbell, 2003) – which, however, did not spread much from there and thus remained an isolated application for years. The New Public Management (NPM) significantly strengthened the management perspective in many public organisations, which also affected the financial dimension of strategic management. This became visible in performance-based budgets that were introduced on a broad scale (Melkers & Willoughby, 1998). In the new management instruments, performance and finances were presented together (OECD, 2007), in so-called “bulk budgets” (or: one-line budgets) the scope for management was expanded (Boston, Pallot, & Martin, 1996), and finally the medium-term optic typical of a strategy was strengthened (Boyne & Gould-Williams, 2003). Instead of a linear extension of the annual budget, a planning approach was adopted that first considered the desired or foreseeable development on the task side and derived the financial consequences from this. In an iterative process, finances and services were then to be brought into line. In Switzerland, the term “task and financial planning” was coined for this (Schedler & Proeller, 2010), Barzelay and Campbell (2003: 215) speak of “medium-term policy and expenditure planning”. All this shows that the public organisation has undertaken for itself a strengthening of the strategic perspective in financial management. However, these instruments still refer to the classical financing forms of taxes, fees and other charges with which administrative organisation is built up and financed. A next development step is the opening of financing in the direction of involving private entrepreneurs, initially within the framework of public–private partnerships (PPP) for public infrastructure. PPPs were developed as a tool to have public infrastructure financed by private investors. Hodge and Greve (2019) emphasise that infrastructure PPPs should be analysed with a number of fundamental concepts in

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mind, such as risk, innovation, long-termism and power-sharing. First, it is about an explicit distribution of tasks and risks to those actors who are best able to deal with the respective risks. Furthermore, PPPs are supposed to make innovative solutions possible that cannot be achieved by the state alone or by purely private performance. The duration of cooperation and its construction within the framework of PPPs is geared to the life cycle of an infrastructure, that is, to a significantly longer period than, for example, a contracting-out would do. And finally, decision-making powers and mutual dependencies are newly regulated, which distributes power among the actors in a different way than would be the case in a classic client–contractor relationship. For the financial dimension of the strategy, this has the consequence that not only the political approval of a long-term budget for the infrastructure must be guaranteed, but that a financing model must be found that works with incentives and risks – and this in relation to an entire life cycle. Forms of cooperation between public and private actors are not limited to pure infrastructure projects. Organisationally, they can go as far as joint ventures (Andrews, Esteve, & Ysa, 2015); thematically, they are even important in foreign aid as “public-private partnerships for development” (Lee, 2006). The literature is currently dominated by discussions of new forms of collaborative governance, new governance or hybrid governance, most of which analyse the nature of the interaction between various actors from the private and public sectors with an emphasis on political science aspects (Hodge & Greve, 2019; Koppenjan, Karré, & Termeer, 2019). In the strategy literature of the private sector, one aspect has been singled out in recent years from a whole range of innovations that increasingly seems to be becoming a next development step for the creation of public value: business model innovation. Companies are constantly developing innovative technologies and commercialising them through business models, which, in turn, are often left unchanged. However, for a company’s strategy to be successful, it may be more rewarding to innovate the business model than to invest even more in new technologies (Chesbrough, 2010). For this reason, the ability to innovate the business model is vital in a business context. Public management scholars may observe this development and think about analogies that are relevant for the public sector. In order to strengthen the innovativeness of public organizations, the approach of business model innovation can be considered as an idea that could travel from the business to the public domain, with necessary adaptation (Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008). In the following, I will describe how the basic idea of business model innovation has been transferred to public organisations, what role the financial dimension in particular plays, and where we find potential for further application.

BUSINESS MODELS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR Where the term “business models” is used in the government context, it has obviously been borrowed from the private sector, as it implies that a business with profit potential is associated with a public service. In the context of the NPM debate, it was

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also occasionally used to denounce the then new way of organising public organisations similar to businesses (James, 2001). In the meantime, these rather fundamental hurdles seem to have largely fallen; the term is used analytically as a metaphor for complex value creation systems that follow an innovative financing model. In the traditional “public administration” and “public management” journals, the term is hardly used, which suggests that it has not yet established itself there: as of 1 August 2021, a search in the Web of Science for the search term “business model*” yields zero hits in Public Administration; Public Administration Review; Public Administration and Development; Public Policy and Administration; Public Policy; International Public Management Journal; International Review of Administrative Sciences, and only one hit in Public Management Review (Timeus, Vinaixa, & Pardo-Bosch, 2020). In contrast, there are several papers in field-related journals such as Government Information Quarterly (Magalhaes & Roseira, 2020; Ranerup, Henriksen, & Hedman, 2016; Zhang, Zhao, & He, 2020) or even Research Policy (Agarwal, Mittal, Patterson, & Giorcelli, 2021). Business models provide a systemic view of how organisations or networks create value for themselves and others (Amit & Zott, 2021). They divide complex organisational arrangements of creating individual products or services into different perspectives that illuminate both the demand and supply side of a product or service (Agarwal et al., 2021). Two themes dominate the different business models: firstly, the focus on customer value, and secondly, a statement of the fundamental logic of value creation (Janssen, Kuk, & Wagenaar, 2008). Gassmann et al. (2014) have shown that business models can be typified: for the private sector, they identified 55 different types to which almost all models found in practice can be assigned. Nespresso, for example, uses the same business model as the manufacturers of printers: the basic device (investment by the consumer) is inexpensive, and the capsules or cartridges (consumption) deliver a high margin. In their analysis, the authors distinguish four key elements of a business model in the private sector: first, who are the target customers?; second, what is the value proposition? (“What do we offer customers?”); third, how is the value chain designed? (“How do we produce the service?”); fourth, what is the revenue mechanic? (“How is the financial value achieved?”). Even today, the public sector is by no means as monotonous in terms of business models as it might appear at first glance. Various of these 55 business models can also be found in the public sector (Table 14.1), even if they were not always originally developed as strategic innovations. For example, the “flat rate” model is used in Switzerland for the annual general season ticket for public transport; the “auction” model comes into play when attractive car licence plates are auctioned off by the state; the “add-on” model is an analogy to the fees that private individuals have to pay for the commercial use of urban land owned by the city. Business models are generally seen as a suitable vehicle for making the state’s service delivery or impact generation more innovative. “In the public sector, there is no competition to serve the citizens or the requirement to generate profits. However,

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Table 14.1

Examples of private business models that also exist in the state context

Business models according to Gassmann et al.

Examples of applications in the state

(2014) Add-on; separate billing of extra services that come Fees for private use of a public infrastructure, e.g. if a restaurant along with a core product

uses municipal land to run an outdoor part or a beer garden The core product would be the licence, the add-on the outdoor allowance

Auction; sale in the competitive process

(Not only) in Malaysia, governments offer public tenders for attractive number plates for carsa

Cross-selling; selling product A while promoting

A city promotes a ban on oil heating and combines it with offers

product B

for sustainable energy provided by the city administration

Experience selling; emotionalisation of products

“Züri Wasser” – in the city of Zurich, drinking water is bottled commercially in the same quality as it comes out of the tap. This leads to the awareness of high quality water provided by the city administration

Flat rate; unlimited consumption at a fixed price

In several countries, annual public transport season ticket for trains, buses, and vessels can be bought with a flat rate

Note: 

a

https://www.carsome.my/news/item/car-plate-number (accessed 28 September 2021).

the need to improve public services and foster new ideas and collaborations is particularly relevant” (Panagiotopoulos, Al-Debei, Fitzgerald, & Elliman, 2012: 193). Business models take on strategic importance in the public sector when they are considered as the subject of innovation. The concept of business model innovation is mainly discussed in connection with the digitalisation of public administration (Janssen et al., 2008) and the design of smart cities (Timeus et al., 2020). The focus here is on the role of the state in complex value creation systems that unite a large number of different actors. More recently, business model innovations based on digital platforms have been discussed (Ranerup et al., 2016): data platforms, service platforms, but also platforms for mediating services that create public value. In the context of e-government, Janssen et al. (2008) mention three different roles of the state in different platform models, the content provider, full service provider, or infrastructure service provider. As a content provider, the state makes its information statically available, which in turn is used by other actors to develop services for citizens. Value is created and financed through the commercial use of the information. As a full service provider, the state itself makes its services comprehensively available, and financing comes from taxpayers’ money. The value creation therefore remains solely with the state. As an infrastructure service provider, the state provides infrastructure so that other actors can offer their services through the use of this infrastructure. Platforms are not primarily a technical challenge, but they must be set up skilfully. Cordella and Paletti (2019) find for Italy that platform models in the government context can generate high public value if they are well orchestrated. If the state lacks this capacity, they can also have counterproductive effects. Platform models (with their challenges) are, of course, only partly new – the state, for example,

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has long been active as an infrastructure service provider when competitive models are applied in network industries, and has learned to tame the resulting market forces (Finger, 2022). Practitioners usually appreciate tools that reduce complexity. Thus, visualising charts are often used to summarise the respective business model of a product or service on one page and to think about innovations. Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) call this a business model canvas. The approach has subsequently been taken up and further developed for public organisation types, such as smart cities (Timeus et al., 2020). This type of visualisation can be a valuable tool in the process of strategising a public organisation (i.e. when it comes to strategically repositioning the value creation of a service). Based on this literature, it is possible to identify the core elements that need to be considered when analysing, developing and innovating business models in the public sector (Figure 14.1). These are: Public value and impact. In the terminology of the business model literature, the term “value proposition” dominates in the sense of the benefit that a product or service should provide to the customer (Panagiotopoulos et al., 2012). For government value creation, the focus is on public value (i.e. the benefit that the government should generate for the community). In contrast to private-sector models, the effects that are important for the sustainable well-being of a community (i.e. economic, social and ecological dimensions, must also be taken into account) (Timeus et al., 2020). The core questions of the government business model here are: What is the public value being delivered? What impact is defined as the basis for assessing value creation? Target groups/beneficiaries. Clarifying the target groups is essential so that their needs can be placed in the focus of value creation (Timeus et al., 2020). However, the strategic scope for public organisations is often limited, as the political mandate usually defines the target groups – at least those who are to benefit from the impact. The core question of the government business model here is: Who are the addressees of the services through which public value is to be delivered? Value creation processes. The type of value creation has a significant influence on the quality of the service: duration of creation, costs, citizen-centredness or involvement of citizens in the delivery of impact depend not least on the architecture of the value creation (Ranerup et al., 2016). The value creation process defines which actors are involved in the value chain with which services. Many business model innovations explicitly define an active role of the users here (i.e. the citizens in the case of the public sector). The core question of the government business model here is: In which value chains and processes is public value delivered? Risk distribution and accountability. When different actors work together in value systems, the risks and associated responsibilities can be distributed among the actors, as is also the aim of PPPs (Hodge & Greve, 2019). Central in this context is the awareness that each actor pursues its own business model, which should finance it sustainably. Understanding private companies and their respective business logic can be key to the long-term success of the whole (Magalhaes & Roseira, 2020). The key questions of the government business model here are: How are risks distributed

Business model innovation and the financial dimension of strategy  217

among the actors in such a way that they can best bear them based on their specific competencies? Who is responsible for which parts of the value creation system?

Figure 14.1

Elements of business model innovation in the state

Expertise in context. The development and application of business models requires both technical expertise and knowledge of the multiple areas touched by the business model (Panagiotopoulos et al., 2012). Beyond the technical expertise, however, in-depth knowledge of the concrete (local) context in which the value creation system is to operate is also required. At the same time, this distributed agency leads to a need for coordination that can be met, for example, through regulation and orchestration (Axelson, Netz, & Sandstrom, 2017). The core question of the state business model here is: What technical and contextual competences are available among diverse actors to make the value chains work? Funding. For a value creation system to function sustainably, a funding mechanism must be in place for all actors to contribute to public value creation. Owner costs, pricing methods and revenue structures are part of this element of the business model (Panagiotopoulos et al., 2012; Ranerup et al., 2016). The key questions of the government business model here are: How is sustainable financing of public value delivery ensured? Which actors generate, which receive financial flows in the value system?

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ZOOMING IN: INNOVATIVE FINANCING MODELS The financial dimension of the strategy to develop new business models in the public sector is reflected not least in innovative financing models. They are a central building block of business model innovation in the public sector. Since this chapter focuses primarily on the financial dimension, these innovative financing models are discussed in more detail here in the sense of a “zooming-in”. Innovative financing models usually aim to replace existing state financing with outcome-based alternatives of financing involving private actors (Klasen, 2022). Simple approaches are bonds that are tax-exempt in order to attract investors for specific projects. More complex constructions can be found as project-specific revenue bonds, green bonds or social impact bonds. But also, result-based financing in connection with performance contracts or crowdfunding are among the innovative financing models (Mogyorósy, n.d.). In the development sector, innovative financing mechanisms have been used for some time to facilitate cost-intensive projects (Gelil, 2018). Sandor et al. describe these models in an OECD publication as … to comprise mechanisms of raising funds or stimulating actions in support of international development that go beyond traditional spending approaches by either the official or private sectors, such as: • New approaches for pooling private and public revenue streams to scale up or develop activities for the benefit of partner countries; • New revenue streams (e.g. a new tax, charge, fee, bond raising, sale proceed or voluntary contribution scheme) earmarked to developmental activities on a multi-year basis; • New incentives (financial guarantees, corporate social responsibility or other rewards or recognition) to address market failures or scale up ongoing developmental activities. (Sandor, Scott, & Benn, 2009: 3)

However, the strategic importance of such innovative financing models extends far beyond the policy field of development. They form an essential core of strategic considerations for business model innovation in a city or country. In practice, there are quite a few applications of innovative financing models. Like the business models in Gassmann et al. (2014), they can be categorised into a typology, which I will limit to the most important five types for the time being. Further research should add to the list of basic types of innovative financing models. 1.

Financing the Results: Using the Expertise of the Private Sector

Many innovative financing models use the result of an action as a benchmark for financing. In this way, the risk of whether a result can actually be achieved is transferred to the private partner, and the commissioning state benefits from the performance and expertise of the private partner. Financing can take the form of a result-dependent one-off payment or a performance-based contract (Gelil, 2018).

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An Energy Performance Contract (EPC) can be mentioned as an example: In an EPC, a city concludes a performance contract with an energy service company that undertakes to achieve a certain reduction in the city’s energy consumption through a bundle of measures. The financing of the measures is linked to the achievement of this target, usually graded according to the extent of the reduction (Mogyorósy, n.d.). This financing model is based on the performance contracts and performance budgets familiar from the NPM, but it is consistently impact-oriented. The structure, on the other hand, is relatively less complex as long as the impact (i.e. the reduction in energy consumption) can be reliably measured. 2.

Guarantees: Reducing the Risk of the Lender

The range of applications for guarantees has grown enormously and become diverse in recent times. By assuming a guarantee for a debt, the state assumes part of the default risk that the lender would otherwise have to bear alone. If it took the risk at all, the lender would demand a premium corresponding to the risk level. This could lead to a situation where the fulfiller of a public task cannot financially afford the financing and the task is thus not fulfilled without direct state financing. The instrument of the guarantee generally only makes sense if it is assumed that private financing can be repaid by the borrower with a calculable probability. If the private financier participates in the risk (e.g. by the guarantee only referring to a part of the loan amount), an incentive is created for the financier to check the lending with his expertise – whereby the specific know-how of the financier can be integrated into the value creation system. A current example of a guarantee solution is the rapid granting of COVID loans to companies in Switzerland. In order to bridge the emerging liquidity bottlenecks of Swiss companies, COVID loans were granted by Swiss banks to companies in need, guaranteed by the Swiss government. For loans of more than CHF500,000, the banks shared 15 per cent of the credit risk. The cooperation of the banking system with the Confederation led to a very efficient solution: on 20 March 2020, the programme was presented in the amount of CHF20 billion, on 3 April 2020 it was expanded to CHF40 billion due to the great demand, and by the end of July 2020, about 150,000 loan agreements had already been concluded between banks and companies.1 Another example is Denmark’s Eksportkredit (EKF) for innovative companies. Here, the European Investment Fund and EKF have signed a counter-guarantee agreement to increase lending to innovative small and medium-sized enterprises.2 3.

Crowdfunding: Involving the Citizens

Crowdfunding models take the momentum created when citizens want to get involved in a specific cause. They create the opportunity for citizens to invest in a project that meets this concern. As a rule, citizens then become not only investors but also users. Depending on the design of the model, they can also obtain an economic return on investment, which, according to a recent study on civic crowdfund-

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ing, can increase the willingness of citizens to get involved as financiers of a public task (De Crescenzo, Botella-Carrubi, & Garcia, 2021). The city of Bern (Switzerland) wanted to promote solar energy. Instead of simply installing solar panels themselves, the city made the roofs of municipal properties available to a non-profit organization (NPO) that developed a business model: ● ● ● ●

Citizens buy shares in the NPO and use them to pre-finance the investments; The NPO plans, builds and finances the infrastructure; The municipal electricity company takes over the electricity into its grid; As investors, the participating citizens receive discounted solar electricity for 20 years.

The programme has been so successful that there is now also a “business solution” for companies that want to get involved in promoting solar power.3 4.

Impact Investing: Activating Big Investors

Impact investments aim to generate a social impact, typically of a social or environmental nature. At the same time, they should enable a financial return for the investor (Gelil, 2018). The best-known instrument in this category is the Social Impact Bond (SIB). With a SIB, large investors typically invest in projects that are intended to achieve a certain social impact. If this impact is achieved, there is a repayment plus an agreed risk premium. The state guarantees this repayment. The entrepreneur who implements the projects also receives a performance-based payment. An independent auditor carries out the performance review and reports to all parties involved. This financing model includes the individual business models of the actors into its consideration: ● The state benefits from the guarantee that the impact will actually be achieved – which, in view of countless ineffective projects of traditional financing, is worth the risk premium to it; ● The investor benefits from the reputation of a social impact investment (“corporate social responsibility”) or is intrinsically motivated to look for investment opportunities in this area. Furthermore, the risk premium is economically exciting. Last but not least, private investors are likely to keep a special eye on the entrepreneur when they take this risk, which in turn relieves the state in its monitoring task; ● The entrepreneur receives a performance-related remuneration; ● The independent auditor provides his know-how as an expert on site. An example of an international SIB is the “Humanitarian Impact Bond” launched by the International Committee of the Red Cross for the construction and operation of three rehabilitation centres in Nigeria, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo.4

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Table 14.2

Types of subsidies

Types

Expressions

Examples

Contributions (à fonds

● Investment contributions

State subsidises a task

perdu)

● Operating contributions

Concessionary loans

● Interest rate subsidy

State awards low-cost liquidity to a private

● Contingently repayable loans

party that performs a public task

● Loan with subordination ● Overlong runtime Revenue foregone

● Waiver of fee/charge/price

State provides infrastructure for free

Loans

● Mezzanine financing

State promotes innovation by granting loans that are only conditionally repayable

Source:  Based on Klasen (2020) and Schedler & Bolz (2021).

5.

Subsidies: Support with Government Money

Subsidies are in themselves a traditional financing instrument of the state. They are often contributions à fonds perdu (i.e. purely financial transactions for a specific task that do not generate any revenue). If state financing is thought of more broadly, it includes other instruments, such as concessionary loans or foregoing revenues that the state could otherwise generate (Table 14.2). In any case, the state provides more or less direct financial support to the provider of a public service. When analysing or designing more complex innovative financing models, it can be helpful to think in terms of various types. There is rarely a single instrument that can solve all problems. Therefore, the clever modular combination of types of subsidies that are linked to a specific purpose is often the royal road to a functioning business model innovation. The variations on innovative financing models are countless. What is striking is the networking of competencies that were not required in the traditional models of self-fulfilment by the state: knowhow from public law (e.g. public procurement) is combined with specific technical knowledge of a service provision, with local knowledge of what is culturally feasible, with networks in the capital market and with the knowledge of financing experts. This results in a wide range of possible solutions that increasingly aim to use leverage effects and multipliers to strengthen a public value and to mobilise different actors with specific competences for implementation.

STRATEGIC SKILLS FOR INNOVATIVE BUSINESS AND FINANCING MODELS Business model innovation is an important pillar of a successful strategy not only in the private sector, but also in the public sector. However, it is associated with some risks, as it entails a change that is sometimes very noticeable. Chesbrough describes it for the private sector as follows: “Business model innovation is vital, yet very

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difficult … the barriers to change are real. [Model] experiments will fail, but [if] they inform new approaches and understanding, this is to be expected – even encouraged” (Chesbrough, 2010: 362), and there is no reason why the situation should be easier in the public sector with its multiple stakeholders and conflicting interests. For public organisations, business model innovation means that they must first become familiar with business model thinking. Different rationalities have to be brought together to arrive at an innovative business model that works sustainably. The interplay of disciplines, each with their own specific expertise, is a challenge for the openness of the actors and their ability to communicate with each other beyond their own disciplinary fields. Examples include: Legal competencies: At least in continental Europe, the first step is to master the requirements of public law, such as public procurement law, the equal treatment of citizens and companies in a country, or the legally prescribed budget processes – and, if necessary, to adapt or create new legal foundations (Schedler & Bolz, 2021). Political competencies: As before, business models of the state operate in a political environment that functions according to its own rules of the game, depending on the local context. The political conditions must be created so that private sector actors and instruments are activated for the production of public value. Financial competencies: Many business model innovations use financial instruments that are unfamiliar to the traditional state entity. Investments (with return-on-investment), swaps, fund-of-funds, and other instruments from the capital market are not familiar to the typical politician and civil servant (de Gruyter, Petrie, Black, & Gharghori, 2020). This expertise has to be borrowed from the private sector or newly developed (Klasen, 2022). Public management competencies: The repertoire of management competencies in the public sector needs to be expanded to include the ability to innovate business models. This may be supported in terms of content with tools such as the City Model Canvas (Timeus et al., 2020), taxonomies for analysing business models in the public sector (Janssen et al., 2008) or a business model evaluation tool (Díaz-Díaz, Muñoz, & Pérez-González, 2017). However, management and organisation of change processes in the state context remain a central challenge, as was already the case with NPM. As with PPPs, where we now have three decades of experience, the challenge with business model innovation is likely to be good governance and orchestration. Hodge and Greve (2019) show that the expertise of the actors involved in designing a PPP, but also the open collaboration culture, has a significant influence on the success of a PPP. Practical experience in Switzerland with business model innovations confirms this picture; the big challenge here is often to bring the experts, who function very differently, to the table and jointly develop “up-front” arrangements that last (Schedler & Bolz, 2021).

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BENEFITS OF THE BUSINESS MODEL APPROACH FOR THE ADMINISTRATION’S STRATEGY Business models can be applied in both private and public contexts, both analytically and as a design tool. In analysis, they provide a heuristic that helps with their structure to work out the individual elements of a value creation system. At the same time, they offer a holistic, systemic view of value creation that captures the dynamic relationships between the different elements. As a design tool, the approach helps to question and innovate existing business models in the state. In their method of business model innovation, Gassmann et al. (2014) show how organisations can use a design approach to gradually arrive at innovative business models. Timeus et al. (2020) cite three advantages of the business model approach as a strategic innovation tool: (1) identification of those stakeholders who can be activated in a value creation system; (2) a holistic view of all important elements of a service; (3) inclusion not only of the economic, but also the social and ecological effects of an innovation in service delivery. A similar conclusion is reached by Axelson et al. (2017), who see the strengths of the business model approach primarily in the fact that it shows innovation potential and makes innovation barriers in the public sector transparent. In their study, they find that while there is a demand for innovation, at the same time the incentives for public and private actors in traditional forms of cooperation diverge to such an extent that sustainable cooperation is hardly possible. And although market actors are open to cooperation, the different roles often remain unclear. Finally, Díaz-Díaz et al. (2017) show that thanks to this approach, different business models can be compared in a structured way to identify the one with the better cost-benefit ratio. At the same time, all studies point out that business model thinking is still very new for many administrations and sometimes overwhelms them. The new funding models are not only seen in a positive light. Critics warn against using them in policy areas that do not have reliable impact measurements, such as criminal justice systems (Fox & Albertson, 2011). They also argue that government funding could crowd out purely private activities, or at least disrupt local competitive processes, if it is not possible to adequately measure the outcomes of the intervention (Klasen, 2022). Finally, a recent study from the United Kingdom shows that it is difficult for public communities to familiarise themselves with the thinking of private investors and – here using the example of a social impact bond – to design the business model in such a way that it is attractive to investors (de Gruyter et al., 2020).

CONCLUSION Business model innovation is a topic that belongs to the repertoire of research on strategy work in the public sector. It comes from management rather than political thinking, and it needs to be implemented carefully and with consideration for the local political context. The starting point of business model innovation is the question: How could the public value of this service of the state be created differently, in

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cooperation with private parties? With a view to future developments in the strategies of public organisations, business model innovation cannot be ignored. There is still a need to catch up in this area in the public administration and management community, which can be covered by targeted development of the necessary competencies in practice and by further research in academia.

NOTES 1. See https://​www​.efd​.admin​.ch/​efd/​de/​home/​covid19​-u​eberbrueck​ungshilfe/​infos​.html (accessed 9 August 2021). 2. See https://​www​.eif​.org/​what​_we​_do/​guarantees/​news/​2016/​efsi​_innovfin​_ekf​.htm (accessed 20 August 2021). 3. See https://​sunraising​.ch/​business/​(accessed 10 August 2021). 4. See https://​www​.icrc​.org/​en/​document/​worlds​-first​-humanitarian​-impact​-bond​-launched​ -transform​-financing​-aid​-conflict​-hit (accessed 4 August 2021).

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De Crescenzo, V., D. Botella-Carrubi, and M.R. Garcia (2021) Civic crowdfunding: a new opportunity for local governments. Journal of Business Research, 123, 580–87. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1016/​j​.jbusres​.2020​.10​.021. de Gruyter, E., D. Petrie, N. Black, and P. Gharghori (2020) Attracting investors for public health programmes with social impact bonds. Public Money & Management, 40(3), 225–36. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​09540962​.2020​.1714312. Díaz-Díaz, R., L. Muñoz, and D. Pérez-González (2017) The business model evaluation tool for smart cities: application to SmartSantander use cases. Energies, 10(3). https://​doi​.org/​ 10​.3390/​en10030262. Finger, M. (2022) Network industries. In K. Schedler (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Management. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Fox, C., and K. Albertson (2011) Payment by results and social impact bonds in the criminal justice sector: new challenges for the concept of evidence-based policy? Criminology & Criminal Justice, 11(5), 395–413. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​1748895811415580. Gassmann, O., K. Frankenberger, and M. Csik (2014) The Business Model Navigator: 55 Models That Will Revolutionise Your Business. London: FT Publishing. Gelil, I.A. (2018) Innovative financing. In N. Saab and A.-K. Sadik (eds), Financing Sustainable Development in Arab Countries (pp. 85–108). Beirut: AFED. Hodge, G.A., and C. Greve (2019) The Logic of Public–Private Partnerships: The Enduring Interdependency of Politics and Markets. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. James, O. (2001) Business models and the transfer of businesslike centralgovernment agencies. Governance, 14(2), 233–52. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​1468​-0491​.00159. Janssen, M., G. Kuk, and R.W. Wagenaar (2008) A survey of web-based business models for e-government in the Netherlands. Government Information Quarterly, 25(2), 202–20. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.giq​.2007​.06​.005. Klasen, A. (2020) Staatliche Finanzierung für innovative Exportunternehmen. In A. Müller, M. Graumann, and H.J. Weiss (eds), Innovationen für eine digitale Wirtschaft (pp. 199–224). Wiesbaden: Springer. Klasen, A. (2022) Innovative funding schemes in public management. In K. Schedler (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Management. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Klijn, E.-H. (2002) Governing networks in the hollow state: contracting out, process management or a combination of the two? Public Management Review, 4(2), 149–65. Koppenjan, J.F.M., P.M. Karré, and K. Termeer (eds) (2019) Smart Hybridity: Potentials and Challenges of New Governance Arrangements. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing. Lee, S. (2006) Public–Private Partnerships for Development: A Handbook for Business. New York: USAID/CED. Magalhaes, G., and C. Roseira (2020) Open government data and the private sector: an empirical view on business models and value creation. Government Information Quarterly, 37(3). https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.giq​.2017​.08​.004. Melkers, J., and K. Willoughby (1998) The state of the states: performance-based budgeting requirements in 47 out of 50. Public Administration Review, 58(1), 66–73. Mogyorósy, E. (n.d.) Innovative financing mechanisms. International Urban Cooperation Programme. https://​iuc​.eu/​na/​resources/​?s​_title​_o​=​Innovative+​Financing+​Mechanisms​&​ s​_topic​=​&​s​_sdg​=​&​s​_type​=​&​s​_country​=​&​s​_language​=​&​c​=​filter. OECD (2007) Performance Budgeting in OECD countries. Paris: OECD. Osterwalder, A., and Y. Pigneur (2010) Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

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Panagiotopoulos, P., M.M. Al-Debei, G. Fitzgerald, and T. Elliman (2012) A business model perspective for ICTs in public engagement. Government Information Quarterly, 29(2), 192–202. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.giq​.2011​.09​.011. Ranerup, A., H.Z. Henriksen, and J. Hedman (2016) An analysis of business models in public service platforms. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), 6–14. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​ j​.giq​.2016​.01​.010. Rubin, I.S. (2006) The Politics of Public Budgeting: Getting and Spending, Borrowing and Balancing. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Sahlin, K., and L. Wedlin (2008) Circulating ideas: imitation, translation and editing. In C. Oliver, K. Sahlin, R. Suddaby, and R. Greenwood (eds), Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism (pp. 218–42). London: Sage. Sandor, E., S. Scott, and J. Benn (2009) Innovative financing to fund development: progress and prospects. DCD Issues Brief, November. https://​www​.cbd​.int/​financial/​doc/​oecd​ -innovative2009​.pdf. Schedler, K., and U. Bolz (2021) Business Model Innovation in the Public Sector. St. Gallen: IMP-HSG. Schedler, K., and I. Proeller (2010) Outcome-oriented Public Management: A Responsibility-​ based Approach to the New Public Management. Charlotte, NC: IAP. Timeus, K., J. Vinaixa, and F. Pardo-Bosch (2020) Creating business models for smart cities: a practical framework. Public Management Review, 22(5), 726–45. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​ 14719037​.2020​.1718187. Torfing, J., L.B. Andersen, C. Greve, and K.K. Klausen (2020) Public Governance Paradigms: Competing and Co-existing. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Zhang, N., X.J. Zhao, and X.P. He (2020) Understanding the relationships between information architectures and business models: an empirical study on the success configurations of smart communities. Government Information Quarterly, 37(2). https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​ j​.giq​.2019​.101439.

15. The individual public manager as a strategic actor in relation to the organizational environment Kurt Klaudi Klausen

UNDERSTANDING THE ORGANIZATION–ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIP The environment of public managers may be said to be society at large. To a large extent, the environment will be framed by the public sector context of political leadership, public laws, and wicked problems. Another way of identifying the environment of the individual public manager as a strategic actor is to identify modernization programs and public governance paradigms that often define the managerial responsibilities, discretionary choices and, accordingly, the room for strategic maneuvering. However, the environment of the individual manager may also more narrowly be the strategic situation that is defined by external threats and internal capabilities. The ability to know what is most important and what to do about it depends on the analyses and perception of the situation. Strategic awareness and oversight are personal and often innate skills that may be strengthened by experience and education. To that extent, theories and analytical tools from the young science of strategic management may help managers act strategically. The strategic manager must be capable of understanding the strategic situation and make appropriate decisions for strategic action in order to fulfill long-range goals and visions. So, the ability to see the situation realistically, notice important traits and to interpret them accordingly becomes of vital importance even if this may be an act of negotiation in the light of ambiguity and bounded rationality. Sometimes even simple models – such as stakeholder analyses – may help create oversight and reflexive insight into vital parts of an organizational environment. Among many theories and models, take Mitchell, Agle, and Wood’s (1997) stakeholder identification matrix, that stresses the importance of power, dependence and reciprocity, legitimacy and urgency, a model which is viable not only in identifying important stakeholders but also in analyzing change and development over time. When analyzing the strategic situation, the manager must have the sensibility and analytical skills to notice strong tendencies as well as weak signs that may be of importance and to process them into joint decisions that are sufficiently purposeful and collectively meaningful so that others may recognize them and make them their own. The most important skill in seeing and interpreting the situation ‘rightfully’ is the ability of abstraction, the ability to see patterns where others may see chaos, and 227

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to acknowledge that some issues are of more importance than others in paving the way for prioritization. It is within the field of organization theory, and subfields of management and strategic leadership that managers may acquire the needed tools to create their strategic overview. Recently, however, political science also offers theoretical insight and practical advice. Here, the notion of governance paradigms is of particular interest and importance. The theoretical understanding of strategic environments has moved far from the initial relatively concise and objective understanding of the relationship between organization and environment through theories of autopoiesis and enacted environments to a postmodern dissolvement of the boundaries between organization and environments. Similarly, the managerial challenges of decoding strategic situations and strategic maneuvering in present day’s turbulent times and hybrid governance paradigms is quite different from the more stable and foreseeable bureaucratic systems of the past. The organization–environment relation has been of interest to managers since contingency theory and open systems theory became mainstream in the middle of the twentieth century. Organizations were perceived as open systems that were influenced by and dependent upon their environment, on the one hand, and could make their own mark on the environment, on the other. This is the insight that Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) so vividly discuss with reference to mutual dependencies. The organization–environment relation is very much a matter of surviving in the ‘organizational jungle’ where natural selection and strategic choices make the difference. Population ecology is the equivalent to the ecological study of species (population ecology has been studied by e.g., Hannan and Freeman 1977; Aldrich 1979; Burgelman 2002). An early insight is Barnard (1938) who underlined that organizations must strive for their survival and that successful cooperation within and between organizations is the exception rather than the rule. Similarly, Thompson (1967) saw organizations as natural open systems fighting for their survival. The organizations that survive for a while are those who are capable of flexible adaption to changing environments. This flexible adaption is dependent on (rational) strategic decisions and managerial execution. In Scott’s words, organizations can be perceived as both rational, natural, and open systems (Scott 1992), they can also be seen as loosely coupled systems and coalitions with negotiated environments (Cyert and March 1963) and in Burgelman’s words, strategy is the way to alter the odds embedded in the situation so that “strategy is destiny” (Burgelman 2002). According to contingency theory, management is situational (Blake and Mouton 1964; Hersey and Blanchard 1969), and the best way to go is considered to be influenced by and dependent upon both internal and external circumstance. Whereas bureaucracy, scientific management, and human relations theory focused upon rationalizing organizations internally without devastating motivation, contingency theory and open systems theory changed the focus from the inside to the external environment. The objective was to adopt to changing environment by achieving strategic fit, which to a large extent meant designfit, a dynamic concept

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indicating that configurations of structures were to be adjusted and reinvented in the light of circumstance (Woodward 1958; Lawrence and Lorsh 1967; Galbraith 1973, 2002; Donaldson 1987) just as strategies can be seen as emerging (Mintzberg 1994) because strategies constantly have to be developed, adjusted, and altered in the light of environmental changes. So, when Chandler (1962) studied the development of big American companies and Miles and Snow (1978) studied health and publishing firms, they were interested in the relationship between strategy and structure and in securing strategic fit by a structural design that would align the organization with its environment. Design configurations should match the situation so that, for example, an environment that was considered more or less competitive, homogeneous, complex, and dynamic was matched by more or less organic organizational designs such as bureaucracies and adhocracies (Mintzberg 1983). Specific strategies such as being defenders, prospectors, analyzers (Miles and Snow 1978) or networks (Miles and Snow 1994), or focusing upon differentiation (Porter 1980), white space (Hamel and Prahalad 1994) and blue oceans (Kim and Mauborgne 2005), accordingly should be matched by altering the structure and function of the organization. To a large extent the old contingency theory seems to be generic and still hold merit (see e.g., Hammer and Champy 1993; Donaldson 2001; Burton and Obel 2004). But matching an organization to its environment is more than a matter of strategy, structure, and process. To a large extent, it is also a matter of adapting to the environment by matching the internal resources to the environment seen as the environment of specific organizations situated in an organizational set or domain and to the survival tactics and strategies chosen to deal with its complex and changing environments. This has been the focus of resource theory since Penrose (1959) raised the awareness of seeing organizations as bundles of resources and Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) elaborated on the external constraints and the mutual dependencies between organizations and their environments, and this is still the perspective in resource-based theory, which is increasingly seen as a dynamic interplay between organizations and environments (Wernerfelt 1984; Teece et al. 1997). A similar perspective focusing on what produces value and advantages is found in Porter’s (1985) idea of tailoring the value chain and in ideas of quality management and lean (Garvin 1988; Zink 1998).

TECHNICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENTS One of the important questions regarding the organization–environment relation addresses to what extent the environment is in fact objectively identifiable or actually enacted, as Weick (1979: 151, 164) puts it. Scott (1992: 20) describes the relationships between the way in which an organization interprets its situation, how it is to structure and position itself, and produce outputs and outcomes as a cycle of interdependence with elements including both the objective and the enacted environment. An important dichotomy that conceptualizes some of the above-mentioned questions of environments being more or less objective is the distinction between

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technical and institutional environments. It forces organizations to identify and look at traits in the environment that can be attributed to technical and institutional environments. Meyer and Scott (1983) propose that technical environments, also identified with task environments, are those in which organizations which are typically positioned in a market are rewarded for effective and efficient performance, whereas institutional environments are those in which organizations are embedded in rules and requirements to which they must conform if they are to gain legitimacy and support. To a large extent, public organizations operate in institutional environments, whereas private firms operate in technical environments. However, all organizations operate in both technical and institutional environments. Boseman (1998) argues likewise when saying that all organizations are public, meaning that private firms are also prone to laws and regulations. Still, the bulk of literature on strategic management is generated from studies in private firms. Hence, many studies on strategic management (such as Galbraith, Miles and Snow, and Porter) are preoccupied with the analyses of technical or task environments. All of the abovementioned theories and models that may be used in trying to analyze and understand the strategic situation propose specific tools that can be of use in exploring the relationship between organizations and environments. Many of the early and now classical strategic models used for analyses such as the SWOT/ TOWS-analyses, Portfolio-analyses, the Five-Forces-analyses (Porter 1980) and grid/value-curve-analyses are primarily aimed at the task/technical environment (Andrews 1971; Hofer and Schendel 1978; Porter 1980; Kim and Mauborgne 2005). Here, the environment to a large extent takes the form of something relatively observable and objective, such as products, prices, earnings, marked growth, and marked share. The institutional analyses and models are typically less ‘objective’ and more prone to negotiation and interpretation. Such models have ‘many fathers’ (typically within marketing, organization theory and political science) and include PEST-analyses (Political, Economic, Social, Technological), stakeholder-analyses, and analyses of symbols and appropriateness. They come in various forms including diverse elements from, for example, the social, political, legal and ecological environments. Some of them are relatively abstract such as looking at structure as ceremonial adjustments to institutional environments and identifying the forces that may explain why organizations address their environment by developing isomorphic structures (see e.g., Powell and DiMaggio 1991). Others are more specific in using insights from organization theory in trying to understand what happens in the ‘black box’ where strategic decision-making takes place. Many of these analyses such as the so-called strategy in action approaches touch upon the processes of strategizing, the formation and enactment of emerging strategies entangled in the power plays and discourses among strategic actors who are engaged in the management of such diverse elements as cultures and stakeholders (see Golsorkhi et al. 2010). All of these perspectives may come in handy for the individual manager who wants to scrutinize and understand the situation and the options. Even those theories that emphasize unpredictability and argue for coping strategies (e.g., Stacey 2007;

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Chia and Holt 2009) have specific consequences for the way in which managers may choose to act and behave.

ENACTED ENVIRONMENTS Weick’s (1995) notion of enacted environments is not aimed at the institutional environment as such (both technical and institutional environments are so to speak enacted) but rather concerns the creation and management of meaning, but in the above argument it is the institutional environment that is most difficult to make sense of. Most of the classical strategic analyses that look at the importance of technical environments have a clear distinction between organizations and their environment, saying that the borderlines between an organization and its environment may be identified and handled by ways of boundary spanning and strategic moves. The managers know their area of jurisdiction, what is within and what is outside the organization. Strangely enough, even if this approach derives from the open systems theory, it still holds the view that organizations are relatively well-defined systems with their own lives as natural systems, just as in theories of autopoiesis that look at organizations as relatively closed and self-referential systems that are dependent upon their environments but very selective with the inputs from and outputs to the environment via organizational borders or ‘membranes’ (Luhmann 1984; Riegas and Vetter 1991). Self-referential systems tend to see what they want and project their images to their perception of environments. In that sense, this selective interaction with the environment resembles the selective processes of enactment. What is inside and outside an organization is not necessarily as obvious when we look at the tradition emphasizing institutional environments. And the distinction and borderlines between organizations and environments get totally blurred when we arrive at postmodern organization theory (see e.g., Clegg 1990; Hatch 1997). A postmodern view of organizations questions the taken for granted ideas of, for example, democracy and bureaucracy and emphasizes the relativeness of values, the network character of organizations, the mutual dependencies and cooperation across sectors, among organizations and classical divisions of work. Whether or not individual managers will be able to create strategic oversights and insights through any of the various theories and models mentioned depends heavily upon the data and knowledge available and the ability of themselves and the organization to process them. The citation from Weick (1979) indicates that this capability may be overestimated as does much theory on managerial decision-making in the tradition of Simon and March in looking at ambiguity, bounded rationality and decision-making (Simon 1945; Cohen and March 1974; March 1988). The ability to foresee and predict also fundamentally depends upon whether or not the situation allows for causal relations between action and results. A simple model managers may use in deciphering their situation is the so-called ‘cynefin’ framework (Snowden and

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Boone 2007) that illustrates the relationship between cause and effect depending upon situations being more or less simple, complicated, complex and chaotic.

PUBLIC VALUE MANAGEMENT AND NEW SYNTHESIS When public managers are to analyze their strategic situation and the interaction with their environment, they increasingly will have to situate themselves and their area of responsibility with regard to both technical and institutional environments. New Public Management (NPM) reforms have made many organizations dependent upon making strategic moves such as differentiation strategies, marketing, and strategic communication that position them in markets or quasi markets with both direct and indirect competition, and at the same time they must position themselves in the quest for public legitimacy, that is, legitimacy among their stakeholders, the citizens, their private and voluntary cooperation partners, the public at large and, particularly, the elected politicians. A theory that addresses this particular interest analyzing stakeholders and political legitimacy in organizations with elected politicians is Berg and Jonsson (1991) who emphasize that strategic management in political markets has to do with the exchange of values and ideologies for (political) support. Similarly, Klausen (2020) argues that strategic management in the public sector is characterized by the fact that the market is not the strategic arena of primary importance, and that competitive strategy is largely irrelevant or at least not focal in public and nonprofit organizations. There are other strategic arenas and strategies that have to be attended to in order to create strategic fit and alignment, namely political strategies, design strategies, HR-strategies, and cultural, communicative, and symbolic strategies. A more well-known theory or model is Moore’s public value management theory (Moore 1995; Moore and Kaghram 2004) that focuses on the object of creating value and gaining political support for chosen strategies. The point is that there is a joint interest among different stakeholders in creating public value and that the key to make a legitimate joint effort lies in establishing an authorizing environment, a coalition that holds legitimacy not least among the elected politicians. Once this is in place, managerial efforts have to do with establishing organizational capacity. Another theory and model that may catch some of what is of importance when managers are to create an oversight of their situation and what may be expected from them strategically is Bourgon’s (2017) ‘new synthesis’. New synthesis intentionally brings together government, people and society in a new system of governance. It does so by pointing out four fields of attention that should be prioritized: traditional public sector administrative values (compliance); efficiency and effectiveness (performance); innovation and reinvention (compliance); and robustness and flexibility (resilience). Not least the last two areas reflect current issues such as sustainability and co-creation.

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The idea of co-creation stems from the paradigm of New Public Governance (NPG) and echoes the postmodern diagnoses and the identification of the importance of networks when trying to understand the way modern organizations operate.

GOVERNANCE PARADIGMS AND STRATEGIC MANEUVERING Strategic maneuvering, that is, the ability to change strategies tactically and move fast in the light of changed circumstance, is necessary when confronted with ambiguity and strategic dilemmas that stem from democratic leadership, rapidly changing policies, wicked problems, public scrutiny, and many stakeholders who are interested in the policy processes and strategies of public sector organizations. Public sector managers also have to be capable of maneuvering in the light of myriad co-existing and competing public governance paradigms (Torfing et al. 2020) that frame their institutional environment. Public governance paradigms may be defined as those policies, strategies, programs, and institutional templates that may be identified as relatively coherent and comprehensive norms and ideas about how to govern, organize and lead public administration (Torfing et al. 2020: 2). They are represented in modernization programs at national, regional, and local level; programs that aim at adapting, moving, and changing the public sector in order to accommodate the implementation of (long-range) political visions, goals, and policies. In the context of this Handbook, we may stress that the strategic choices made by public managers serve this endeavor by striving to create strategic fit and alignment in regard to both the strategic situation and changing environments. There are several governance paradigms in play at the same time, all of which are shared globally and have been scrutinized and criticized for decades (Dunleavy and Hood 1994; Hood and Dixon 2015; Christensen and Lægreid 2017; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017). Some of them are old while others are newer responses to changes in society. The classical public governance paradigms are bureaucracy and professional rule. NPM may be said to have become old school since it has been part of the modernization of public sectors throughout the world for almost half a century. The neo-Weberian State, Digital Era Governance, Public Value Management and NPG may be identified as some of the newer paradigms that are competing in framing the environment for public managers as strategic actors. The co-existing and relative importance of the paradigms changes over time and with the location as they enjoy different degrees of overall political and administrative support. Therefore, specific combinations and hybrid paradigms have to be decoded by the individual manager in order to understand the particular situation and in order for them to act as is to be expected if the rationale of the paradigm is to unfold. Torfing et al. (2020) propose a heuristic analytical model, the ‘public governance diamond’, that may serve as a point of reference when trying to create oversight by focusing on the particular profile of each of the governance paradigms that may be

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part of the individual manager’s institutional environment. The model has five axes on which the paradigms may be measured and compared: Centralized control in the virtual chain of command, Horizontal coordination, Use of value articulation, Use of incentives, and Societal involvement.

Figure 15.1

The public governance diamond classification of all the governance paradigms

When the individual manager looks at the strategic situation through the lenses of the public governance paradigms, they will discover some of the important institutional ambiguities, conflicts, and strategic dilemmas that are inherent in public sector management. The roles of politicians and managers differ, as do a number of other crucial constituencies. Each of the paradigms intentionally places power in the possession of different actors and holds different views about what should characterize relations between central actors – they are indeed paradigmatic. This is particularly clear when comparing some of the paradigms. As an example, bureaucracy places power in the hands of the political and the administrative hierarchy and trust in classical public sector values so that civil servants are expected to act loyally to the system. In contrast to this, professional rule intentionally places power in the hands of the employees and the unions and the employees are expected to be true to the ethical standards of their profession. Similarly, NPM differs from the two other paradigms in

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placing power in the hands of decentral units and markets (consumers), and actors are believed to serve their self-interest. Finally, NPG intentionally places power among networks and citizens and hold that most people are to be trusted. There are specific managerial challenges within each paradigm; these challenges, however, grow more complex when paradigms are combined. Managers will have to be aware of and be able to decode what is expected from them if they are to act strategically in accordance with the particular (hybrid) mix of paradigms that constitute their institutional environment. Since the paradigms are typically historically layered, contextually embedded as co-existing with competing rules, values, and evaluation criteria, this strategic maneuvering is no easy task if they are to secure legitimacy. Hence, we see the classical clashes between center and periphery, between bureaucrats and street-level workers, in focusing strategic attention and priority to wicked problems and in the problems of securing both order and innovation at the same time. At times, these clashes and dichotomies can cause personal doubts and sentiments among managers as they observe split loyalties, identities, and roles.

REFERENCES Aldrich, H. E. (1979) Organizations and Environments, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Andrews, K. R. (1971) The Concept of Corporate Strategy, New York: Dow-Jones Irwin. Barnard, C. (1938) The Functions of the Executive, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Berg, P. O. and C. Jonsson (1991), Strategisk ledning på politiska marknader, Lund Studentlitteratur. Blake, R. and J. Mouton (1964) The Managerial Grid, Houston, TX: Gulf. Boseman, B. (1998) All Organizations Are Public: Bridging Public and Private Organization Theories, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bourgon, J. (2017) The New Synthesis of Public Administration, Copenhagen: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Burgelman, R. (2002) Strategy is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company’s Future, New York: The Free Press. Burton, R. M. and B. Obel (2004) Strategic Organizational Diagnosis and Design: The Dynamics of Fit, New York: Springer. Chandler, A. D. (1962) Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise, Boston, MA: MIT Press. Chia, R. C. H. and R. Holt (2009) Strategy Without Design: The Silent Efficacy of Indirect Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Christensen, T. and P. Lægreid (eds.) (2017) Transcending New Public Management, London: Taylor and Francis. Clegg, S. (1990) Modern Organizations: Organization Studies in the Postmodern World, London: Sage. Cohen, M. D. and J. G. March (1974) Leadership and Ambiguity, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Cyert, R. and J. G. March (1963) A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Donaldson, L. (1987) Strategy and structural adjustment to regain fit and performance: in defence of contingency theory, Journal of Management Studies, 24 (1), 1–24. Donaldson, L. (2001) The Contingency Theory of Organizations, London: Sage.

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Dunleavy, P. and C. Hood (1994) From old public administration to New Public Management, Public Money and Management, 14 (3), 9–16. Galbraith, J. R. (1973) Designing Complex Organizations, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Galbraith, J. R. (2002) Designing Organizations: An Executive Guide to Strategy, Structure and Process, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Garvin, D. A. (1988) Managing Quality: The Strategic and Competitive Edge, New York: The Free Press. Golsorkhi, D., L. Rouleau, D. Seidl, and E. Vaara (eds.) (2010) Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamel, G. and C. K. Prahalad (1994) Competing for the Future, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Hammer, M. and J. Champy (1993) Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, London: Nicholas Brealey. Hannan, M. T. and J. Freeman (1977) The population ecology of organizations, American Journal of Sociology, 82, 929–64. Hatch, M. J. (1997) Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic and Post-modern Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hersey, P. and K. H. Blanchard (1969) An introduction to situational leadership, Training and Development Journal, 23, 26–34. Hofer, C. W. and D. Schendel (1978) Strategy Formulation: Analytical Concepts, St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company. Hood, C. and R. Dixon (2015) A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kim, W. C. and R. Mauborgne (2005) Blue Ocean Strategy, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Klausen, K. K. (2020) Strategisk ledelse på de mange arenaer, Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press. Lawrence, P. R and J. W. Lorsch (1967) Differentiation and integration in complex organizations, Administrative Science Quarterly, 12, 1–30. Luhmann, N. (1984) Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer algemeinen Theorie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. March, J. G. (1988) Decisions and Organizations, Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Meyer, J. W. and W. R. Scott, with assistance of B. Rowan and T. E. Deal (1983) Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality, Beverley Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Miles, R. E. and C. C. Snow (1978) Organizational Strategy, Structure, and Process, Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Classics. Miles, R. E. and C. C. Snow (1994) Fit, Failure & the Hall of Fame: How Companies Succeed or Fail, New York: The Free Press. Mintzberg, H. (1983) Structures in Fives: Designing Effective Organizations, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H. (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, New York: Prentice Hall. Mitchell, R., R. Agle, and D. J. Wood (1997) Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: defining the principle of who and what really counts, The Academy of Management Review, 22 (4), 853–66. Moore, M. H. (1995) Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moore, M. H. and S. Khagram (2004) On creating public value, Working Paper No. 3, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Penrose, E. (1959) The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, New York: John Wiley and Sons. Pfeffer, J. and G. R. Salancik (1978) The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective, New York: Harper and Row.

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Pollitt, C. and G. Bouckaert (2017) Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis into the Age of Austerity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Porter, M. E. (1980) Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, New York: The Free Press. Porter, M. E. (1985) Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, New York: The Free Press. Powell, W. P. and P. J. DiMaggio (eds.) (1991) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analyses, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Riegas, V. and C. Vetter (eds.) (1991) Zur Biologie der Kognition, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Scott, W. R. (1992) Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems, London: Prentice Hall. Simon, H. A. (1945) Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization, New York: The Free Press. Snowden, D. J. and M. E. Boone (2007) A leader’s framework for decision making, Harvard Business Review, November. https://​hbr​.org/​2007/​11/​a​-leaders​-framework​-for​-decision​ -making. Stacey, R. D. (2007) Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics, London: Prentice Hall. Teece, D. J., G. Pisano, and A. Shuen (1997) Dynamic capabilities and strategic management, Strategic Management Journal, 18 (7), 509–33. Thompson, J. D. (1967) Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory, New Brunswick, NJ: McGraw-Hill. Torfing, J., L. B. Andersen, C. Greve, and K. K. Klausen (2020) Public Governance Paradigms: Competing and Co-existing, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Weick, K. E. (1979 [1969]), The Social Psychology of Organizing, New York: Random House. Weick, K. E. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wernerfelt, B. (1984) A resource-based view of the firm, Strategic Management Journal, 5 (2), 171–80. Woodward, J. (1958) Management of Technology, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Zink, K. J. (1998) Total Quality Management as a Holistic Management Concept: The European Model for Business Excellence, Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

16. Strategic public management and the role of senior executives: the case of Australia Linda Colley, Shelley Woods and Brian W. Head

INTRODUCTION Media images of the public service have traditionally highlighted bureaucratic routines, lack of innovation and adaptability, and limited responsiveness to the needs of citizens. In the 1980s similar concerns were widely discussed, and political leaders in many countries proposed a number of remedies. Hence, several reviews of the public service were undertaken, and reform measures to promote efficiency and effectiveness were recommended. In the 1980s and 1990s, governments undertook a series of reforms to public sector agencies, aiming to modernise governmental business models and focus on delivering the benefits for citizens promised by government leaders (Dunleavy & Hood, 1994; Halligan & Power, 1992; Hays & Kearney, 1997; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000). The rationale for reform was to improve the efficiency of service delivery, focus on core government priorities, and enhance the capacity of public service managers to address the changing demands and expectations of government ministers and other key stakeholders. In this chapter, we argue that governmental reform processes were seen to require not only structural changes in public organisations but also the appointment of senior managers who had the capacity to deliver results through strategic public management. The new generation of executives would have to lead change teams, respond adaptively and rapidly to new opportunities, anticipate and manage emerging crises, oversight systems for outsourced service delivery, and collaborate or coordinate with multiple actors to ensure service improvements. In many of the OECD countries, including the USA in 1978 and Australia in 1984, this reform movement led to the establishment of a distinctive Senior Executive Service (SES), consisting of public service leaders dedicated to achieving efficient and effective results (Halligan, 1993; Huddlestone, 1992; OECD, 2009; Renfrow, 1989). Australia had been in the forefront of the international movement for public sector modernisation and ‘new public management’ reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Key reforms to agency structures and employment conditions for the SES were widely adopted across all the governments of the Australian federation, namely, the agencies of the national (federal) government and the eight state and territory governments. While each jurisdiction had its own reform trajectory and variations in SES arrangements, the substantial similarities suggest there was an element of policy convergence and emulation in this reform process, reinforced by wider concerns to promote 238

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institutional renewal as a necessary platform for boosting economic productivity and efficiency. These trends were linked to the rise of strategic public management: Strategic management is an approach to strategizing by public organizations or other entities which integrates strategy formulation and implementation and typically includes strategic planning to formulate strategies, ways of implementing strategies, and continuous strategic learning. (Bryson & George, 2020, p. 8)

This chapter firstly outlines the main arguments made by the champions of reform concerning the superiority of the ‘new’ models of public management over the ‘old’ models of public administration. Secondly, it examines how Australian public service legislation and administrative reforms specified the need for SES managers to re-focus on tackling the challenges of results-oriented strategic management. This commitment to a strategic orientation was coupled with enhanced lateral mobility of individuals across positions and across agencies. Thirdly, it outlines key features of the new SES employment conditions including the shift in merit processes (with merit redefined away from specialist knowledge towards more generalist roles), and the shift from tenured employment to fixed-term contracts, provoking a debate about responsiveness and politicisation of senior positions. Fourthly, the chapter examines how the required new skills were defined (and modified over time), how appropriate training was enhanced, and how merit-based recruitment into new contract-based positions created opportunities for external appointments and for perceived politicisation. Finally, the chapter offers some reflections on the perceived strengths and risks of the new arrangements in practice, including the demographic profile and mobility patterns of the SES in Australia. In reviewing these developments at national and state levels since the 1980s, we have analysed a large number of government policy statements, various reports on public service reform, data on employment trends, and a wide range of academic research about how strategic public management has responded to changing political demands and external pressures for efficiency and effectiveness.

OLD PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION VS NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT This section outlines the critique of the ‘old’ model of bureaucratic and unresponsive public administration and the main arguments given for why public sector modernisation reforms were seen as necessary. In explaining this re-framing of modern public management, we summarise the rationale provided for why new models of public management were introduced. The traditional model of public bureaucracy, in both the Westminster and Weberian traditions, emphasised the central importance of the rule of law, impartial treatment of citizens, and probity and accountability in decision-making. Thus, officials should be dedicated to the impartial application of rules and therefore held accountable for

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misconduct. Citizens could therefore expect fairness and equity in administrative interactions with officials. Probity in the conduct of public programs and regulatory requirements was highlighted. Supporting the values informing the exercise of public authority was the difference between how the bureaucratic and political spheres managed recruitment and employment conditions. Merit was traditionally the cornerstone of public employment, to favour competence over political connections, and was widely seen as being based on the relevant skills and experience of insiders (Halligan, 1993). Tenure was another pillar of public employment, to protect public servants from undue political influence and support a long-term career focus. This framework of values and practices allowed the development of professionally competent staff and the politically neutral management of public agencies and programs. However, the positive aspects of this model were insufficient to counter two major sources of dissatisfaction (Althaus & Wanna, 2008; Aucoin, 1990; Hood, 1990, 1991). The first line of criticism came from government ministers and political parties who perceived that senior public servants had become elitist, powerful and insular. Mandarins were seen as dominating their departmental policy fields and paying little attention to the policy directions and priorities of government. Departments and their senior managers therefore should be made more responsive to government agendas, by changing the tenure of senior staff and insisting that policy priorities are determined politically by the elected government. Secondly, public bureaucratic structures were criticised for being slow, inefficient, and unresponsive to changes in local and international conditions. To some extent, the narrowness of traditional merit processes was blamed, with merit often having been equated to seniority within the public service. Moreover, the lack of external recruitment was seen to have fostered insularity and lack of innovation (Colley, 2006; McCourt, 2000). These criticisms were coupled with an admiration for private sector management models oriented to achieving results rapidly and efficiently. The rhetorical shift from ‘administration’ to results-oriented public management was widespread in the 1980s and 1990s, and the breadth of organisational change was profound. The new approach came to be designated as New Public Management (NPM). Several commentators argued that the pendulum had swung too far, and that core public sector values were under threat (Dunleavy & Hood, 1994; Halligan, 2007; Riccucci, 2001). There was also an ideological element in the neoliberal campaign to expand the use of market-based instruments and to reduce the footprint of public programs and resources. But the reform process was thorough and long-lasting in many countries, including Australia (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000). Critiques of public service resistance to the new policy agendas of reformist governments in Australia had already been evident in the 1970s, when incoming Labor-led governments at the national level (the Whitlam government) and the state level (the Dunstan government in South Australia) encountered resistance to policy change. Government leaders had to work with senior mandarins who supported existing arrangements, who provided a narrow range of policy advice, and thus undermined the capacity of ministers to implement their reform programs (Halligan & Power, 1992; Shergold, 2005). A major inquiry into the federal bureaucracy in

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1974–76 laid the foundations for future organisational modernisation and greater diversity in recruitment (Coombs, 1976) but did not yet open the gates for contract employment and use of private sector contractors for service delivery (Spooner & Haidar, 2005). The first major phases of NPM reforms at the federal level in Australia occurred under the Hawke and Keating Labor governments (1983–96). By using strategic policy development processes that could incorporate the concerns of trade unions, business associations and state governments, the federal Labor government was able to pursue a bold and wide-ranging program of advancing economic productivity through micro-economic reform and public sector restructuring. Senior ministers were supported by departmental heads in central agencies with strong sympathies for micro-economic reform. Economic rationalism became a new orthodoxy (Head, 1988; Keating, 1990, 1994; Pusey, 1991). Public service positions, which had long been subject to internal recruitment, were opened up to increasing lateral recruitment from the broader labour market (Colley, 2001). Public sector reform initiatives included downsizing the public service, privatising and outsourcing many service functions, and reducing organisational hierarchies in order to focus on ‘managing for results’ (Johnston, 2000, p. 350). New legislation governing the public service abolished the concept of ‘permanent’ secretaries of departments and instituted an SES for the Australian public service in 1984 (following the Victorian state government initiative two years earlier). The conservative federal government led by Howard (1996–2007) adopted a more radical approach to labour market flexibility, including a large reduction in Australian Public Service (APS) staff (Johnston, 2000, pp. 357–8). During this conservative decade, the APS became more “marketised, contractualised and privatised” (Halligan, 2013, p. 10). The performance and responsiveness of SES staff in the APS came under increasing scrutiny, and the tenure of departmental heads and other executives became ever more dependent on the contract system and perceptions of relevant ministers. In summary, the shift towards results-oriented public management since the 1980s, and a host of administrative reforms to the public sector, signalled a reframing of strategic public management. The ideas of business efficiency and flexibility drawn from the private sector were overlaid onto the traditional public sector themes of accountability and rule-based reliability. Strategic public management, rather than ‘administration’, became the focus of the SES, and strategic management was redefined in managerial terms. According to leading scholars, Strategic management theory now emphasizes the development and alignment of an organization’s mission, mandates, strategies, and operations, along with major strategic initiatives such as new policies, programs, or projects, while also paying careful attention to stakeholders seen as claimants on the organization’s attention, resources, or outputs, or as affected by that output. (Bryson, Berry & Yang, 2010, p. 496)

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STRATEGIC FOCUS AND INCREASED MOBILITY This section examines how the public service in Australia addressed the need for senior managers to refocus on tackling the challenges of implementing results-oriented strategic management, and the rationale for creating a Senior Executive Service. The underlying intent and the design principles for creating the SES in Australia were neatly summarised by several of its proponents. The chair of the Public Service Board in Victoria (the first state government to establish an SES in 1982), argued that the goals were to provide “a focus on strategies and outcomes”; develop “flexible and responsive senior management”; reorganise agencies “to make them more responsive and effective”; and seek “improvement of agency performance” (Keppel, 1990, p. 108). External recruitment from the private sector brought in new ideas on efficiency and management. Performance-related pay was also introduced. Accordingly, the SES was built on performance management principles. These entailed a strategic focus on “managing critical outcomes or results”, rather than equal attention to every activity of an agency; and a focus on measurable results within specific timelines (Keppel, 1990, p. 108). Similar ideas were evident in the state of New South Wales (NSW), which established its scheme in 1989 after close analysis of existing schemes. The senior bureaucrat designing the NSW scheme emphasised the need for remuneration parity with the private sector to attract the best executives. The pay system would facilitate lateral recruitment, reward “initiative and performance”, and minimise under-performance of individuals through a new system of contract employment for senior managers (Baxter, 1990, p. 130). The enhanced emphasis on strategic skills was coupled with expectations of lateral mobility of individuals across positions and across agencies. This notion of job mobility was part of a new vision that the SES should constitute a cohort of highly skilled and energetic leaders who could be deployed as required to meet the needs of government. Just as private sector leaders could move rapidly between corporations, public sector leaders with superior management skills should be able to be redeployed to improve agency performance across many different public organisations. This notion underpinned the view that SES officers should become adaptive, agile, innovative and mobile – rather than being valued primarily as specialists with deep knowledge in specific professional fields. Such mobility also changed the notion of merit, which became less related to the knowledge required for a specific role and more broadly interpreted as fitting into a mobile executive service, thereby potentially making the assessment of merit more subjective and open to politicisation. In practice, mobility has been lower than might have been expected, with 2020 employment data indicating that 36 per cent of the SES cohort at the time had worked in only one agency, 26 per cent in two agencies and 38 per cent in three or more agencies (APSC, 2020a, Table 44). However, this divide between generalists and specialists has continued to be an ongoing source of tension across several decades. The strategic management conception embedded in NPM became associated with two related developments. Firstly, senior managers were expected to understand how their work contributed to government agendas, advanced the key goals of gov-

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ernment, and addressed the expectations of citizens for effective service delivery. In lifting their gaze above managing everyday routines, public executives should focus on “steering not rowing” (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). Strategic ‘steering’ meant clarifying the priority goals and outcomes, and then determining the most effective way to achieve those goals. The second development was the separation of responsibilities for strategic policy advice from those for implementing service delivery. Dowding and Taflaga (2020) regard this split between the policy and service functions of government as “problematic” (p. 118). NPM encouraged the view that core public service agencies, working closely with ministers and their political advisers, would be responsible for designing services and would retain overall accountability for achieving key targets; however, responsibility for managing service delivery could be allocated to dedicated delivery agencies dealing with clients and citizens. While some of these service delivery responsibilities remained within the public sector, they were increasingly outsourced under competitive contract arrangements to a range of private sector and not-for-profit service organisations. The implication was that departmental SES officers would need to develop new skills in managing the novel challenges of oversighting numerous contractors who had been commissioned to deliver outsourced services for public purposes. At the same time, the policy role of political advisers in ministerial offices has grown substantially over recent decades. Ironically, the question of whether senior executives are steering or rowing has come full circle in Australia, given the enhanced policy influence of political advisers in defining priorities and directions. Together with more generalised definitions of merit, some argue that there is a loss of technical expertise and a hollowing out of public service capacity (Moran, 2016). In 2020, the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, in response to recent reviews of the public service, indicated that he saw the public service essentially as implementers of government decisions rather than as policy advisers to government (Dowding & Taflaga, 2020, p. 119).

CONTRACT EMPLOYMENT, MERIT AND POLITICISATION This section examines other key features of the new SES model in Australia, including the shift away from tenured employment to fixed-term contracts for senior roles, provoking a debate about merit appointments, forms of responsiveness, and the risk of politicisation. For simplicity, the emphasis is on developments in the APS rather than the various state governments. SES contracts, in lieu of permanent tenure, were legislated for the APS by the Hawke Labor government in 1984. At the same time, ‘Permanent Heads’ of departments were renamed ‘Secretaries’. The size of the SES cohort increased quite rapidly, as discussed later. Within two decades, Australia had among the highest proportion of SES managers (1.59 per cent) across the public services in OECD countries (OECD, 2009). During these two decades, managerial reforms continued to de-privilege public service employment – by eroding independent oversight of appointments, by making the definition of merit more general and potentially subjective, by failing to

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protect the neutrality and independence of the public service, and by weakening the impartiality of the main sources of public policy advice (Colley, 2006). Fixed-term contracts for departmental secretaries were introduced by the Keating Labor government in 1994 – an initiative described as a “dangerous shift” that led to an increase in patronage-based appointments (Kimber & Maddox, 2003, p. 66). The political executive arm of government was given more control over the appointment and termination of departmental secretaries, ostensibly because the previous traditional procedures had placed “inappropriate power” in the hands of the most senior public servants (MacDermott, 2008, p. 13) and to ensure that ministers could take more control of policy direction. This assertion of ministerial control over policymaking was consistent with elements of the Westminster model. However, the way it was implemented reinforced two related concerns. Firstly, the growth of contract employment together with more subjective definitions of merit raised the risks of politicisation of senior public service appointments and the likelihood of more partisan behaviour by APS managers. Secondly, the rapid growth in the number and significance of political advisers in ministerial offices reinforced the potential downgrading of policy advice from senior public servants. These two trends generated a perceived decline in the likelihood of “frank and fearless” policy advice (Colley, 2006, 2011). Managerial reform processes at the highest levels of the APS hastened these trends under the conservative Howard government elected in 1996 (Kimber & Maddox, 2003, p. 69). Richard Mulgan concluded that the new government’s changes, including the dismissal of six departmental Secretaries, indicated “a decisive shift away from a politically neutral, career public service in the direction of a more politicised public service on United States lines” (Mulgan, 1998, p. 3). In his analysis, the values underpinning a professional public service were compromised by removing chief executives “without clear evidence of (dis)loyalty or incompetence”. Mulgan recommended greater transparency in the appointment and approval of chief executives akin to the New Zealand model (p. 6). The principle that selection and appointment of public managers should be based on merit is a key pillar of the Westminster tradition. It is generally agreed that abandoning the long-term tenure or employment security of senior managers has led to the dilution of Weberian and Westminster principles linked to merit, thereby increasing the risk of political patronage (McCourt, 2000). On the other hand, the way in which merit is configured is not static; it can change over time and is shaped by contemporary values and perspectives (Colley, 2006; Weller & Haddon, 2016). A comparative international study by Hansen and colleagues (2013) found that, despite differences between countries, the adoption of NPM reforms had significantly altered the terms and conditions (the ‘Public Service Bargain’) for senior civil servants across jurisdictions. Hansen et al. (2013) found a clear shift away from permanency and autonomy towards a ‘managerial’ paradigm entailing rewards for results (p. 33). However, as Mulgan (1998) argued, politicisation of the bureaucracy might proceed from the top down unless there was a guarantee of merit-based appointment and “protection against arbitrary dismissal for members of the SES” (p. 8).

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The processes for protecting ‘merit’ were considered as part of a wide review of “workforce management contestability” (McPhee, 2015). The review found that the legislative description of ‘merit’ was unclear, its meaning had become distorted, and the APS did not appear to be utilising SES capability in a strategic manner (McPhee, 2015, p. 53). The implications were serious for those who defend the Westminster norm of impartial service. The distinction between ‘appropriate responsiveness’ and ‘inappropriate partisanship’ has been an enduring topic of public service concern and an ongoing theme in academic research (Grube & Howard, 2016b, p. 519). Part of the rationale for the creation of the SES and the introduction of contracts was to enhance the ‘responsiveness’ of the bureaucracy. This had two very different interpretations. The political interpretation of contract employment emphasised responsiveness to ministers, and this doctrine was reinforced by the enlargement of ministerial offices through appointing numerous political advisers. On the other hand, the form of responsiveness based on managerial orientation to ‘customers’ emphasised better design of programs to meet community needs. The latter approach was associated with business efficiency and the outsourcing of service delivery. With the shift towards outsourced service delivery, the SES cohort grew substantially as a proportion of the APS workforce, partly because the lower-level public service jobs were transferred across to the business and community sectors. Other reasons for SES growth included the increased number and complexity of programs, international security issues, and new forms of electronic services. Between 2003 and 2010, the SES grew twice as fast as the rest of the APS (50 per cent vs 25 per cent), a growth trend similar to that of the UK and Canada (Beale, 2011, p. 26). The SES cohort grew quickly in numbers and as a proportion of the total APS workforce: from 1 per cent (n=1697) in 1984 to 1.7 per cent (n=2727) in 2010 (Beale, 2011, p. 21). To control growth, administrative caps were placed on SES numbers in the budget processes of 2009–10. In June 2020, there were 2805 members of the SES, comprising 1.9 per cent of the APS workforce (APSC, 2020a, Table 8). Gender representation across the SES improved substantially over the period, from 25 per cent in 2000 to 49.5 per cent in 2020 (APSC, 2019, 2020a). This has recently extended to the top SES 3 salary bracket, dramatically increasing from 12.5 per cent in 2000 to 43.9 per cent in 2020 (APSC, 2019, 2020a). This increased gender equality was the result of several decades of gender reforms aimed at achieving equal representation of women in the APS leadership, with the most recent strategy entitled ‘Balancing the Future: Australian Public Service Gender Equality Strategy 2016–2019’ (APSC, 2016a; see also Williamson and Colley, 2018). The rise of political advisers in ministerial offices led to many difficulties in maintaining the impartiality of the public service, and consolidated the displacement of mandarins as the chief policy advisers to Ministers (Shaw & Eichbaum, 2020a, p. 846). The cohort of ministerial advisers in the Australian federal government increased dramatically from “a handful of press secretaries and speech writers” in the 1960s to some 450 advisory staff in the offices of federal ministers by 2020 (Dowding & Taflaga, 2020, p. 120). Relationships between ministerial staff and the senior bureaucracy depend on the attitudes of the ministers and their chiefs-of-staff

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towards the role of the public service – whether they regard public servants as “obstructers” or “enablers” and the extent to which they trust departmental advice (Dowding & Taflaga, 2020, p. 119). At the very least, political staff create competition for the ear of the minister. Overall, the NPM reforms and the increased number of political advisers allowed ministers to “wrench back the steering wheel of state” from traditional bureaucratic experts (Grube & Howard, 2016a, p. 472). A pertinent Australian example is that of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (2007–10), who was seen as relying for policy advice on inexperienced political advisers at the expense of experienced senior public servants, thus concentrating policy power in the Prime Minister’s Office (Halligan, 2010). This phenomenon, described as “presidentialisation”, had previously occurred in the UK government of Tony Blair, who almost doubled the number of special advisers by comparison with the preceding Conservative government (Grube & Howard, 2016a). As Shaw and Eichbaum (2020b) observed, “it is one thing for ministerial advisers to politicize civil service advice and another to seek to exclude officials from the policy conversation itself”’ (p. 2). In a submission to a recent review of the APS, Tiernan and colleagues (2019) identified a lack of consensus about the proper role of the public service as a significant source of strategic policy advice. The impact of ministerial advisers on the “contest of policy ideas” has remained a matter of ongoing concern and academic research. Related debates include whether the growth of political staff can somehow shield the public service against further politicisation or whether the role of political advisers has already compromised public service impartiality (Shaw & Eichbaum, 2020a, 2020b, p. 1). Given that some political advisers occasionally shift into SES roles in the public service, this creates a further tension between responsiveness and impartiality, blurring the lines between partisan and neutral advice, and feeding concerns that “political advisers may be politicizing the work of public servants” (Maley, 2017, p. 407). Moreover, there has been increased interchange between positions in ministerial offices and the higher levels of the public bureaucracy. Recent Australian examples include the appointment of former chiefs-of-staff of two senior ministers to lead key central agencies of the public service – as occurred in 2016 under Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his former finance minister Senator Corman. The increasing overlap of political and administrative careers has been described as “a burgeoning political and administrative disaster” that has compromised policy development and public service capacity, with calls for a sharper re-separation of these roles (Dowding & Taflaga, 2020). While these processes began under federal Labor governments in the 1980s (Weller, 1989), the issue of politicisation of the Australian public service gained increased attention following the election of a Liberal­–National coalition government in 1996 under Prime Minister John Howard. Six incumbent departmental secretaries were dismissed, with a relative outsider appointed as Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet and as titular head of the APS. A change of government in 2007 witnessed a different approach to departmental secretaries, with incoming Labor

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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd retaining all those mandarins he had inherited (Podger, 2013). The Rudd government sought to strengthen the non-partisanship of the SES by involving the Public Service Commissioner in appointments and terminations, removing performance pay for departmental secretaries, increasing the standard contract from three to five years, and introducing a code of conduct for ministerial staff (Podger, 2013). Rudd’s approach “gave hope to the Australian Public Service (APS) leadership that a corner had been turned which future governments of either persuasion would follow” (Podger, 2013). But this was not to be the case. In 2013, Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott removed three departmental secretaries within hours of his arrival in office. A recent independent review of the APS (Thodey, 2019) acknowledged there were widespread perceptions that “the appointments of secretaries reflect political patronage and do not follow due process – that who you know can be more important than what you can do” (p. 287). The government’s formal response agreed in part with review recommendations to “ensure confidence in the appointment of all agency heads” and robust processes for their termination (Rec. 39), but the practical implications of this mild endorsement remain unclear. The debates have continued unabated: Problems arising from the interaction of politics and administration have worsened over the last 25 years under both sides of politics, raising questions about how well the APS today is able to meet its constitutional responsibilities. (Podger, 2019, p. 1)

The former head of Australia’s Productivity Commission (Banks, 2020) recently reflected that the politicisation of the leadership of the APS had continued to accelerate since the introduction of contracts and key performance indicators for agency heads, along with the ethos of greater “responsiveness”. Banks observed that, unlike the former permanent heads of the Westminster tradition, today’s public service leaders are essentially there “at the pleasure of the minister” and many keep their jobs only “as long as the minister keeps his or hers” (Banks, 2020). To counter the worst features of this new system, Banks argued, there should be “greater transparency around senior appointments (and dismissals), and more incentive to balance the wishes of a minister with the interests of the public” (Banks, 2020).

DEVELOPING NEW STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT SKILLS This section examines how new strategic management skills were initially defined, with training re-aligned to enhance these skills. It describes how the list of core skills and capacities was modified over time, such as the inclusion of collaboration in the late 1990s and digital literacy since the 2010s. The need for the SES to respond to multiple crises – such as border security, natural disasters and health pandemics – has also reinforced the need for rapid deployment of taskforce groups drawn from several agencies. We discuss how contract-based positions have created opportunities for appointment of skilled experts from non-government sectors to fill gaps in rapidly

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developing areas of innovation or complexity, and finally we consider the inherent challenges in nurturing professional craft-based skills that are vital for sound policy advice, institutional leadership and the protection of institutional memory. A recent OECD report on public service leadership and capability (OECD, 2019) noted the operating context of rapid changes, and the need for updating the capabilities of public servants and managers. The OECD noted the importance of a highly skilled “professional administration based on merit, transparency, accountability and the rule of law” (p. 1). In that context it was important to “encourage proactive collaboration and innovation in the design and delivery of public policies and services” (p. 1). In most countries, traditional career paths within the public service have been disrupted by widespread reforms of public employment conditions. Skills requirements and expectations for senior public servants have rapidly shifted. Most countries opened up senior management positions to external recruitment, in line with broader deference to private sector business thinking. However, while executives from the private sector might have a greater focus on market-based results and cost-efficiency, they have been found to be less sympathetic towards core public sector values such as impartiality and equity (Lapuente et al., 2020). Private sector managers have also lacked the institutional knowledge and political astuteness that is learned by career public servants, and this deficiency could undermine their effectiveness and organisational fit (Gerson, 2020, p. 39). In Australia, 40 per cent of the 70 appointments (n=28) to the SES in the year 2016 had no prior service in the APS, while only 11 appointments (16 per cent) were career public servants with substantial experience (over 10 years) in the APS (APSC, 2017, Table 33). There were 276 new appointments to the SES in 2019–20, most of whom (201/73 per cent) were promoted from within the APS (APSC, 2020a, Tables 55, 58). Of the 75 external appointments, seven were from the private sector, seven from the broader Commonwealth public sector and six from the state/local government sector (APSC, 2020a, Table 55). Each successive round of reform in Australia required new skills. NPM reforms in the 1980s favoured new managerial rather than generalist bureaucratic skills, with economists and accountants becoming prominent in the ranks of the SES across many departments; according to one severe critic, their “real power became inversely proportional to real knowledge” (Pusey, 2018, p. 13). This transformation was seen as undermining specialised content knowledge and corporate memory. A research survey of SES officers in the 1980s (discussed at length in Pusey, 1991) had found that “there was not a single SES officer in the Department of Education … who knew anything about education” (Pusey, 2018, p. 13). Contractual reforms, discussed earlier, required SES officers to develop new skills to design, plan and oversight the various forms of outsourced service delivery and contract management. In further developments, the economistic and contractual emphasis of NPM was modified by New Public Governance approaches which emphasised the need for engagement, connected government and collaboration, and required new ways of operating (Shergold, 2008, p. 13; Wanna, 2008, pp. 7–8). Collaboration and coordination within and across agencies, between levels of

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government, and with third party providers in the private and non-profit sectors, created new policy networks that required enhanced executive skills and capacities in ‘horizontal’ communication, stakeholder engagement, negotiation and conflict resolution (McGuire, 2006). The OECD (2017) noted that: “Collaborative leadership is a growing field and provides a counterbalance to the top-down transactional and transformational leadership styles. Collaborative leadership emphasises leadership as a trait that is projected horizontally” (p. 6). In Australia, the professional leadership skills valued in the SES certainly include capabilities in managing relationships with other agencies and organisations. However, the required management style has typically been based on joint project management across agencies (such as required for responding to crises) rather than developing full collaborations utilising communities of practice and open communication. In Australia, SES skills requirements evolved alongside public management reforms. A founding principle for the establishment of the Australian SES in 1984 was to enable senior managers “to realise their full potential” (Beale, 2011, p. 16). The foundation set of core job skills included human relations skills, strategic thinking, conceptual, analytical and creative skills, adaptability and flexibility (APSC, 2009). A Senior Executive Leadership program was developed in 1990 to meet professional development needs. The role and functions of the SES were consolidated in the Public Service Act 1999, and a Senior Executive Leadership Capability Framework was developed the same year, which highlighted as its first element that the SES officer “shapes strategic thinking” (Beale, 2011, p. 18). The desire to improve public service leadership went beyond the APS, and all Australian jurisdictions and several universities collaborated to form the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) in 2002 (Allen & Wanna, 2016). ANZSOG provides a variety of programs from Executive Masters to discussion forums to short courses to build leadership capacity. In its first 12 years, ANZSOG had graduated more than 2000 senior public servants (Allen & Wanna, 2016). The APS continued its internal focus on skills development: in 2004, an Integrated Leadership System provided a broader framework for SES development, with capability descriptions for each salary level (Beale, 2011); and a further document in 2005, One-APS – One SES, further defined expectations and confirmed the need to be agile and “committed to self-development” (p. 17). Despite the various initiatives to keep pace with reform, there remained questions and concerns about SES skills. In the 2009 APS Review, one-third of agencies reported skills gaps among their SES employees, with “strategic thinking” and “strategic policy capacity” among the most frequently reported gaps (AGRAGA, 2009, p. 18). The following year, a Blueprint for Reform of Australian Government Administration (AGRAGA, 2010) noted underinvestment in public service talent, gaps in performance and capability (including strategic thinking) and significant challenges for executive development (Allen & Wanna, 2016). In 2010, the Australian Public Service Commission, with lead responsibility for the SES, established a Centre for Leadership and Learning, to provide orientation, core skills and leadership development programs for current and future leaders.

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As part of a systematic approach to talent management, a Secretaries Talent Council was established in 2016 “to build a stronger and more diverse leadership pipeline for the future” (APSC, 2016b; 2020b, p. 35). The Council identified the “leadership capabilities considered critical for success” as visionary, influential, collaborative, entrepreneurial, enabling and “highly skilled at managing the delivery of complex projects, programs and services” (APSC, 2020c). Personal qualities deemed important for effective leadership are courage, self-awareness and resilience (APSC, 2020c). In 2019–20, the Secretaries Talent Council oversaw the talent assessment and development of SES 2 and SES 3 officers and has designed a succession management plan (APSC, 2020b). Emerging Challenges of Digital Literacy The rapid pace of technological change presents a new set of skills challenges. In 2006, Dunleavy et al. (2006) predicted that digital-era governance would displace NPM with a new wave of change, leading governments around the world to focus on building digital capacity. The OECD (2020) advises that digital transformation requires “cultural change and adequate capabilities” with senior leadership who are “aware of the benefits of technologies, as well as their potential disruptive role in relation to the development of public sector activities” (pp. 9, 30). Australia has been a strong performer in e-government development by world standards (UN, 2020), introducing both digital transformation capability strategies for lower-level employees (through an APS Digital Professional Stream) (https://​ www​.dta​.gov​.au) and for SES level through the Leading in a Digital Age program (APSC 2020a, p. 120). While the Australian government argues that digital transformation will mean “much less red tape and much more responsive policy” (Minister for Human Services and Digital Transformation, quoted by Hamilton, 2019, p. 4), the increasing contractualisation of public services, including the outsourcing of IT contractors, creates challenges for public executives in their oversight of risk and accountability. An international survey by Deloitte (2015) identified leadership skills as a key factor in the success of digital transformation projects, yet only one-third of Australian respondents thought their public service leaders had sufficient skills to lead their organisation’s digital strategy. Significant leadership turnover contributes to this capability shortfall (SSCFPA, 2018, pp. 14, 20). A 2018 Senate Committee noted a series of incidents and failures in ICT systems that undermined both services and public trust in the government’s capacity to transition to digital administration (SSCFPA, 2018, p. 21). This was worsened by data and privacy breaches (OAIC, 2021). The Senate Committee recommended a long-term strategy to build internal public service capability, including “education and training initiatives to enhance the digital competency” of SES officers (SSCFPA, 2018, Rec. 8, p. xvi). At the time of writing, the Australian Senate had commenced a further inquiry into the digital and data capability of the APS as part of a broader review of APS capability.

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Current State of Skills The “volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity” of modern public administration bring profound implications for public sector leadership capacity and development (Mangan & Lawrence-Pietroni, 2019). While efforts have been made to develop SES leadership skills to align with the continually reforming environment, concerns identified by the APS Review in 2009 about the decline of policy skills do not seem to have been resolved. In 2017, executive leadership training and coaching was the top civil service training priority among OECD countries (OECD, 2017, p. 11). This is not due to a lack of formal tertiary qualifications: in 2020, almost two-thirds (62.7 per cent) of the Australian SES held university degrees, with more than half of those holding postgraduate qualifications, including almost one-fifth (19.6 per cent) of the cohort with Masters degrees (APSC, 2020a, Table 27). New questions are being asked about whether responsiveness is being pursued at the expense of important traditional crafts of governments (Halligan, 2015). A former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet lamented the “disinvestment in people, capability and systems”, arguing that “while many political leaders have surrendered to a tactical approach to the business of government” they have “neglected investment in strategy and the long term” (Moran, 2016). Rhodes (2016) has suggested that “the pendulum has swung too far toward the new and the fashionable” skills away from traditional public administration skills based on practical wisdom. These professional craft skills include “counseling, stewardship, prudence, probity, judgment, diplomacy, and political nous” (Rhodes, 2016, p. 638). Professional experience is crucial for interpreting situations, seeking and analysing information, and assessing the perspectives of stakeholders. Craft knowledge, according to Rhodes (p. 639), is necessary for delivering consistent and stable administration, “equity in processes”, expert judgement and accountability. Moreover, the loss of institutional memory, through continual reforms and changes in government, arguably represents substantial risks to the quality of policy advice (Pollitt, 2009; Stark and Head, 2019). Dickinson and Sullivan (2014) also argue for “a return to more traditional skills of public administration” – rather than the “professionalised and technical skills that presently dominate recruitment and promotion processes” (p. 4). While these observations about SES skills are all valid, they cannot be remedied through a focus on the individual without adequate consideration of the reformed and reforming context in which SES officers are engaged and must work. The OECD (2019) links the loss of the traditional craft of government to some traditional employment tenets, such as merit as an objective measure of skill. Gerson (2020) adds the importance of tenure to support the provision of frank and fearless advice. How do we objectively assess merit and skill for a non-specialised SES workforce, and how do we reconcile existing workforce skills with the constantly changing environment demanding new skills? Gerson (2020) incorporates both reform and context into his recommendation that the ‘ideal’ senior civil service is one that is

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“highly capable … with the tools and context needed to do the job … and operating environments that allow them to put those capabilities to best use” (p. 33).

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS This concluding section offers some reflections on the perceived strengths and risks of the new arrangements in practice, and the overall legacy of the new approach to public strategic management. A review of public employment profiles for 2005 across the OECD countries stated that: Countries need senior civil servants who are able to pursue performance-oriented management, ensure cohesion across ministries, and at the same time protect the ethos of a politically neutral and professional public administration. The senior civil service is the interface between politicians and the public administration. They are responsible for the implementation of legal instruments and political strategies. They are also responsible for the coherence, efficiency and appropriateness of government activities. Thus, the capacity of the senior civil service has become a key public governance issue. (OECD, 2009, section 16)

This statement sums up the intent of the SES reforms and the challenges of effective implementation. Reviewing international critiques of NPM practices, Riccucci (2001) found that a basic flaw was its failure to account for the inherent differences between the government and private sectors, particularly the important principle that public sector governance must be based on the “rule of law rather than market-based mechanisms” (p. 172). Moreover, the early critics of NPM accused the economistic reformers of destroying “more than a century’s work in developing a distinctive public service ethic and culture” (Hood, 1991, p. 4). Riccucci (2001) suggested that the traditional paradigm of public administration “has proven to be much more responsive to democratic values” than has the “customer-oriented managerialism” of the NPM reformers (p. 172). Later analysts found that NPM rapidly became a hybrid, heavily modified by revisionism (Halligan, 2007). By the following decade, a new public administration movement which focused on “public value” and “collaborative governance” was adding additional layers for strategic management in the public sector (Bryson et al., 2014, p. 445). This chapter has identified trends in the expansion of contract employment and their implications for merit, tenure and politicisation. We have found that the NPM approach to strategic public management cast doubt on the central role of merit and tenure. We have also found that the advent of NPM contracting and the growth of ministerial advisers outside the public service have increased the avenues for patronage appointments in the upper ranks of 21st-century Australian public administration. Critics have long expressed concerns about the risks associated with ‘parachuting’ results-oriented private sector managers into the upper echelons of the public sector, without background knowledge of government and public sector processes and practices, including impartiality and integrity. Such lateral recruit-

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ment has been especially prevalent in areas of rapid innovation such as information technology, logistics, digital security and service systems. Traditional notions of succession planning and career development for those in the leadership pipeline have been greatly modified. The chapter has surveyed the implications of ongoing public service reforms and changing expectations of public sector leaders for leadership development and capacity building. New skills are required with every new round of reforms, each potentially requiring generalist rather than specialist knowledge and skills to carry out new forms of government and governance. Yet questions continue to be asked about the loss of the traditional craft skills of government and diminished policy capacity. Governments frequently propose staff training and development as the solution, suggesting that the problem lies with the skills of individuals rather than arising from the multiple demands of the changing environment or the loss of the benefits tied to merit and tenure-based employment systems. What next for the SES in Australia? Wilkins (2014) argues persuasively that “stewardship of public service renewal and reform” is critical in times of austerity and uncertainty (p. 198). Reviews in Australia have always detected a mix of solid achievements and room for improvement in a rapidly changing world. Reviews have also commented on the inherent tension between achieving desired results through cost-effective practices, and demonstrating commitment to fundamental public values of integrity, fairness and transparency. Our analysis suggests that countries seeking to enhance their strategic public management systems should be wary of wholesale adoption of the NPM approach to efficiency and responsiveness. The risks of politicisation and lack of accountability are real. The recent review of the APS (Thodey, 2019) found that “the APS is not performing at its best today and it is not ready for the big changes and challenges that Australia will face between now and 2030” (p. 16). It also found that despite 18 significant reviews over the past decade, the APS review “diagnoses similar problems to those identified in previous assessments”, suggesting that implementing successful change is very challenging, and that “a dedicated and sustained approach to transformation will be necessary for success” (p. 16). Fundamental to this transformation will be “strengthening service-wide leadership and governance” (p. 17). But the relationship between this desirable ‘service-wide leadership’ and the foundational commitment to individual mobility has not been articulated. In the 1980s, individual mobility had been seen as an important feature of the SES concept; but we have shown that mobility has been more modest than might have been anticipated, noting that over a third of the current SES have worked in only one agency. Public services, and especially SES officers, have been at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic response in Australia and elsewhere. The Australian state and federal government and public service response has kept Australians safer than many other countries, through a new level of cooperation within and across jurisdictions, as well as through faster processes of policy development and implementation. The relatively successful Australian response has reportedly increased trust in all Australian institutions (Donaldson, 2021). Future research could reflect on the extent to which

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the crisis experience can lead to sustained changes in SES officers’ roles and operations, and to sustained changes in the image of public service performance. Research could also reflect on whether a new model of governance has been emerging organically, to replace the complex layering of managerialist reform in recent decades.

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Wanna, J. (2008) Collaborative government: meanings, dimensions, drivers and outcomes. In: J. O’Flynn and J. Wanna (eds), Collaborative governance: a new era of public policy in Australia? (pp.  3–12). Canberra: ANU Press. http://​doi​.org/​10​.22459/​CG​.12​.2008. Weller, P. (1989) Politicisation and the Australian Public Service. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 48(4), 369–81. Weller, P. and C. Haddon (2016) Westminster traditions: continuity and change. Governance, 29(4), 483–98. Wilkins, J. (2014) Stewardship of public service renewal and reform. International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, 10(4), 188–99.  https://​doi​-org​.ezproxy​.library​.uq​.edu​.au/​10​ .1108/​IJLPS​-07​-2014​-0009. Williamson, S. and L. Colley (2018) Gender in the Australian Public Service: doing, undoing, redoing or done? Australian Journal of Public Administration, 77(4), 583–96.

17. Trust-based public management: conceptualization and lessons from the Swedish trust reform Louise Bringselius

INTRODUCTION Across the Western world, governments are today struggling to reduce red tape and cut administrative spending in order to redirect these resources to core operations. Over recent decades, detailed systems for management control have left governments with frustrated employees, soaring costs, and increasing complaints. This is also one of the conclusions from the analysis of three decades of modernization in the United Kingdom central government, by Hood and Dixon (2015). They establish that both costs and complaints appear to have increased, despite extensive public reform aiming at the opposite. The same development is noted in Sweden in a study by Hall (2021), and also in a report from the Swedish National Audit Office (The Swedish National Audit Office, 2021). As a response to this development, the concept ‘trust-based public management’ has gained increasing spread, in particular in the Nordic countries. The concept connects to research ranging decades back, including motivation theory from the 1960s (McGregor, 1960), as well as more recent literature in various fields (Bringselius, 2021b). For example, in a publication from 2000, Nyhan argues that ‘the trust-based model is a viable paradigm for increasing interpersonal trust, organizational commitment, and productivity in the public sector’. As central parts of this paradigm, Nyhan calls for extensive employee empowerment and employs involvement in decision-making to strengthen organizational commitment. In a similar fashion, Adler (2001) argues that trust should not only be understood as an interpersonal attitude, but also as a fundamental mechanism to coordinate action, alongside market/ incentives and bureaucracy/regulation. In a reform in Sweden, the government decided to promote this approach to public sector management, by announcing a trust reform. The reform was rare, in particular, in two regards. First, it aimed at an area that was seldom approached by governments, namely fundamental principles for the governance and management of public organizations – beyond political reforms. Second, it included extensive collaboration with both academic researchers and practitioners in the public sector, including thorough work defining and analyzing implementation strategies from different theoretical perspectives. 260

Trust-based public management  261

A central actor of the Swedish trust reform was the government Trust Commission (Tillitsdelegationen). This worked with defining and promoting trust-based public management in the years 2016–19. A central part of the reform was the 12 research projects in the main assignment during the years 2016–18. Trust-based public management is today a highly recognized concept in the Swedish public sector and an official strategy for the Swedish government (confirmed most recently by the Swedish National Audit Office, 2021). This chapter explains the theoretical underpinnings of the concept trust-based public management and summarizes the lessons from the 12 research projects included in the Swedish trust reform. As Head of Research at the Swedish Trust Commission (Tillitsdelegationen), I was part of the process.

INCREASINGLY DETAILED MANAGEMENT CONTROL AND INCENTIVE SYSTEMS Over recent decades there has been a strong belief in detailed incentive systems and management control systems. The fundamental assumption has been that these systems are required in order to encourage employees to perform in accordance with the purpose and goals of management. Fundamentally, this represents a lack of trust in the motivation and competence of employees to perform without such systems. With the model Management by Objectives and Results (MBOR), the ambition was to allow for decisions to be delegated to lower organizational levels. When implemented, however, this model resulted in a rapidly increasing number of goals and increasingly complex and comprehensive control systems (Kristiansen, 2015). A managerial practice emerged where each goal was broken down into detailed performance indicators and activities. This left public employees with very narrow tasks, making the shared purpose of the organization increasingly obscure in everyday practice. Today, organizations struggle to bring MBOR back to the initial idea. The increase in managerial control is also partly the result of the extensive marketization reforms implemented during recent decades. There is a need to regulate and control the work of private entrepreneurs, when public monopolies are transformed into open markets. For example, public procurement procedures and detailed remuneration models must be developed. Therefore, there is a need to allocate more resources to the administration of these systems. Several of these trends are captured with the concept New Public Management (NPM) (Hood, 1991). However, there are also trends that go beyond this concept. For example, the detailed management control systems soon resulted in difficulties promoting collaboration between teams, departments and organizations, even in cases when this would benefit the public interest. The detailed use of goals, incentives and control has led to employees and departments focusing primarily on maximizing their own performance, rather than attending to the best interest of the client or the whole organization. Hence, organizations now attempt to adopt a process perspective to promote a systems perspective and collaboration between teams and departments.

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However, the process perspective often becomes yet another bureaucratic layer, as process maps are developed by central bureaucrats and rigid standard protocols are outlined for all kinds of work tasks. Following this development, street-level professionals today often enjoy very limited discretion. This is also the case for the clients (citizens). An increasing portion of the organizational budget is allocated to central administrative tasks, many of which focus on reporting and controlling, audit and inspection, defining rules and standards, legal services, and communication (Hall, 2021; Hood & Dixon, 2015; The Swedish National Audit Office, 2021). This is a central strategic challenge to governments across the Western world. However, it is a strategic challenge that is not easily resolved with the traditional tool of governments, namely legislation. Rather, this is a matter of management philosophy and a comprehensive change affecting all aspects of organizational life and all actors in the policy process. Sweden is often an early-adopter of new management models and reforms. Hence, it may not be a coincidence that Sweden is one of the first countries to adopt a structured process to try to promote a change, along with Denmark. The Swedish trust reform builds on research from various theoretical fields and the concept trust-based public management.

TRUST-BASED PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: EMPOWERING STREET-LEVEL PROFESSIONALS AND CITIZENS Trust-based management as a management philosophy aims to maximize organizational performance and legitimacy by extending extensive autonomy and organizational support to frontline employees and clients and by emphasizing trust as a basic organizing principle. The concept builds on insights from the human relations movement (Maslow, 1954; McGregor, 1960; Ouchi, 1981), challenging the bureaucratic ideals from Frederick Taylor and Max Weber at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1985, Walton called for a change ‘from control to commitment in the workplace’, claiming that trust is the key component in this transformation (Walton, 1985). The basic arguments for trust-based public management were not fully outlined, however, until 2000. At this time, an article was published by Robert Nyhan (2000). Nyhan notes that managers too easily return to an authoritative model in their leadership, even when arguing that they are focused on building human motivation. Rather than collaborating with workers and entering into honest dialogue, they appear to remain in a mindset where workers should only be encouraged to comply with managerial goals and agendas, he notes. The trust-based model is presented as an alternative: The trust-based model does not seek worker compliance but rather collective development of opportunities to meet organizational goals. It focuses on the interpersonal transactions of supervisors and workers. The trust-based model proposes that increased participatory decision-making [PDM] practices, specifically empowerment, feedback, and collective

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management decisions, will lead to increased trust and positive organizational outcomes. The trust-based model recognizes the critical role of the worker as the primary deliverer of service in the public organization. (Nyhan, 2000: 88)

The trust-based model is a viable paradigm, in particular, when public organizations need to enhance responsiveness to client needs and are more dependent on information than on structure, Nyhan (2000) emphasizes. Rather than ensuring managerial control over workers, this calls for more equal and cooperative relationships between employees and between supervisors and workers. Today, the concept of co-creation is often used to describe this approach. This way of addressing public sector management builds on the understanding that trust cannot be demanded by workers, but must be earned by managers in a process of involvement and empowerment (Denhardt & Catlaw, 2014). By extension, it has been argued, this means that public management should be ‘serving, rather than steering’ (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000). Hence, servant leadership is an emerging concept and approach to managerial trust-building (Joseph & Winston, 2005). A year after Nyhan’s seminal article was published, another research article was published by sociologist Paul S. Adler (2001). There are strong similarities between their approaches. However, Adler does not refer to Nyhan and it appears as if these conceptualizations had developed in parallel. The same is the case for the book Professionalism: The Third Logic, by Eliot Freidson, published in 2001. Adler (2001) argues that it is not sufficient to distinguish between market mechanisms and bureaucratic mechanisms in organizations and societies, but there is also a third mechanism. He refers to this third mechanism for coordination as trust. Adler refers to market as an ideal typical organizational form, with price as the primary coordination mechanism. This could include, for example, incentive systems and various models with strong competitive elements, including marketization. Hence, there is an overlap between Adler’s market category and the doctrines included in NPM (Hood, 1991). Hierarchy is described as another ideal typical organization form, with authority as the central coordination mechanism. This form includes the line of command, but also all forms of regulation and formalization. Trust is connected to community, and, in particular, communities of practice, where professionals learn from each other and from scientific evidence. Similar to Adler (2001), Bradach and Eccles (1989) suggest price, authority and trust as three control mechanisms in organizations. Their work was published already in 1989. William G. Ouchi (1980) distinguishes between market, bureaucracy and clan as mediating mechanisms. Freidson (2001) refers to professionalism, rather than trust, but made a similar argument. (McEvily, Perrone, & Zaheer, 2003) suggest that trust should be understood as an organizing principle. Table 17.1 lists these contributions, and that of Nyhan (2000). They have all contributed to what today is referred to as trust-based public management, and promoted in political reforms in Sweden and Denmark. As this overview shows, trust-based public management is more than merely an attitude, as it is typically used. Nor should it be mistaken for a political invention.

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Table 17.1

Key literature underlying the concept trust-based public management

Author

Year

Ouchi

1980 Mediating Mechanisms

Categories and concepts ● Market

Full reference Ouchi, W. G. (1980). Markets, bureaucracies, and clans. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(1), 129–42

● Bureaucracy ● Clan Bradach & Eccles

1989 Control Mechanisms ● Price ● Authority

Bradach, J. L., & Eccles, R. G. (1989). Price, authority, and trust: from ideal types to plural forms. Annual Review of Sociology, 15(1), 97–118

● Trust Nyhan

2000 The Trust-based Paradigm

Nyhan, R. C. (2000). Changing the paradigm: trust and its role in public sector organizations. The American Review of Public Administration, 30(1), 87–109

Adler

2001 Ideal Types/Coordination Mechanisms ● Market/Price ● Hierarchy/​Authority

Adler, P. (2001). Market, hierarchy, and trust: The knowledge economy and the future of capitalism. Organization Science, 12(2), 215–34

● Community/​Trust Freidson 2001 Logics ● Market

Freidson, E. (2001). Professionalism: The Third Logic. Cambridge: Polity

● Bureaucracy ● Professionalism McEvily, 2003 Trust as an organizational principle

McEvily, B., Perrone, V., & Zaheer, A. (2003). Trust as

Perrone

an organizing principle. Organization Science, 14(1),

& Zaheer

91–103

Rather, it connects back to decades of research and a discussion on the fundamentals of any organization that has taken place in various theoretical strands in parallel.

THE SWEDISH TRUST REFORM An Intense Debate Calls for Political Action In February 2013, the first part of a series of articles on the Swedish welfare sector, written by the author and journalist Maciej Zaremba, was published in the largest national newspaper. It was titled ‘What was it that killed Mister B?’ In this series, Zaremba accounted for the experiences of a small number of patients and how various types of failures by health care professionals could be explained by the remuneration systems, management control systems and poor organizational processes. These articles gained enormous attention and started a debate that would continue for several years. Eventually, this debate would result in a Swedish trust reform. It had now become evident to the public that management control systems could have a far

Trust-based public management  265

stronger impact on behaviors than many had thought and in ways that were neither expected nor intended. It had also become evident that the pattern was not limited to health care. Instead, people from various sectors reported that they had similar experiences, and people also learned that this was part of an international set of trends referred to as NPM. Before 2013, the NPM concept had not been part of the Swedish public debate to any large extent. Now, it rapidly became known to a wide public. Table 17.2 shows a selection of debate articles on this subject from the largest national newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, published during the period 2013–16. As the list shows, the debate was supported, in particular, by researchers from academia. Nine months after the first article by Zaremba, the Swedish Prime Minister published a debate article where he agreed in the criticism and called for increased professional discretion in the welfare sector. During fall 2015 and spring 2016, a series of ‘knowledge seminars’ were arranged at universities around Sweden, by the Minister for Public Administration (civil minister) Ardalan Shekarabi. At these meetings, researchers presented their views and there was a dialogue with the minister. During the same period, and in the years that followed, a number of assignments were directed to the Swedish Agency for Public Management (Statskontoret), focusing on professional autonomy and management control systems. On June 16, 2016, the Government decided that a commission should be formed. This was referred to as the Trust Commission (Tillitsdelegationen). It was requested to suggest how a trust-based management could be implemented in the welfare sector (municipalities and regions) within the existing administrative structure. Its work on trust would continue until October 2018. It also had an additional assignment not primarily relating to trust-based public management, which was completed in June 2020. The commission was then dismantled. On September 13, 2016, the trust reform was announced in the government declaration. During the following years, the debate continued with the Trust Commission at the center and with a special focus on suggesting how management control systems and organizational practices could be improved. Trust Reform with the Trust Commission and 12 Key Research Projects In June 2016, a new Government commission, called the Trust Commission (in Swedish, Tillitsdelegationen), was formed. It consisted of a chairperson and two delegates. Chairperson Laura Hartman had previously been a researcher in economics and head of a department at the Swedish Social Security Agency. One of the delegates was Director-General for the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (state agency). The other delegate was a Member of Parliament for the Swedish Left Party and third chairperson of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR). Apart from them, a secretariat was formed, headed by a General Secretary. A Head of Research was recruited in January 2017 from Lund University. The directives stated that the commission should focus primarily on the welfare sector, but also analyze the full policy process from the national level to the individual

Public organizations are today governed by statistics. Rather than measuring together with the professions, much of today’s evaluation has been

Our professions have been kidnapped by the economists’ models

Unions

Representatives for unions

Sten Widmalm

Frida Widmalm,

Thomas Persson,

Niklas Wällstedt

Bino Catasús,

Roland Almqvist,

Niklas Stenlås

Sharon Rider,

Andreas Pettersson,

Gustaf Kastberg,

Karin Jonnergård,

Ylva Hasselberg,

Tomas Englund,

Academia

Academia

Academia

Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg,

Johan Alvehus,

Government

Stefan Löfven (Prime Minister)

and police

representing teachers, physicians

care clinic

The financial remuneration models

Employees

Summary

Teachers and physicians are using at most half their working time to meet pupils and patients. Instead they must focus on administration

evaluation

opportunism, but control systems should not be designed only to avoid this

The welfare is being undermined by our focus on

Measuring and distrust leads to excessive control. There is always a risk for

organizations

professional work. NPM represents a different logic than professionalism

There is a need for more qualitative approaches in the evaluation of

competence

sector, where they are allowed greater discretion and can use their

New Public Management has created scared

All types of quality cannot be measured

and status back

The welfare professions need to have their freedom We need to establish a new approach to people working in the welfare

kidnapped by economists or administrators. There is a lack of trust

a price for each treatment

There must be better ways to measure and evaluate health care than setting

ambitions

systems hampered quality, efficiency and ethics in health care – contrary to

A series of articles on how pricing models and management control

Personnel at the Midhagen open

Heading (quote by the newspaper editor) What was it that killed mister B?

Sector

Media

Author

Selected debate articles criticizing the lack of professional autonomy during the period 2013–16

Maciej Zaremba

Table 17.2

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Source:  Sweden’s largest newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Let the public sector return to administrators

Louise Bringselius

Academia

the burden on teachers Stop the negative trend and take control over the bureaucracy

Academia

Anders Forssell,

Anders Ivarsson Westberg

Academia

Lars Strannegård

Inge-Bert

Sharon Rider,

Magnus Nilsson,

Mats Hyvönen,

required

Detailed control systems tend to reduce this motivation. A new balance is

Many public sector employees are motivated primarily by intrinsic rewards

discretion

working environment. Give the professions more

Administrative work is crowding out core operations and leads to a poor

teaching

Learn from methods in the French schools to reduce Work specialization must be used in schools, so that teachers can focus on

the basis for promotion and salary-setting

a threat to our welfare

Ylva Hasselberg,

Sverker Gustavsson,

Summary Professionalism must become the primary principle in the public sector and

Heading (quote by the newspaper editor) Reduced respect for professional competence is

Sector

Academia

Author

Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg,

Trust-based public management  267

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citizen. A number of projects should be conducted within the scope of the commission, to show how trust-based public management could be implemented in practice. It was requested that the commission should have a close collaboration with the SKR. It was not clear whether the projects should be headed by officials from SKR or researchers, but the directives clearly stated that a number of researchers should be recruited to follow the process ‘in order to provide a critical perspective’ (dir. 2016: 51, p. 2). After dialogue with SKR during fall 2016, it was agreed that a special Head of Research should be recruited and that the projects should be implemented by researchers from Swedish universities, rather than by SKR officials (Bringselius, 2021a). This was an important decision, since it led to a process with very close collaboration with academia. Towards the end of 2016, two important steps were taken. First, an invitation was distributed to municipalities and regions, inviting them to send a notice of interest to the commission if they should wish to be part of a project. They were also asked to describe if they had any ongoing initiative that could be an example of trust-based public management. Second, an invitation was distributed to all Swedish universities, where researchers were invited to send a notice of interest, if they should wish to be part of a project. They were also asked if they had any ongoing research project that could be of relevance to the work of the commission. After this, a process of matching organizations and researchers began. In February 2017, most of the projects could be announced. In practice, the work of the committee was organized according to Figure 17.1, in the main assignment 2016–18. There would later be an additional assignment, which focused on trust-based public management in government agencies (2018–19). This had a more narrow scope, however, and there was not an equally close collaboration with the research community. Already as preparations began, there was a strong emphasis on developing a work process that would allow researchers full integrity and autonomy. For this reason, it was agreed that each initiative (project) should be described by researchers in a separate chapter, in a volume edited by the Head of Research, and that there should be a peer review process. The final research report (SOU 2018:38) was presented in parallel with the main report from the commission (SOU 2018:47). However, the chapters were made available beforehand, so that the secretariat could use it as a basis for their analysis and suggestions. Each researcher was also asked to present policy recommendations at the end of their respective chapters. The work of the Trust Committee 2016–18 was organized in five areas, as follows. Trust initiatives (in Swedish, Försök Tillit) 1. Initiatives in the administration, followed by researchers were called ‘experiments’ or ‘trials’ (försök), but researchers did not decide on any interventions, as would be the case in action research on randomized control trials. Rather, the initiatives were studied in real time, as they proceeded. Within the scope of this area, meetings were organized with the municipalities, regions and state agencies involved in projects, along with researchers and personnel from the committee secretariat. These meetings

Trust-based public management  269

Figure 17.1

The work of the Trust Commission (Tillitsdelegationen) in the main assignment 2016–18

focused on promoting learning between the organizations, but also for the committee/ secretariat as they were developing recommendations. 2. Trust research (in Swedish, Forskning Tillit) This area included all types of collaborations with the research community, such as seminars and reports, but also the work conducted in the projects, referred to as ‘Trust initiatives’ above. For example, there were a number of workshops/meetings with the researchers involved in the projects, to discuss any theoretical or methodological challenges, for peer review and to discuss the theoretical framework outlined by the Head of Research (including e.g. definitions). 3. Trust forum (in Swedish, Forum Tillit) Seminars focused on dialogue and learning, with an audience including primarily decision-makers from the public sector. Many of these seminars were broadcast over the internet and published on YouTube. 4. Trust visit (in Swedish, Besök Tillit) The committee and the secretariat traveled on a regular basis to various municipalities and regions, to learn from their experience and have a dialogue. These visits included both organizations studied by the researchers and those not included in

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any study. Typically, the committee asked for the opportunity to meet people on all levels, from everyday operations to top officials and policymakers. 5. Trust examples (in Swedish, Exempel Tillit) One of the assignments that the Trust commission had was to collect good examples from the public sector and make these available to others. In seminars and reports, such examples were provided, but a public bank of good examples was never set up. Throughout the process, there was a close dialogue between the Trust Commission and its secretariat, and the Head of Research (who also later signed the main report, SOU 2018:47) and the commissioned researchers. This was a way of ensuring that suggestions and recommendations presented in the main report were in line with the findings and conclusions made by researchers. In June 2017, a first report was presented, focused on remuneration models in the welfare sector (SOU 2017:56). In June 2018, three reports were presented, as the main assignment of the Trust Commission was ended: ● SOU 2018:47 Main report ● SOU 2018:48 Report on trust-based inspection ● SOU 2018:37 Research report. In December 2017, half a year before the commission had finished its main assignment, an additional directive (assignment) was issued by the Swedish Government. The commission was now asked to provide advice on trust-based public management also for government agencies. The additional assignment was finished in October 2019 (see Figure 17.2 for a timeline). Another additional directive was issued by the Government in March 2019, but this was not primarily focused on trust. Instead, it focused on suggesting how a shared course to all employees in Government agencies, focused on the basic principles in the Swedish Constitution, could be outlined. At the same time, in March 2019, a new chairman was appointed by the Government to lead the work of the Trust Commission, as this changed focus. The research projects included in the work of the Trust Commission 2016–18 are listed in Table 17.3. Reports from all these can be found in the anthology (Bringselius, 2018b). Apart from these researchers, Louise Bringselius (Head of Research, Associate Professor in Management Studies/Business Administration), Bo Rothstein (professor in political science) and Lars Trägårdh (professor in history) contributed with conceptual chapters. Both have long experience from trust research. Outcomes No public institution was made responsible for continuing to provide advice to public organizations on how to implement trust-based public management. However, this work is today continued on a voluntary basis by researchers across Sweden and the

Trust-based public management  271

Figure 17.2

The Swedish Trust reform and the work of the Trust Commission

consultancy industry also carries on the work, based on both reports from the Trust Commission and new research publications. There is a strong interest in this area, in particular, in municipalities, and the Ministry of Finance has announced that this is still a philosophy that they wish to advocate (The Swedish National Audit Office, 2021). In October 2019, the Minister of Public Affairs, Ardalan Shekarabi, was moved to another ministerial post and a new minister was appointed, Lena Micko. She was recruited from the post as Chairman of SKR. After the shift on the post as Minister of Public Administration, there were very few public presentations where Micko promoted trust-based public management. Shekarabi had been the opposite, expressing a strong support for the reform. In a survey after the reform, the researchers who commissioned the 12 research projects responded that they enjoyed a high level of autonomy (88 percent) and that they were likely to accept a similar offer in the future (69 percent) (Bringselius, 2021a). The trust reform is still vivid, according to the Government web page (https://​www​ .regeringen​.se). It is, however, promoted primarily by academia. Many organizations focus on the guiding principles from the research report (SOU 2018:38) and the main committee report (SOU 2018:47). A new research network has been formed, called the Trust Network of the Academy (in Swedish, Akademins tillitsnätverk), by the previous Head of Research at the Trust Commission (Louise Bringselius). This network published a debate article in the largest Swedish newspaper in December

Health care

Health care

Social care (working

5

6

University

Sundin

School

School

Inspection/school

Inspection/health care

13

14

15

social care/health)

Environment Authority

The Swedish Work

Care Inspectorate (IVO),

The Health and Social

(Skolinspektionen)

The Swedish Schools

Linköping Municipality

Malmö Municipality

Linda Moberg

Magnus Erlandsson

Ola Fransson

Niklas Altermark

Dalia Mukhtar Landgren,

Political Science

Political Science Uppsala University

Philosophy/School Development Malmö University

Political Science

Business Administration

Social Care, Business Administration

Social Work

Business Administration

Social Work,

Business Administration, Sociology

Social Care

Business Administration

Economics,

Political Science

Theoretical field

Malmö University

Lund University

Uppsala University

sector)

care Johan Hansson

Linköping University

Mattias Elg

Bräcke Diakoni (third

Students health (school/ Falu Municipality

Boras University,

Karin Josefsson,

Alingsås Municipality

partnerships in social

Lund University, Linné University

Sodertorn University, Linköping

Magdalena Elmersjö, Elisabeth

School of Management

Public and third sector

12

11

10

Social care – housing

9

first

Social care – home care Sundsvall Municipality

8

Stockholm University/Stockholm

Titziana Sardiello

Mälardalen University

Lund University

Gothenburg University

University

Susanna Alexius,

Jonas Welander

Wanja Astvik, Robert Larsson,

Helsingborg Municipality Verner Denvall

Social care (leadership) Borlänge Municipality

Nyköping Municipality

Glenngård

Lina Maria Ellegård, Anna

Jenny de Fine Licht

(Region Kalmar Län)

Skane County Council

Birgitta Niklasson,

Researchers

Kalmar County Council

Studied organization

7

environment)

Sector

4

The research projects included in the work of the Trust Commission 2016–18

Chapter

Table 17.3

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Trust-based public management  273

2019, it organized its first research conference in December 2020, and its first book (a research anthology) was released in November 2021.

LESSONS ON TRUST-BASED PUBLIC MANAGEMENT In the final chapter of the research anthology summarizing lessons from the Trust Commission, I identify a number of lessons from the twelve studies (Bringselius, 2018a), as follows. Trustful Dialogue Between Public Officials and Elected Policymakers In order to reduce the number of goals and performance indicators and other commission from policymakers and public officials on central levels, a climate of trust is fundamental. This is not only valid for the relation between policymakers and public officials, but also for the relation between policymakers from different political parties. Several projects emphasize the need to work actively building relations and trying to gain a shared understanding of each other’s roles. There is also a need to ensure a shared focus on the mission, understood as matters of service quality, rather than only a narrow focus on financial reporting. Findings supporting this conclusion are found in particular in chapters 4 (Kalmar Region), 6 (Nyköping Municipality), 7 (Borlänge Municipality), 8 (Sundsvall Municipality), 9 (Helsingborg Municipality), and 11 (Falu Municipality). The importance of this was obvious in particular in Kalmar Regional Council, where there was a strong focus on gradual improvements on the initiatives of personnel. One possible explanation was also a financial crisis during the 1990s, which resulted in a broad political agreement on a philosophy emphasizing delegated decision-making, employee empowerment, organizational learning, changes in small steps, and a strong patient focus. The researchers also explain how the region went from focusing on financial savings, to a focus on vision and quality ambitions. Policymakers see it as their role to serve the organization, by assisting them in creating good conditions for their work, rather than directing their work in detail. In this study, several interviewees (policymakers) explain how they deliberately avoid micro-management and how they understand that this would probably not be very efficient anyway. They emphasize stability and long-term continuity. Limit the Number of Goals, Indicators and Rules Trust-based public management does not mean a laissez-faire attitude. There must still be measuring, regulations and reporting. However, several cases in this study show that organizations can improve performance by reducing the amount of control mechanisms, and by establishing suitable goals together with those employees whom they concern. This is today sometimes referred to as co-creation (in Swedish, samskapad styrning). However, control based on measuring can often be replaced

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by collegial support or control based on qualitative accounts. The researchers make this argument in particular in Chapter 4 (Kalmar County Council), as a way of understanding the approach adopted there. Chapter 6 (Nyköping Municipality) provides another example. Here, focus had been shifted from short-term quantitative goals from political boards, to long-term strategic goals relating to the overall mission of the organization. This way, it was also easier to gain political consensus. Researchers also account for how this had been combined with a stronger focus on qualitative accounts from the organization, explaining needs and issues and what support they need. Similar conclusions are made in Chapter 7 (Borlänge). Professional Quality Development and Inspection Focused on Learning For many years, there has been an increasing focus on accountability in audit and inspection, leaving the auditee with little support when facing problems. As complements to traditional inspection methods, researchers here recommend professional (collegial) quality development approaches and inspection methods with a stronger focus on organizational learning and support. As part of this, audit and inspection work need to be designed in order to not impose a heavy administrative burden on the auditees. With professional quality development, colleagues from various departments in the organization, or from different organizations, can visit one another and provide advice on how they could develop their professional practice. This is a way of building communities of practice with situated learning (Omidvar & Kislov, 2014). There is not always a need to have an external auditor in order to analyze and develop the organization, from a trust perspective. In particular, Chapter 14 (School Inspectorate) showed how this new form of inspection could be implemented. Here, it is referred to as quality audit. School representatives explained, in the study, that they found this very positive, although they could see a need to develop this method further, in particular to include more examples from other schools and to be more long-term oriented. Chapter 15 (The Health and Social Care Inspectorate and the Swedish Work Environment Authority) illustrated another trust-based approach. In this case, the two inspectorates attempted to develop an approach for collaboration when visiting organizations. They had been subjected to criticism, as they could give totally opposite recommendations – one focusing on employees and the other on patients. They were still struggling to find the forms for this collaboration, since they lacked a shared purpose and a roadmap for the work. Chapters 12 (Malmö) and 13 (Linköping) also provided findings along this line. Here, focus was on in-house quality assurance and both these organizations implemented professional peer-review processes that made top-down control superfluous. Studies emphasized the necessity of making this horizontal learning part of the organizational culture.

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Create Multi-professional and Multi-organizational Teams Focused on Citizen Needs During recent decades, management control systems have been highly focused on defining limits to responsibilities and allocating budgets to small result units. This tends to lead to people suboptimizing and poor capacity to meet client needs that require support from various parts of the organization, or from several organizations. To meet these client needs, professions and organizations need to collaborate more and have a shared focus on client needs, rather than on internal bureaucratic routines. Chapter 11 (Falun) explains how this can take place in matters of student health, where social care (municipalities), psychologists (regional councils/private) and schools (municipalities/private) need to find shared approaches. In this case, they were inspired by the Scotland Model, ‘Get it Right for Every Child’. Interviewees explain that there was a need to explicitly agree that every party should not only focus on the interests of their own organization, but have a shared focus on the child in question. This was also difficult to achieve initially, because each profession tended to assert their own profession as more important or competent and see other professions as competitors. This gradually changed – but took time. In particular, it was important to look at children as people, rather than as administrative errands. Chapter 8 (Sundsvall) describes a similar experience from home care. Here the Vanguard Method was an important inspiration. Rather than schedules based on minutes, planned on the central level, employees talked to the clients and agreed together with them and with the colleagues on schedules and working routines. This had excellent results, also according to other evaluations. Findings in Chapter 10 (Alingsås and Bräcke Diakoni) also emphasize a holistic system approach with collaboration across organizations and professions. Push Down Decision-making and Formal Mandates and Develop Operations Together with Clients Delegation is a key principle with trust-based public management, and includes co-creation of public services together with the clients. This also requires strong organizational support and resources to test new ideas. This could, for example, include channels for ideas and innovation to policymakers and central management. This was also part of the strategy in Kalmar County Council, as explained in Chapter 4. One of the benefits with their platform for ideas was that employees did not need to implement these themselves, unless they wanted to. If the idea was accepted, resources were allocated. Chapter 9 (Helsingborg) described how the Housing First model was implemented and the problems that arose. With this model, trust was directed towards the clients, who were homeless people. They were offered a publicly funded apartment without any demands or requirements, and social care workers started providing them with support, rather than serving as gate-keepers. This was problematic for the social care workers to accept initially, but as results

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were excellent they grew to appreciate the model. Delegation is included in most cases, but Chapters 4, 8, 9, 10 and 11 deserve special mention. Promote Servant Leadership and a Shared Leadership where all Adopt a Systems Perspective Many chapters (e.g. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) emphasize that every part of the policy process needs to take active responsibility for preserving a culture of trust and a strong focus on service quality. I refer to this as shared leadership (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007; Manz, Pearce, Mott, Henson, & Sims Jr., 2013; Pearce, Wassenaar, & Manz, 2014). This shared leadership (in Swedish, medledarskap) is a way of creating an ethos of dependability and shared responsibility for the greater task and the wider set of stakeholders, in the organization (Pearce et al., 2014). This should be seen as a complement to the leadership of managers, where coaching is an approach to build trust. As employees also are recognized as leaders, managers will take more of a servant role. The relevance of coaching leadership is noted in particular in Chapters 7 and 8. Ensure Psychological Safety, but Actively Build Relations and Allow for Dissent Trust is closely related to psychological safety. To achieve this, there is a need to build strong relations. This was also emphasized in several chapters (e.g. 8, 10, 11). Building relations took time, but it was easier where there was continuity in the work force (e.g. Chapter 6). This continuity was a benefit to both clients and colleagues. Additional, this is along the lines of existing literature (e.g. Edmondson, Kramer, & Cook, 2004). This was also a benefit to organizational learning and team learning (Edmondson, 2002). Focus on the Shared Mission to the Citizen Trust-based public management was easier to implement where there was a strong focus on the shared mission of the organization – and the individual citizen that it meant to help. This was a way of strengthening the inner motivation of employees and directing focus to what created value in the meeting with the client, rather than towards administrative routines. This is a recurring theme in most case studies, but in particular in Chapter 9 on Housing First. Promote a Shared Ethics and Organizational Confidence with Continuous Dialogue on Values and Priorities Different organizations had different ways of building organizational culture. Chapters 5 and 7 point at traditional organizational values as one way forward, but there are also those critical of such approach. A shared denominator is, however,

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a focus on building a shared sense of ethics or value community and organizational confidence. This is fostered with a continuous dialogue on values and priorities. However, as Chapter 5 points out, there cannot be a focus only on learning from good examples, but there must also be a focus on learning from failures. This is also noted in the existing research literature, under the concept ‘the advocacy trap’ (Zuzul & Edmondson, 2017). With psychological safety, such discussions are easier to take. Hence, it must be accepted that mistakes are made, in order to promote organizational learning. Time and Patience Almost all cases illustrate the need for time and patience in order to build trust. Roles will change, fundamental assumptions may be challenged and some people will need to accept a higher level of risk-taking than they normally are accustomed to. With a continuous dialogue within the organization and with policymakers, clients and stakeholders, trust can gradually develop, if all parties are willing to take the first step.

CONCLUSIONS The Swedish trust reform is a response to a strategic challenge for governments across the world, namely a set of trends including growing bureaucracy and micro-management. These trends have resulted in frustrated citizens and street-level professionals, with little discretion and small chances of influence on public services. For this reason, the Swedish government decided, after several years of debate, to have a trust reform. A government commission, called the Trust Commission, was formed in 2016 and served as the hub of this reform. The committee was rare, in particular, in two regards. First, it aimed at an area that was seldom approached by governments, namely fundamental principles for the governance and management of public organizations – beyond political reforms. Second, it included extensive collaboration with both academic researchers and practitioners in the public sector. At the core of the work of the Trust committee were 12 research projects, where findings on trust-based public management were elaborated.

REFERENCES Adler, P. (2001) Market, hierarchy, and trust: the knowledge economy and the future of capitalism. Organization Science, 12(2), 215–34. Bradach, J. L., & R. G. Eccles (1989) Price, authority, and trust: from ideal types to plural forms. Annual Review of Sociology, 15(1), 97–118. Bringselius, L. (2018a) Vad har vi lärt oss om att styra och leda med tillit? In L. Bringselius (ed.), Styra och leda med tillit – forskning och praktik. Sou 2018:38. Stockholm: Norstedts/ The Swedish Government Offices.

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Bringselius, L. (ed.) (2018b) Styra och leda med tillit – forskning och praktik. Sou 2018:38. Stockholm: Finansdepartementet/Norstedts Juridik. Bringselius, L. (2021a) Oberoende forskning i det statliga kommittéväsendet. Lärdomar från tillitsdelegationens uppdrag i välfärdssektorn. In L. Salö, S. Sörlin, & M. Benner (eds.), Humanvetenskapernas verkningar. Stockholm: Dialogos Förlag. Bringselius, L. (ed.) (2021b) Tillit i offentliga organisationer: Teoretiska perspektiv på tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Carson, J. B., P. E. Tesluk, & J. A. Marrone (2007) Shared leadership in teams: an investigation of antecedent conditions and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 50(5), 1217–34. Denhardt, R. B., & T. J. Catlaw (2014) Theories of Public Organization: Nelson Education. Denhardt, R. B., & J. V. Denhardt (2000) The new public service: serving rather than steering. Public Administration Review, 60(6), 549–59. Edmondson, A. C. (2002) Managing the Risk of Learning: Psychological Safety in Work Teams. https://​www​.hbs​.edu/​ris/​Publication​%20Files/​02​-062​_0b5726a8​-443d​-4629​-9e75​ -736679b870fc​.pdf. Edmondson, A. C., R. M. Kramer, & K. S. Cook (2004) Psychological safety, trust, and learning in organizations: a group-level lens. Trust and Distrust in Organizations: Dilemmas and Approaches, 12, 239–72. Freidson, E. (2001) Professionalism: The Third Logic. Cambridge: Polity. Hall, P. (2021) Byråkratins ökning i offentlig sektor – vilka är problemen? In L. Bringselius (ed.), Tillit och omdöme: Perspektiv på tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Hood, C. (1991) A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69, 3–19. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​j​.1467​-9299​.1991​.tb00779​.x. Hood, C., & R. Dixon (2015) A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? Evaluating Three Decades of Reform and Change in UK Central Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joseph, E. E., & B. E. Winston (2005) A correlation of servant leadership, leader trust, and organizational trust. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 26(1), 6–22. Kristiansen, M. B. (2015) Management by objectives and results in the Nordic countries: continuity and change, differences and similarities. Public Performance & Management Review, 38(3), 542–69. Manz, C. C., C. L. Pearce, J. W. Mott, Z. Henson, & H. P. Sims Jr. (2013) Don’t take the lead … share the lead. Organizational Dynamics, 42(1), 54–60. Maslow, A. H. (1954) The instinctoid nature of basic needs. Journal of Personality, 22, 326–47. McEvily, B., V. Perrone, & A. Zaheer (2003) Trust as an organizing principle. Organization Science, 14(1), 91–103. McGregor, D. (1960) The Human Side of Enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill. Nyhan, R. C. (2000) Changing the paradigm: trust and its role in public sector organizations. The American Review of Public Administration, 30(1), 87–109. Omidvar, O., & R. Kislov (2014) The evolution of the communities of practice approach: toward knowledgeability in a landscape of practice—an interview with Etienne Wenger-Trayner. Journal of Management Inquiry, 23(3), 266–75. Ouchi, W. G. (1980) Markets, bureaucracies, and clans. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(1), 129–42. Ouchi, W. G. (1981) Organizational paradigms: a commentary on Japanese management and theory Z organizations. Organizational Dynamics, 9(4), 36–43. Pearce, C. L., C. L. Wassenaar, & C. C. Manz (2014) Is shared leadership the key to responsible leadership? The Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(3), 275–88.

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The Swedish National Audit Office (2021) Den statliga administrationen växer, trots försök till effektivisering (RIR 2021:3). https://​www​.riksrevisionen​.se/​rapporter/​g​ransknings​ rapporter/​2021/​administrationen​-i​-statliga​-myndigheter​-​-​-en​-verksamhet​-i​-forandring​ .html. Walton, E. R. (1985) From control to commitment in the workplace. Harvard Business Review, March/April. https://​hbr​.org/​1985/​03/​from​-control​-to​-commitment​-in​-the​-workplace. Zuzul, T., & A. C. Edmondson (2017) The advocacy trap: when legitimacy building inhibits organizational learning. Academy of Management Discoveries, 3(3), 302–21.

18. Emerging ideas for strategic public management: strategizing collaborative governance Tamyko Ysa and Carsten Greve

THE CREATION OF PUBLIC VALUE TO ADVANCE THE COMMON GOOD Why is a new book on strategy in public management relevant? The goal has been twofold. One, to advance the study of strategic public management, that is, further stimulate and encourage thinking about strategy within the field of public management and governance. As Klijn and Koppenjan (2020) note, nowadays, the need for strategic planning in the public sector is widely accepted. The issue is what kind of strategic management is appropriate for public purposes? Two, to propose alternatives that provide an answer to how strategic management might create public value and advance the common good (Moore 1995; Bryson, Berry and Yang 2010). The challenge for strategic public management is about approaching the causes of the issues in multilevel and multi-stakeholder governance environments. Issues such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, the targets for the U.N.’s SDGs, climate emergency and climate attacks, job insecurity, aging, the increase in social inequalities, geopolitical crises with consequences in economic and energy crises, have their roots and potential solutions only from this dual point of view. This closing chapter of this Handbook aims to reconsider strategic public management in the face of old problems and new challenges. To this end, we group the different challenges of public management into three categories: (1) the changing public governance paradigms, (2) aligning elements of strategic activities, and (3) achieving ways for managing agile stability (i.e., a balance between dynamics and stability). The first category focuses on the “public” part of strategic public management. The second part focuses on “strategy” in strategic public management. The third part focuses on the practical “management” part in strategic public management. We share recent proposals to address these challenges in three groups of tools: (a) quadruple helix and eco-systems, (b) a mission-oriented approach, and (c) a citizen-centric approach focusing on design-thinking and innovation labs. We end with a concluding conceptual proposal: strategizing collaborative governance as an outcome-based approach that includes not only social transformation, but also organizational transformation.

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OLD PROBLEMS AND NEW CHALLENGES IN STRATEGIC PUBLIC MANAGEMENT The challenges in rethinking strategic public management are innumerable. Some have been with us historically, while others have entered as new challenges in the public agenda with great force. We have tried to group them into three major challenges. This may be an irresponsible decision given the complexity of these challenges, but we do so in the hope of providing clarity. Challenge #1: the Need to Build a Holistic Model of Public Governance The first challenge addresses the need to build a holistic model of public governance, from which to implement strategic management. Strategic public management has evolved hand in hand with public governance paradigms: Progressive Public Administration (PPA), New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Governance (NPG) (Table 18.1; see also Torfing, Andersen, Greve and Klausen 2020). Since the 1980s, management theory and practice developed from a framework that focused on strategic planning to a more comprehensive framework (Bryson, Berry and Yang 2010), in which strategic planning strongly influences budgeting, performance, quality improvement programs, outcome measurement (including benchmarking and customer satisfaction measures), decentralized decision-making, and improvement initiatives, hand in hand with NPM. In the 1990s, “governance” or NPG, began to displace NPM as an intellectual construction through which to make sense of the public sector. Whereas NPM had the effect of dividing and separating parts of the public sector in the drive for management efficiency, public governance and public sector management from the 1990s onwards was searching for more integration, more alignment, and more partnership working to achieve greater effectiveness in delivering public value (George, Drumaux, Joyce and Longo 2020). The current challenge in Public Management is the need to build a holistic model of public governance from these paradigms. No governance paradigm replaces the previous one. The emergence of a new paradigm complements the weaknesses of the previous one with new proposals – and new weaknesses. When they emerged, each of these paradigms meant revolutions in management, and great innovations. But all the three mentioned paradigms are essential as frameworks for strategic management. Strategic management should address all three models, which correspond to models focused on compliance (PPA), efficiency (NPM) and public value or public principles (NPG). In this same vein, Torfing, Andersen, Greve and Klausen (2020) have recently contrasted the “layer cake” model’s approach of separate forms of governance with a “marble cake” involving hybrid forms of public governance, and aim to explain how these different paradigms relate to each other in a systematic way. The challenge for strategic public management is to build a holistic model for each organization where all three paradigms are included. A recent proposal for a comprehensive and holistic model to governance comes from the Public Value Governance framework that Bryson, Crosby and Barberg

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Table 18.1  

Selected public governance paradigms Progressive Public

New Public Management

Administration

(NPM)

New Public Governance (NPG)

(PPA) Strengths

Effective provision of public

Performance

Integrative policies and services

goods and services

Efficiency

Public values

Good governance

Transparency

Tailor-made solutions and services Community and citizen empowerment

Weaknesses

Inefficient

Hyper fragmentation

High transaction cost

Fragmented

Perverse incentives

Lack of transparency

Lack of tailor-made solutions

Cultural confusion

Limits of voluntary agreements

Lack of innovation

Inequality Overestimation of informal networks Lack of continuity

Source:  Based on Koppenjan, Karré and Termeer (2019).

(Handbook, Chapter 7) have sketched out. Their model aims to include many elements also associated with the NPG approach, but adds the public value(s) element(s). Challenge #2: How to Align the Components in Strategic Public Management? If the first challenge is to build a holistic model, the second challenge is to determine what kind of strategic management is appropriate. Evolution documented in this Handbook has provided us with various approaches to strategic public management. The aim is to understand how relevant is the initial question posed by Klijn and Koppenjan (2020) when they stated that nowadays the need of strategic planning in the public sector is denied by few people. Rather, the question is what kind of strategic approach is appropriate. To do this, we revisit some of the main approaches developed in the literature on strategic public management to share the state of the art. Main building blocks in the literature: from strategic planning to strategizing To define strategic public management, we depart from Barzelay’s (2022) mind map for strategic public management. For him, strategic public management is in the domain of the professional practice of public management (Handbook, Figure 3.1). Strategic planning has become ubiquitous at all levels of government over the past 25 years (Handbook, Chapter 7). Although the historic roots of public-sector strategic planning are mostly military and tied to statecraft (Bryson, Edwards and Van Slyke 2018), prehistory of strategic management in government is situated in the 1960s and early 1970s (Handbook, Chapter 15), a period marked by the dominance in the literature of the classic design and planning school of strategy. Public-sector

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strategic planning got a serious start in the United States in the 1980s, and later in other countries, incorporating the development of the concepts, procedures, tools and practices of strategic planning that occurred primarily in the for-profit sector in the 1960s (see also Handbook, Chapter 2). Inside strategic thinking, three main concepts need to be addressed: Strategic Planning, Strategic Management and Strategizing (Bryson and George 2020). Strategic planning is an approach to deliberate strategy formulation. It can vary in stakeholders involved, processes, and tools used. Strategic planning is adopted in the public sector because it helps users decide what their organizations should be doing, why, and how (Bryson, Crosby and Bryson 2009). There is great variability of meanings of strategic planning in the literature. Strategic planning involves the Harvard Policy Model, logical incrementalism, stakeholder management, strategic negotiations, strategic issues in management, strategic planning as framework for innovation, portfolio and competitive forces analysis (Bryson and George 2020). Some reasons for undertaking strategic planning in public management are: achieving goal alignment, continuity of effort, and performance-related effectiveness (Bryson, Edwards and Van Slyke 2018). Other reasons are accountability and compliance, faddishness, the pressure of professional norms, prior experience, or political reasons. As George et al. (Handbook, Chapter 13) indicate, strategic planning helps planners to “strategically reflect on the process steps they are going to follow, the tools they are going to employ and who they are going to involve during strategic planning.” Some of its limitations are to determine how rules, regulations and bureaucracy are assessed during strategic planning; and if strategic planning can help to ensure the legitimate nature of organizational activities, and under which conditions. The second concept in the building blocks is strategic management. Strategic management “integrates strategic planning and implementation across an organization (or other entity) in an ongoing way to enhance the fulfillment of mission, the meeting of mandates, and sustained creation of public value” (Bryson 2018, 24). The main difference with strategic planning is that strategic management includes implementation and all the adaptations needed to the initial formulation and planning. It refers to the efforts of single organizations to integrate strategy formation and implementation, and typically includes strategic planning to formulate strategies, ways of implementing strategies, and continuous strategic learning. It links planning with implementation on an ongoing basis. Strategies can be set deliberately, emerge in practice, result from bricolage, and be realized or not. Thus, strategy formation includes both deliberately set in advance strategy and emergent strategy in practice (Handbook, Chapter 7). Bryson and George (2020) provide an analysis of the seven main approaches to strategic management that can be discerned in the literature. They name those approaches the following ways: the integrated units of management approach, the strategic issues management approach, the contract approach, the collaboration approach, the portfolio management approach, the goal and benchmark approach, and the hybrid approach.

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The third building block relates to strategizing, the more comprehensive of the three concepts. Strategizing is defined as the activities undertaken by public organizations to deliberately and emergently (re)align their aspirations and capabilities. Thus, exploring how aspirations can actually be achieved within a given context, considering current capabilities and the need to develop new capabilities or to change the context. According to Bryson and George (2020), what makes public-sector strategizing strategic is attention to context. How can the strategic approach be tailored to the context, even if the purpose of strategy is to change the context? Context includes an interest in human activity and the way people interact in the development of strategy. Strategizing, according to Bryson, Crosby and Barberg (Handbook, Chapter 7), binds a desire to stabilize what should be stabilized while maintaining appropriate flexibility in terms of goals, policies, strategies and processes to manage complexity. To them, this means thinking about purposes and goals, including attention to situational requirements (e.g., political, legal, administrative, ethical and environmental requirements). It also implies an emphasis on systems thinking, attention to stakeholders (typically multiple levels of government and multiple sectors), and a focus on thinking about potential futures and then making decisions in light of their future consequences. Finally, it also means careful attention to implementation (effective operationalization of the strategy). On why the second challenge remains as a challenge The second challenge is therefore how to assure that public management does not rely only on strategic planning, but advances into strategic management, and develops professional management capabilities to achieve strategizing. How can this move from planning to management to the analysis of future scenarios and implications based on needs and contingencies to achieve social and organizational transformation be managed? In practice, strategic planning and change are inherently connected – and both are part of a broader, holistic management model in organizations. Especially in the face of the turbulence that the world is going through, over-preparation needs to be weighed against the chance that a mega-crisis will occur. There is a need to address the criticisms that strategic public management have received. Among them, negative externalities linked to strategic planning incentives. George, Drumaux, Joyce and Longo (2020) find that strategic planning at lower levels focuses on the narrow pursuit of service line profitability as opposed to focusing on patient care, cost control and the financial viability of a hospital as a whole. Or the tacticity of its use, because strategic planning often takes place when new leadership arrives, and it can be perceived as red tape by an organization’s employees (Handbook, Chapter 13). As our Handbook has demonstrated, to address some of those issues the focus in strategic public management needs to shift from the single public agency method of delivering services to more complex collaborations, well suited to many and major “wicked problems”, outside the control of a single agency (Handbook, Chapter 5). Underlying, we find concepts such as “collaborative advantage” (Moss Kanter

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1994), “meta governance” (Sørensen and Torfing, 2009), or public value governance (Handbook, Chapter 7). Roberts (2019a; and Handbook, Chapter 4) argued for a renewed focus on strategy-making at the state/national level. In other words, the challenge now is how to deal with a collaboration of collaborations, where public managers – through strategizing – may play a role in ensuring that complex policy networks are both effective and democratic. An example is provided by Bryson, Crosby and Barberg (Handbook, Chapter 7) in the western Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, with a project aimed at changing the family justice system. One in which organizations co-align around common strategic objectives and provide a framework for creating an ecosystem to manage the outcome: an effective family justice reform activity in two provinces, that moves from one focused on courts and an adversarial model of dispute resolution to one with a focus on family well-being. What changes is that strategizing by public organizations takes place not just at the organizational level, but also at the strategy management-at-scale levels (Handbook, Chapter 7). To test that complex policy networks are both effective and democratic we need evidence. However, on the one hand, as indicated by Bryson, Berry and Yang (2010), very few studies on strategic public management have focused on equity, social justice, transparency, legitimacy, accountability or the broader array of public values. On the other hand, when governments have tried actively to introduce a “whole-of-society” approach, reports have suggested defaults in implementation. In the case of Scotland (Handbook, Chapter 6), the Scottish Government experimented with new strategic forms of government toward the development of a strategic state and a whole-of-society approach to governance from being a “whole-of-government” approach to being a “whole-of-society” approach. But recent Audit Scotland reports have suggested that the lack of increased investment, particularly in learning and development activities, have placed greater pressure that ended up in a lack of strategic planning, collaborative leadership and investment in strategic capacity (Audit Scotland, 2018a, 2018b, 2019). We need to continue reflecting and experimenting with new methods of analysis to provide answers, where even the application of the most sounding theories in real contexts, make the theory fail in the face of the harshness of reality. Even when we try to introduce innovation into strategy, as Pedersen, Scheller and Thøgersen (Handbook, Chapter 11) indicate, the challenge of a strategic focus on public innovation is that policy development is often decoupled from its real-world implementation, neglecting practice-based experience. Furthermore, research shows (Handbook, Chapter 13) that integrative, systematic reviews of what we already know from empirical research on strategic planning and what is missing form a rather “siloed” body of literature to identify missing pieces of the puzzle without necessarily linking strategic planning to other concepts and bodies of knowledge.

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Challenge #3: Achieving Agile Stability The third challenge of strategic public management is how to achieve agile stability. Kattel, Drechsler, and Karo (2019) point out the main traits of entrepreneurial states. These are states that are capable of unleashing innovations, and wealth resulting from those innovations, and of maintaining socio-political stability at the same time. Innovation bureaucracies are constellations of public organizations that deliver such agile stability. What matters for capacity and capabilities are not individual organizations, but organizational configurations and how they evolve. What makes public bureaucracies important for innovation is their simultaneous capacities for agile change but also for stability, and crucially, delivering both at the same time. Strategic public management thus requires strategic public managers that know how to discern between which elements need to be maintained, and which ones we need to innovate. Changing everything does not make sense, but neither does anchoring us in old practices that do not work. Strategic public management has to provide agility and flexibility, to large organizational machines, initially thought to assure legality and not innovation, or universal services versus tailor made, and that now compete with other organizations to provide better services. The big challenge is to develop innovative bureaucracies that provide agile stability. These innovative bureaucracies are constellations of public organizations that implement this agile stability, capable of combining characteristics to be preserved that provide stability (such as effectiveness of centralization, predictability of their actions, stable, directed by experts, exercising control and accountability, permanence, and that part of the departmental structures and their ways of working). And combine this stability with being agile and flexible (including therefore network management, being dynamic and agile, incorporating innovation and new solutions, with a user-centric approach, oriented to change, through collaborative networks and new platforms). Agile stability pursues original bureaucracies and directed from expertise, capable of managing crises and innovation, and therefore working on the intentional disruption of the status quo, as well as the clear need to combine shifting with stability. These agile stability organizations will probably be better advised to seek the most appropriate guidance to the different dilemmas in which public managers find themselves when making decisions. Table 18.2 shows examples of some of these decisive and constant tensions in strategies for public value. A part of the challenge of being agile is how to deal with innovation. The Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) develops a framework for innovations in the public sector, with four types or facets (OECD-OPSI 2019): adaptive innovation, enhancement-oriented innovation, anticipatory innovation, and mission-oriented innovation. According to the OPSI, each of these facets of innovation implicitly carries organizational values which might cause different reactions. The facet of adaptive innovation is characterized by learning on how things work and then exploring (and innovating) regarding the opportunities that might come from that. The focus is on learning how things function in reality, how things interact and intersect with other

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Table 18.2

Tensions and values conflict in strategy-making

Dilemmas

Authors

Efficiency and extravagance

Roberts (2019b)

Tight and loose control

Barzelay and Campbell (2003)

Separation and connection Present and future Commitment and equivocation Planning and improvisation Between different public values:

Olsen (2010)

Being resilient but also flexible Being efficient but also effective and accountable Path dependencies versus adaptation

Batora and Fossum (2020)

Path-breaking and forward-looking versus stability

Lægreid and Rykkja (Handbook, Chapter 8)

Planning and incrementalism

George (Handbook, Chapter 13)

Openness and closedness Inherently political and not merely technical issues Analysis and intuition Aspirations and capabilities Preexistent distribution of power versus opening to new social movements Design and bureaucracy

Bason (Handbook, Chapter 9)

Change and permanence Technical and institutional environments

Klausen (Handbook, Chapter 15)

Rationalizing organizations internally focused, without devastating motivation (bureaucracy, scientific management and human relations theory) and external environment (contingency theory and open systems theory) Entrepreneurial and rentier states

Kattel, Drechsler and Karo (2019)

Change and permanence Less focus, less strategic and more extensive and technical

Kettl (Handbook, Chapter 5)

Effectiveness vs efficiency Frustration between aspirational models and implementation Top-down planning and collaborative advantage Structure and strategy Boundaries (geographical, administrative, infrastructural, cultural) and decentralized strategic planning Remain stable and robust vs be responsive and adapt to lessons learned Hierarchy and collaborative arrangements Strategy making as a rational, technocratic (à la Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS)) or neutral process vs a struggle for power and resources within large and complex organizations Formal structure or strategy vs organizational culture Data collection and rational analysis vs organizational politics and bargaining Narrow cost savings vs a wider concern with social innovation and public value

Ferlie (Handbook, Chapter 2)

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existing activities, what is changing on the ground and what that might imply, and exploring the opportunities. For instance, Alex Roberts (2019b) from OECD provides the example of government agencies first starting to experiment with social media in response to shifting citizen expectations about how communication should happen, and while it may not have been as official as other channels, in many countries it soon became the norm for government to engage with citizens on social media. In a nutshell, adaptive innovations consist in already existing innovations, applied and adjusting to a different context. Enhancement-oriented innovation concerns learning more about how things work and trying to extend upon that, levering existing suppliers’ solutions. It enables interventions that are more efficient and/or effective, and reinforce or bolster existing value sets. An example that Alex Roberts (2019b) from OECD provides is on how behavioral insights innovation are used to help increase the compliance rates for on-time payment of taxes. The third facet is named mission-oriented innovation (we talk more about this below when we discuss the tools available to public managers). The fourth facet is called anticipatory innovation. It is about reducing uncertainty through the exploration of radically new or different possibilities, to learn about how things could and/or should play out over time. The different possibilities and pathways, and their implications, become clearer. Such activity will often tend to expose, interrogate, challenge and undermine existing values. For instance, Roberts (2019b) in automation, anticipatory innovation work that hints at or explores a jobless future may be quite daunting and challenging for our core values about who we are, what we are “meant” to do, and how wealth is generated and distributed. Both anticipatory and mission-oriented innovation are facets based on exploration vs exploitation of innovation. The various OPSI documents on innovation portfolios question what the direction of innovation in the public sector is and which of these facets predominate. The results of research indicate that most of activity is located in the enhancement-oriented and adaptive space. In the exploring of already existing knowledge of an incremental innovation that is looking forward and optimizing change; but less in the missionary and anticipatory innovations, which focus on exploring innovation, and transformative change. If, as we have indicated at the beginning of this chapter, strategic public management is nowadays dealing with turbulent, complex issues, which are multilevel and multi-stakeholder, and is looking forward to creating public value, the fourth challenge lies in how to move public sector organizations toward mission-oriented and anticipatory innovation.

APPROACHES, METHODS, TECHNIQUES, AND TOOLS RECENTLY DEVELOPED IN STRATEGIC PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TO ADDRESS OLD PROBLEMS AND NEW CHALLENGES Having reviewed the three major groups of challenges, what kind of approaches and tools are available in the current literature? In this chapter, we share proposals

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to address these challenges in three groups of tools: (a) quadruple helix, innovative business models, and eco-systems, (b) a mission-oriented approach, and (c) a citizen-centric approach with focus on design-labs. In this book, contributions from the authors have addressed most of them, and the purpose of this chapter is to try to combine some of them. Quadruple Helix, Business Models, and Eco-systems: Co-shaping the Future A number of concepts and frameworks acknowledge the complexity identified by the different public governance paradigms, and suggests ways to handle them on a more operational level. We will point out three of them: the quadruple helix model, applying business model-thinking for innovation in the public sector, and ecosystems. Different contributors of this book link to the systems level outcome approach the need for collaborative governance as a way to implement strategic plans, co-create innovation, crowdsource ideas and/or create buy-in from core stakeholders (Handbook, Chapter 13). This often requires open innovation (Chesbrough 2003) with the participation of different stakeholders. Moving from the triple helix framework (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 1995), where innovation comes from academia, industry and government, to the quadruple helix (Carayannis and Campbell 2009) where civil society is added. For the European Committee of the Regions (2016), quadruple helix innovation means that government, academia, industry and citizens collaborate to drive structural changes far beyond the scope that any one organization could achieve on its own. It requires the involvement of all stakeholders to innovate and experiment in real-world settings, in creating frictionless ecosystems. In keeping with this model, governments are prioritizing greater public involvement in innovation processes. More recently a quintuple helix has been added (Carayannis and Campbell 2010) introducing the environment. Schedler (Handbook, Chapter 14) poses a relevant question: “How must collaborative arrangements between the state and the private sector be designed so that value creation systems emerge that exist sustainably and develop themselves further, while at the same time generating a high public value?” Reformulating its question in the line of the argument of this chapter, if open innovation is key to implementing the mission-oriented approach, “how do we ensure that the different actors who possess the needed knowledge wish to participate in a public value strategy?”. Schedler’s answer is resounding: a strategically acting public organization must not only understand its own business model, but also the business models of all actors involved. Therefore, if a collaborative project seeks to have the participation of the different stakeholders, its translation into a business model must contain the five elements of public value and impact, target groups and beneficiaries, risk distribution and accountability, expertise in context and funding (Handbook, Figure 14.1). The participation of different stakeholders, in favor of a common outcome, but with different objectives in other areas, leads to the concept of ecosystem as a necessary element in the responses to the challenges mentioned above. This element of ecosystem is the result of evolution from a vision of centralized innovation inward

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looking, or closed innovation, to an externally focused, collaborative innovation, or open innovation. To a final third approach, ecosystem centric, cross-organizational innovation, or innovation networks, Ysa, Schedler and Conill (2022) provide a definition of these ecosystems in a government context. Government ecosystems are a specific form of collaboration between government and non-government actors – such as private firms, not-for-profit organizations, citizens and so on – that often rely on platforms orchestrated by the government, where both public and non-public organizations and individuals could coexist and interact by developing complementary products and services. In addition, ecosystems are expected to potentially cope better with wicked problems than traditional governance arrangements in the state (Goh and Soon 2019). According to Ysa et al. (2022), government ecosystems have some common traits: ● Hybridity. The ecosystem rarely conforms to political boundaries (Laidley, 2007). Thus, it is likely that it embraces actors with divergent goals and motivations, from different sectors as well as regions. ● Informality. Ecosystems often rely on platforms, and these platforms typically define rules for the users. ● Reciprocity. Ecosystems consist of cycles of feedback between users and suppli­ ers of resources (e.g., data or information) (Dawes, Vidiasova and Parkhimovich 2016). ● Openness. Ecosystems include a variety of actors, each of which is with a specific individual business model that includes a specific business logic (Cordella and Paletti 2019). ● Regulation and Orchestration. In a govern­ ment context, the standards for government provision of services need to be met. Ecosystems need regulation that protects actors while using the resources and col­laborating with each other. Ecosystems due to their modularity require proper orchestration to develop their full poten­tial of better value creation (Cordella and Paletti 2019). ● Public Value. Whereas private sector ecosystems emphasize mutual value crea­ tion for the private customer, co-creation of public value is key to ecosystems in a government context. Public service ecosystems incorporate a comprehen­sive view of all the individuals, tech­nologies and institutions involved in the creation and delivery of public value (Petrescu 2019). A Mission-oriented Approach The second tool to be considered is a fast-growing approach to innovation that has emerged over the past few years: missions (European Commission 2019; Mazzucato 2021). This approach entails setting (top-down) long-term, ambitious impact goals, and mobilizing research and innovation activities to enable (bottom-up) change (Handbook, Chapter 9). In her 2013 book, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, Mazzucato defined the entrepreneurial state as one that creates bold, challenge-driven and mission-oriented policies (moon-shot pro-

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jects) and invests in the long-term development of knowledge. This is a state oriented toward positive change, in which bureaucracies should aim for and deliver these ambitious goals (Kattel, Drechsler and Karo 2019). Mazzucato understands mission-orientated as a problem-solving approach. A mission constitutes a bridge, allowing the great challenges of society to be operationalized as a mission with clear and ambitious objectives that can be achieved (Mazzucato and Semieniuk 2017; European Commission 2019; Mazzucato 2021). It is not about fixing failures (coordination failures, negative externalities, information failures or imperfect competition), but to move from broad challenges to specific missions, in three levels: the determination of a grand challenge (political agenda setting and civic engagement), the establishment of missions to address it (clear targeted missions), and the portfolio of projects and bottom-up experimentation. Mazzucato states that the criteria for selecting missions must have the following ingredients: be bold, inspiring and addressing societal value; have concrete targets: a clear direction, a defined, measurable and time-bound objective; be ambitious but with realistic actions and innovation (involving research, and technological readiness over a limited time frame); be a cross-sectoral, cross-author, and cross-disciplinary innovation; and have multiple bottom-up inspired competing solutions. Mazzucato’s contributions are being implemented from missions in the European Commission, to local governments and agencies (Camden, UK; Barcelona’s strategic metropolitan plan, Spain). Camden’s developing renewal missions is revealing, for the landing in four missions to implement the 2030 Agenda (Camden 2021), which are the following: ● Borough-wide diversity in positions of power. By 2030, those holding positions of power in Camden are as diverse as our community – and the next generation is ready to follow. ● Opportunities for young people. By 2025, every young person has access to economic opportunity that enables them to be safe and secure. ● Access to food for all. By 2030, everyone eats well every day with nutritious, affordable, sustainable food. ● Sustainable neighborhoods. By 2030, Camden’s estates and their neighborhoods are healthy, sustainable and unlock creativity. What is the advantage of this approach in the search for solutions to the major challenges identified? Mazzucato’s approach allows linking great challenges of society, and linking the approach with a systems-level strategy. Therefore, it allows several things to be addressed with a feasible intent, typically expressed as a concern for “big trends” or “big questions” in public administration (Roberts 2019a, 8–9). A “way to rethink, reflecting on the way forward, hands on strategizing, public strategy moving forward, strategically acting public organization, value creation system”.

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A Citizen-centric Approach in Design-thinking and Innovation Labs To round up this portfolio of approaches to solutions, a key vector in recent years has been the creation of a compendium of innovation methods that put the citizen in the center (Nesta 2019), both to assure co-decision in policymaking and to ensure feasibility in the implementation of the strategy. For citizen-centric constellation of approaches, we would like to mention three main trends in the use of new methods to discover needs and to discern how to deal with them: Design thinking (Ideo), public and social innovation labs (Handbook, Chapter 9; see also Handbook, Chapter 10), behavioral insights used in public policymaking (OECD 2017a), and the use of experiments by decision-makers (Nesta 2019). Included as contributors to this Handbook, we have three of the best experts regarding the creation and knowledge on innovation labs: Christian Bason, CEO at the Danish Design Center, and professors Jenny M. Lewis and Emma Blomkamp from the University of Melbourne. For Bason (Handbook, Chapter 9) the establishment and operation of design labs can be viewed as an expression of the pursuit of public value creation, and as ways of pushing the traditional expert-driven organizations to better embrace complex societal challenges and emerging technologies. Public innovation labs and their supporters are “design-for-policy” entrepreneurs who promote a design-led approach to public policy and management. According to Blomkamp and Lewis (Handbook, Chapter 10) innovation labs are exemplars of the championing and application of design thinking in the public sector as well as participatory approaches to policymaking practice. Labs are created to “unstick” the balance in government between change and permanence, for an intentional disruption of the status quo. They are designed to contribute to maintaining “agile stability”. The European Commission has proposed that innovation labs are characterized by some common traits (Handbook, Chapter 9): ● Involvement of users at all stages of development (co-creation) ● Multiple partners from private and public sectors ● Bringing together different disciplines and approaches from design, science, technology, public policy and business ● A dedicated space (real or virtual) for experimentation and developing new ideas. Over the years since the existence of public and social innovation labs, we have seen an evolution, and Hattori and Wycoff (2002) and Bason (Handbook, Chapter 9) even suggest an emerging third generation of labs (Table 18.3). Innovation labs were created as think-out-of-the-box tools, with a successful example of policy transfer around the globe, but they still suffer from problems, basically in terms of institutional support for their survival and their organizational fit, and the questioning of their impact on strategic decisions vs being tools to define

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Table 18.3

Public and social innovation labs: three generations

Intra-organizational approach Physical creativity center: training and facilitation Predominantly focus on the “front end” of defining problems

First generation

(Creative platform)

Labs as means to explore options, focus on ideation Created to address the perceived shortcomings of conventional approaches to public policy and public  management Public managers are compelled to innovate, to generate and apply new ideas that produce benefits for   the public: creativity tools Employee-oriented Main aim: helping to drive a more participatory and design-oriented approach Labs act as catalysts, brokers and fixers who construct new ideas through processes that are networked,   bottom-up, and interactive rather than elite and top-down Individual/small group recognition Management passively supportive

Second generation

(Strategic innovation)

Intra-organizational approach More strategically anchored organizationally Embedded within business units Focused on strategy and value-creation Through user-centered approaches Team-oriented innovation culture Recognition of teams Tools scalable to entire organization

Third generation

(System-level innovation)

Management actively involved Systems-level strategy transformation Resources centralized and distributed among organizational units across a wider network Focus on strategy, operations and value-creation User, employee/actor and system oriented Involvement of project teams and senior management Tools openly available to wider stakeholders Top management ownership balanced with bottom-up engagement Used, for instance, by the European Union’s (EU) Green Deal (2019)

Source:  Based on Hattori and Wycoff (2002), Bason (Handbook, Chapter 9), Blomkamp and Lewis (Handbook, Chapter 10).

problems. Blomkamp and Lewis (Handbook, Chapter 10) summarize the main challenges innovation labs face: ● Poor impact on policymaking. ● Lack of multilevel government cooperation. ● Political and economic precarity: because they are easy to shut down, compared with more established public sector organizations, the survival of labs is highly contingent on ongoing political patronage. ● Lab employees report that the powerful administrative traditions of public bureaucracies stop new ways of working, particularly via the “permafrost” of

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middle managers whose narrow performance indicators motivate them to block change. Whether innovation labs are capable of systems-level strategy transformation will require more rigorous research, but by placing a long-term (systemic) impact at the center, often related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), mission-oriented innovation suggests a bigger, broader and wider-ranging role for labs. Only if they can function as informing and challenging the strategic intent of policies and services will they be able to perform a strategic function. Blomkamp and Lewis (Handbook, Chapter 10) indicate that labs can enable the strategic design of the institution itself. Labs may be in a position to enable system-wide considerations of a needed transition, rather than solely an intra-organizational one. This is the case where labs indeed could function as “disruptors”, as the loyal opposition, which seeks to qualify or even more fundamentally question whether policy decisions and service operations really create the public value they intend.

FROM MAJOR CHALLENGES TO CONCRETE MISSIONS: STRATEGIZING COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE We are coming to an end. In this Handbook we have seen how research in public sector strategy has rethought public sector strategic management in front old problems and new challenges. The aim of this chapter was to highlight the relevance of integrating proposals to effectively deal with “strategy management-at-scale levels” (Handbook, Chapter 7), that is, strategic public management – including planning and implementation – to address what are often thought of as intractable social and economic problems. We are inspired by the label “zoom in/zoom out” in strategy thinking from Bryson et al. (Handbook, Chapter 7). In today’s world, the nature of strategic planning has developed, from a predominantly rational, top-down, design activity aimed at goal setting, toward a more managerial approach, making the connection with daily practices in the various layers of an organization (Klijn and Koppenjan 2020). And in recent decades, there has been a shift from governments governing from the center toward more horizontal ways of governing, “the governance revolution” (Klijn and Koppenjan 2016, 2020; Pierre and Peters 2000). Other terms drive us to a common world of ideas around collaborative governance. These include “modern governance” (Kooiman 1993), “network governance” (Kickert, Klijn and Koppenjan 1997), “interactive governance” (Sørensen and Torfing 2007), “governance revolution” (Pierre and Peters 2000), “new public governance” (Osborne 2010), “strategy management-at-scale” (Bryson et al., Handbook, Chapter 7), and “whole-of-society approach” (Handbook, Chapter 6). The governance revolution means operating in a complex multi-level and interorganizational environment, in which, in order to cope with conflicts, power games and unpredictability, public organizations will have to develop collaborative and adaptive strategies. Due to the complexity and dynamics

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of governance processes strategist, instead of rational planners, need to connect, motivate and commit actors to bridge differences. This development requires a strategically aligned strategic planning process between public sector organizations and their broader governance environment (George, Drumaux, Joyce and Longo 2020). Public sector organizations need strategies that support departments and members at different organizational levels to be externally oriented, responsive and adaptive. Bryson, Crosby and Barberg (Handbook, Chapter 7) propose strategy mapping as a visualization technique for effective strategy management-at-scale that allows every stakeholder to see its contribution to the final outcome, zooming in and out. It translates visually, with data and needed assets and capabilities development, a new level of cooperation within and across jurisdictions. It provides an understanding of the relationship between organization and the environment toward public value-creation systems. As Bourgon (2017) poses it, a new synthesis that intentionally brings together government, people and society in a new system of governance is needed. Klijn and Koppenjan (2020) clearly state that this is not an easy process, because it requires adaptation and transformation of planning, procedures, budgets and culture, and balancing pressures to collaborate and co-produce. The big question is how intra-organizational structures and divides, task divisions, budgets, ways of working and strategies can be adapted to the need to be responsive and adaptive to the outside world, rather than focusing on just implementation and performance measurement. Although a great deal of work has been done in the area of collaborative public management, not much has been done on collaborative public strategic management (Bryson, Berry and Yang 2010). Future research has a relevant role in this area. In line with the portfolio of approaches to improve strategic public management that many contributors to this Handbook have provided, we would like to end this final chapter with a conclusion: the need for strategizing collaborative governance, if the outcome to pursue is public value-creation systems. With the intention of bridging two main approaches in public sector scholars, that is, purpose-oriented networks (Nowell and Milward 2022) and collaborative governance, with a focus on strategy (the main aim of this book), we label a term, not for the sake of invention, but for the clarity and implications for strategic public management: “strategizing collaborative governance”; a term that puts dialogue in public strategic management literature and the network governance literature. Strategizing collaborative governance is a comprehensive term that includes planning, implementation (including emergent strategies) and context in developing strategies, assuming the need for collaborative governance with a purpose. That is to say, effectiveness in outcomes that provide public value, as a result of resolving the tension between inclusiveness and efficiency; effectiveness measured not only within the organizations, but at the systems level, where higher or wider order networks happen. It includes the three types of alignment that George, Drumaux, Joyce and Longo (2020) call “strategic vertical alignment” (alignment with strategic plans formulated at higher levels of the organization); “strategic horizontal alignment” (aligning structures and strategies); and “strategic network governance alignment”.

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This strategic management is carried out so that the resultant plan is not only directed to a public organization’s own future success but also supports a coordinated and collaborative relationship with network partners (Klijn and Koppenjan 2020). The traits of this strategizing collaborative governance are: ● Their main objective is an improved public strategic management practice, including enhanced organizational capacity for addressing current and future challenges and improvements in long-term performance (Handbook, Chapter 7). It takes place not just at the organizational level, but also at the strategy management-at-scale levels, and at the level of social transformation as well. ● What matters for capacity and capabilities are not individual organizations, but organizational configurations and how they evolve (Kattel, Drechsler, and Karo 2019). ● Where a whole-of-government approach to the design and delivery of public services is needed which links a shared long-term vision with the collective capacity, capability and conviction to make it happen (Handbook, Chapter 6) that internally articulates integration into the system. ● With entrepreneurial skills “that are capable of unleashing innovations, and wealth resulting from those innovations, and of maintaining socio-political stability at the same time”. ● Multi-actor, multi-organization, cross-sector responses (Handbook, Chapter 7). ● Political support, leadership and organizational learning are crucial. ● Where the impact of innovation in the public sector is measured outcome-based organizational and service impacts. And indicators are on both systems and organizational performance, and impact on social and economic outcomes (OECD 2017b). Building from Bryson, Crosby and Barberg (Handbook, Chapter 7) we develop a strategy map for strategizing collaborative governance (Figure 18.1).

Figure 18.1

Strategy map: strategizing collaborative governance

Source:  Ysa and Greve, inspired by Bryson, Crosby and Barberg (Handbook, Chapter 7).

 

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This strategy map tries to summarize many of the important points made in this Handbook. However, as Lægreid and Rykkja (Handbook, Chapter 8) state, collaboration within and between governments, and between governments and stakeholders (e.g., firms, non-profits, citizens) itself is far from easy to achieve, as new challenges may arise in the form of network complexities, power imbalances, and increased risks (Huxham and Vangen 2005; Klijn and Koppenjan 2016; Torfing 2019). Nevertheless, as these authors also state, robust governance strategies, that is, strategies that facilitate and combine adaptive and flexible adjustment and entrepreneurial exploration and exploitation – such as scalability, prototyping, modularization, bounded autonomy, bricolage and strategic polyvalence – seem promising. This Handbook has aimed to advance our understanding of the specific challenges, dynamics and complex issues that strategic public management is facing currently, and that research and practitioners are evolving in search of approaches to solutions. We hope that we have fulfilled our aim and that you have enjoyed the reading of it.

REFERENCES Audit Scotland (2018a) Health and social care integration: update on progress. http://​www​ .nls​.uk/​e​-monographs/​2018/​188912758​.23​.pdf. Audit Scotland (2018b) Local government in Scotland: challenges and performance 2018. Accounts Commission. https://​www​.auditscotland​.gov​.uk/​uploads/​docs/​report/​2018/​nr​ _180405​_local​_government​.pdf. Audit Scotland (2019) Local government in Scotland: challenges and performance 2019. http://​www​.nls​.uk/​e​-monographs/​2019/​195651131​.23​.pdf. Barzelay, M., and C. Campbell (2003) Preparing for the future: strategic planning in the U.S. air force. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution. Batora, J., and J. E. Fossum (eds.) (2020) Towards a segmented European political order: the European Union’s post crises conundrum. London: Routledge. Bourgon, J. (2017) The new synthesis of public administration. Copenhagen: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: a guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Bryson, J. M., F. S. Berry, and K. Yang (2010) The state of public strategic management research: a selective literature review and set of future directions. The American Review of Public Administration, 40(5), 495–521. Bryson, J. M., B. C. Crosby, and J. K. Bryson (2009) Understanding strategic planning and the formulation and implementation of strategic plans as a way of knowing: the contributions of actor-network theory. International Public Management Journal, 12(2), 172–207. Bryson, J. M., L. H. Edwards, and D. M. Van Slyke. (2018) Getting strategic about strategic planning research. Public Management Review, 20(3), 317–39. Bryson, J. M., and B. George (2020) Strategic planning in public administration. In Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics. New York: Oxford University Press. camdenrenewal​ .com/​ Camden (2021) Developing renewal missions in Camden. https://​ wp​-content/​uploads/​2021/​12/​Developing​-renewal​-missions​-in​-Camden​_Renewal​ -Commission​-Report​-2021​.pdf. Carayannis, E., and F. Campbell (2009) “Mode 3” and “Quadruple Helix”: toward a 21st century fractal innovation ecosystem. International Journal of Technology Management, 46(3/4), 201.

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Carayannis, E., and F. Campbell (2010) A time for action and a time to lead: democratic capitalism and a new “new deal” for the US and the world in the twenty-first century. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 1(1), 4–17. Chesbrough, H. (2003) Open innovation: the new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Cordella, A., and A. Paletti (2019) Government as a platform, orchestration, and public value crea­tion: the Italian case. Government Information Quarterly, 36(4), 15. Dawes, S. S., L. Vidiasova, and O. Parkhimovich (2016) Planning and designing open govern­ ment data programs: an ecosystem approach. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), 15–27. Etzkowitz, H., and L. Leydesdorff (1995) The Triple Helix – university–industry–government relations: a laboratory for knowledge based economic development. EASST Review, 14, 14–19. European Commission (2019) Governing missions in the European Union. Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. European Committee of the Regions [Volpe, M., Friedl, J., Cavallini, S., et al.] (2016) Using the quadruple helix approach to accelerate the transfer of research and innovation results to regional growth. https://​data​.europa​.eu/​doi/​10​.2863/​408040. George, B., A. Drumaux, P. Joyce, and F. Longo (2020) Editorial. Public Money & Management, 40(4), 255–9. Goh, S., and C. Soon (2019) Governing the infor­mation ecosystem: Southeast Asia’s fight against political deceit. Public Integrity, 21(5), 523–36. Hattori, R. A., and J. Wycoff (2002) Innovation DNA: a good idea is not enough. It has to create value. Training and Development, 56(2), 25–39. Huxham, C., and S. Vangen (2005) Managing to collaborate. New York: Routledge. Kattel, R., W. Drechsler, and E. Karo (2019) Innovation bureaucracies: how agile stability creates the entrepreneurial state. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Kickert, W. J., E.-H. Klijn, and J. Koppenjan (1997) Managing complex networks: strategies for the public sector. London: SAGE. Klijn, E.- H., and J. Koppenjan (2016) Governance networks in the public sector. London: Routledge. Klijn, E.- H., and J. Koppenjan (2020) Debate: strategic planning after the governance revolution. Public Money & Management, 40(4), 260–61. Kooiman, J. (1993) Modern governance: new government–society interactions. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE. Koppenjan, J. F. M., P. M. Karré, and K.Termeer (eds.) (2019) Smart hybridity: potentials and challenges of new governance arrangements. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing. Laidley, J. (2007) The ecosystem approach and the global imperative on Toronto’s central waterfront. Cities, 24(4), 259–72. Mazzucato, M. (2013) The entrepreneurial state: debunking public vs. private sector myths. London: Anthem Press. Mazzucato, M. (2021) Mission economy: a moonshot guide to changing capitalism. London: Penguin. Mazzucato, M., and G. Semieniuk (2017) Financing renewable energy: who is financing what and why it matters. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 127, 8–22. Moore, M. (1995) Creating public value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moss Kanter, R. (1994) Collaborative advantage: the art of alliances. Harvard Business Review, July/August. https://​hbr​.org/​1994/​07/​collaborative​-advantage​-the​-art​-of​-alliances. Nesta (2019) The experimenter’s inventory. https://​www​.nesta​.org​.uk/​. Nowell, B., and H. B. Milward (2022) Apples to apples: a taxonomy of networks in public management and policy (Elements in Public and Nonprofit Administration). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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OECD (2017a) Behavioural insights and public policy. https://​www​.oecd​.org/​gov/​regulatory​ -policy/​behavioural​-insights​-and​-public​-policy​-9789264270480​-en​.htm. OECD (2017b) Fostering innovation in the public sector. https://​www​.oecd​.org/​gov/​fostering​ -innovation​-in​-the​-public​-sector​-9789264270879​-en​.htm. OECD-OPSI (2019) Turn the new into the normal. https://​oecd​-opsi​.org/​ Olsen, J. P. (2010) Governing through institution building: institutional theory and recent European experiments in democratic organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Osborne, S. P. (ed.) (2010) The new public governance: emerging perspectives on the theory and practice of public governance. London: Routledge. Petrescu, M. (2019) From marketing to public value: towards a theory of public service ecosystems. Public Management Review, 21(11), 1733–52. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​14719037​ .2019​.1619811. Pierre, J., and G. B. Peters (2000) Governance, politics and the state. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Roberts, A. (2019a) Strategies for governing. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Roberts, A. (2019b) Innovation facets and core values: how different forms of innovation can cause different reactions. https://​oecd​-opsi​.org/​blog/​innovation​-facets​-and​-core​-values​ -how​-different​-forms​-of​-innovation​-can​-cause​-different​-reactions/​ [OECD-OPSI]. Sørensen, E., and J. Torfing (eds.) (2007) Theories of democratic network governance. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sørensen, E., and J. Torfing (2009) Making governance networks effective and democratic through metagovernance. Public Administration, 87(2), 234–58. Torfing, J. (2019) Collaborative innovation in the public sector: the argument. Public Management Review, 21(1), 1–11. Torfing, J., L. B. Andersen, C. Greve, and K. K. Klausen (2020) Public governance paradigms: competing and co-existing. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Ysa T., K. Schedler, and P. Conill (2022) Ecosystems in a government context. In K. Schedler (ed.), Encyclopedia of public management. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 330–34.

Index

fairness AI 189 finance strategic plan regarding 182, 185 governance of 188–9 government roles regarding 179 human adoption challenge of 186 interdisciplinary approach to 191 logistics strategic plan regarding 182 manufacturing strategic plan regarding 182 marketing strategic plan regarding 182 National AI Research and Development strategic plan categories for 182–3 overview of 6, 178–7 public administrators and 187–91 quality of life strategic plan regarding 183 science and technology strategic plan regarding 183 societal transformation power of 178–9 standards regarding 192–3 transportation strategic plan regarding 182, 185 unintended consequences of 178–9 usage examples of 186–7 U.S. Federal government use of 184 values-based conflict resolution regarding 189–90 workforce development and 192 Auckland Co-Design Lab 152 auction model 214 Australia Australian Public Service (APS) within 241, 243–51, 253 bureaucracy within 240–41 Centre for Leadership and Learning within 249 civil service learning within 83 contract employment within 243–7, 248 COVID-19 pandemic response of 70 design labs within 135 digital literacy challenges within 250 dissatisfaction within 240 Dunstan government within 240 federal system within 66

accountability, within business model innovation 216–17 accounting 212 Act-Purpose ratio (Moore-Burke and Simon-Burke pentagram) 35, 38, 40 Act-Scene ratio (Moore-Burke and Simon-Burke pentagram) 35, 38, 40–41 adaptive innovation 288 Adler, Paul S. 263 administrative federalism 66–7 see also federal systems/federalism adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) 100–103 Agency-Act ratio (Moore-Burke pentagram) 31 Agent-Act ratio (Moore-Burke pentagram) 36, 43 Agent-Agency ratio (Moore-Burke and Simon-Burke pentagram) 36, 39, 41–2 Agent-Purpose ratio (Moore-Burke and Simon-Burke pentagram) 31, 35, 38–9, 41 agile stability 134, 286–8 Alberta, Canada 20, 100–105 algorithms 180, 186, 188–9 see also artificial intelligence (AI) anticipatory innovation 288 architecture 29 artificial intelligence (AI) agriculture strategic plan regarding 182 algorithmic bias of 189 capacity building and 191 civic engagement use of 186 classification algorithms within 186 communications strategic plan regarding 182 coordination regarding 192 data standardization and 193 Digital Corps for 192 economic prosperity strategic plan regarding 182 educational strategic plan regarding 183, 184 facial recognition tools through 186 301

302  Handbook on strategic public management

government changes within 246–7 Hawke and Keating Labor governments within 241, 243, 244 job mobility within 242–3 Leading in a Digital Age program within 250 managerial reforms within 243–4 merit within 240, 243–7 ministerial advisors within 245–6 New Public Management (NPM) within 240–41 New South Wales (NSW) within 242 old public administration versus new public management within 239–41 political advisor role within 243, 245–6 politicisation within 243–7 presidentialisation within 246 probity within 240 public innovation lab (PIL) within 147, 152, 154, 157 results-oriented public management within 241 Secretaries Talent Council within 250 Senior Executive Leadership Capability Framework within 249 Senior Executive Leadership program within 249 skills status within 251–2 strategic focus and increased mobility within 242–3 strategic management skill development within 247–52 strategic public management within 238–9 strategic steering within 243 tenure within 240 Weberian tradition of 244 Westminster tradition of 244 Whitlam government within 240 workforce management contestability within 245 see also Senior Executive Service (SES) Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) 249 Bacchanalian planning 12 backbone organization, for collective impact (CI) approach 97 Barberg, Bill 92 Barzelay, Michael 26 Bason, Christian 133, 292

Bauhaus Lab 144 Bentham, Jeremy 10 BizLab Academy 152 Blair, Tony 246 Blomkamp, Emma 147, 292 Boyle, Stephen 84 Brandeis, Louis 70 Brands, Hal 50 Brazil 70 Bringselius, Louise 260, 270 British Columbia (BC), Canada, “Transforming the Family Justice System (TFJS) Collaborative” within 100–105 Bryson, John M. 92 budgeting 212 bulk budgets 212 bureaucracy 233, 234, 240 Burke’s pentad 30–31, 33 business model canvas 216 business model innovation advantages of 223 auction model 214 benefits to administration’s strategy 223 content provider role within 215 for digital platforms 215 expertise in context within 217 financial competencies for 222 financial management within 212–13 flat rate 214 full service provider role within 215 funding within 217 infrastructure service provider role within 215 innovative financing models within 218–21 legal competencies for 222 overview of 211–12, 223–4 political competencies for 222 public management competencies for 222 public-private partnerships (PPP) within 212–13 within the public sector 213–17 public value and impact of 216 risk distribution and accountability within 216–17 strategic skills for 221–2 target groups/beneficiaries of 216 types of 214 value creation process within 216 value proposition within 216

Index  303

visualizing charts for 216 Business Process Reengineering (BPR) 17 Campbell, John 3 Canada “bomb-in-a-box” scenario 185 civil service learning within 83 collaboration within 100–105 COVID-19 pandemic response of 70 design labs within 135 federal system within 66 healthcare within 17, 20 public innovation lab (PIL) within 147 cancer treatment 169–70 capacity 115–16 centralization 63–8, 121, 124, 125 Centre for Corporate Strategy and Change (CCSC) (University of Warwick) 18 change management 204–5 change-resistant culture 17 change triangle 18 “Chemo at home” 169–70 childcare, managing meaning within 171–2 China 53, 57 citizen-centric approach 292–4 CitizenLab 186 citizens, empowerment through trust-based public management 262–4 civic engagement, artificial intelligence (AI) use within 186 civil service learning 83 clients, defined 38 Clinton, Bill 51, 58 collaboration 96, 261, 283, 290 collaborative advantage 21, 284–5 collaborative governance 3, 294–6 collaborative leadership 249 colleagues, defined 38 collective impact (CI) approach 92, 96–8, 99 Colley, Linda 238 communities of practice 274 complexity theory 196 conceptual engineering, for public management as design-oriented professional practice 40–42 content provider role 215 contract approach 283 cooperative strategy 20–21 coronationalism 122 COVID-19 pandemic 63, 64, 70–71, 92, 119, 122–3, 186, 219, 253 creativity, pillars of 136

crisis, defined 115, 118 crisis governance, defined 115 crisis management adaptation of 125–6 all-hazard strategy of 120–21 analysis of 123–5 command-and-control model of 122 communication within 116 conceptual clarification regarding 115–16 conservatism regarding 125 contextual features regarding 118 coordination and centralization strategies regarding 121, 124, 125 cultural-institutional perspective approach to 117–18 defined 115 dilemmas regarding 119 following 9/11, 120 following Cold War 120–21 governance capacity and 124–5, 126 governance legitimacy and 124–5, 126 high-performing 118 high-trust context of 118 hybrid organizations and 118 inter-organizational coordination regarding 122 literature regarding 5 meaning-making within 116 organizational perspectives regarding 117–18 over-preparation for 121–2 overview of 5–6, 114–15 politics regarding 124 strategies for 116, 120–23, 124–5 structural and instrumental organizational approach to 117 system maintenance within 125–6 theoretical approach to 116–20 transboundary 119–20, 121, 122, 125 variation strategies regarding 119 as wicked problem 117 Crosby, Barbara C. 92 cross-organizational innovation 290 crowdfunding 219–20 cultural school of strategy 17–18 cynefin framework 231–2 Dagens Nyheter 265, 266–7 Danish Design Center 144 data standardization 193

304  Handbook on strategic public management

decentralization 66–7 democratic planning 12–13 Denmark, 186–7 design, role of 133, 134–40 design-and-planning school of strategy 16–20 design coalitions 150 design-for-policy entrepreneurs 150, 160 see also public innovation labs (PILs) DesignGov, 135 design/innovation labs benefits of 141 business of 140 challenges of 293–4 characteristics of 137, 292 citizen-centric approach within 292–4 colleagues within 140 as creative platforms 136 cross-fertilisation of 141 culture of 140 direction to 134–5 first- and second-generation 138 framework of 139 funding structure of 138–9 governance for 138–9 impacts of 143 labels for 137 leadership of 140 methods for 139–40 missions and 144 organising 138, 140 overview of 133–4, 136–8, 144–5 public purpose 137–8, 293 purpose of 292–3 rapid emergence of 135–6 rise of 133–40 setbacks regarding 135 social purpose 293 space for 139–40 stakeholders of 140 statistics regarding 135 strategic perspective of 140–42 system orchestrators of 142–4 technology for 139–40 third-generation 142–4 traits of 136–7 design knowledge 37 design-oriented professional practice 37–42 design project 38 design-thinking, citizen-centric approach within 292–4 detailed management control 261–2

Dewar, Donald 77 Digital Corps 192 Digital Era Governance 233 digital literacy 250 digital platforms, business model innovation for 215 Direction-Alignment-Commitment (DAC) (Center for Creative Leadership) 107 District Health Authorities (DHA) 19 domain knowledge 37 domestic affairs, grand strategy for 50 Earle, Edward Mead, 49 eco-system, 289–90 education, artificial intelligence (AI) use within 184 Elliott, Ian C. 75 Elvidge, John 78 empirical theory 32 enacted environments 231–2 Energy Performance Contract (EPC) 219 engagement narrative 173 enhancement-oriented innovation 288 entrepreneurial state 290–91 European Commission 135, 199–200 European Committee of the Regions 289 European Union (EU) 121, 187 see also specific countries everyday innovation 166–7, 168–75 see also public innovation facial recognition, through artificial intelligence (AI) 186 family justice system, collaboration regarding 100–105 federal systems/federalism, 63–8, 71–2 Ferlie, Ewan 10 finance, artificial intelligence (AI) use within 182, 185 financial management 212–13 flat rate model 214 France 13–14, 83 frontline managers 170–72 Fukuyama, Francis 3 full service provider role 215 Futurelab 147 Gaddis, John Lewis, 49 garbage can decision model, 166 George, Bert 196 Germany, 65, 66, 83 globalization 50–51

Index  305

global public management paradigm, 54 goal and benchmark approach 283 goal setting theory 196 governance capacity 115–16, 117, 124–5, 126 governance legitimacy 116, 123, 124–5, 126 governance paradigms 233–5 governance revolution 294 government ecosystems 290 government/governance of algorithms 188–9 of artificial intelligence (AI) 179, 188–9 artificial intelligence (AI) use within 184 conventional wisdom regarding 54 crisis response of 114 dilemmas regarding 119 grand strategy and, 49–50 layer cake model of 281 marble cake model of 281 mistakes within 75–6 Moore-Burke pentagram regarding 34–5 Nordic model of 55 reform, 238 strategic management within 11–15, 31–6 strategic planning in 205 strategies for 51–3 subgovernments within 65 unitary, 65 universal strategy regarding 54 see also state-level strategy; specific countries government labs, characteristics of 155 GovLab 147 graduate programs in international relations 58 grand strategy, 49–51 Greve, Carsten 2, 280 guarantees 219 Hall, John 3 Hansen, Søren 136 Hartley, L. P. 54 Hartman, Laura 265 Harvard Policy Model, 196, 283 Hassan, Zaid 141 Head, Brian W. 238 healthcare 17, 20, 21, 68–70 Heifetz, Ron 81 Helsinki Design Lab 135

hierarchy organizational form, 263 holistic model of public governance 281–2 Hoover, Herbert 11 Howard, John 246 Huijbregts, Rowie 196 Humanitarian Impact Bond 220 human relations movement 262 hybrid approach 283 ideal final results 38 impact investing 220 incentive systems 261–2 India 53 infrastructure service provider role 215 innovation 286, 288, 290 see also public innovation Innovation Lab 147 innovative financing models 218–22 institutional environments 229–31 institutional syncretism 118 instrument constituencies 150 integrated units of management approach 283 interactive governance 294 International Labour Organization 199 international organizations 3–4, 200 international relations (IR), 49, 51–2 inter-organizational relationships 3 Italy 186–7 Jakobsen, Henning Sejer 136 Johnson, Lyndon B. 15, 66, 68–9 Kalmar Regional Council 273 Kennedy, Paul, 49 Kettl, Donald F. 63 Klausen, Kurt Klaudi 227 knowledge-using professional, 39 Koliba, Christopher 178 La 27e Région 147 Lab @ OPM 138–9 Lægreid, Per 114 Latin America 147 Lean quality management programs 17 legitimacy 116, 174 legitimation narrative 174 Lewis, Jenny M. 147, 292 Liddell Hart, B. H. 49 logic model, for strategy management-at-scale 108–9 long-term planning in public agencies 11–15

306  Handbook on strategic public management

Luttwak, Edward 50 machine learning 180, 181 see also artificial intelligence (AI) Management by Objectives and Results (MBOR) 261 managing meaning 170 MaRS Solutions Lab 147 materiality narrative 173 McNamara, Robert 14–15 Merkel, Angela 136 meta-governance 21, 285 Mexico 70 Micko, Lena 271 micro-level of strategy, 47 MindLab 135, 138, 141, 148, 153 mission-oriented innovation 288, 290–91, 297 modern governance 294 modernization programs 227 Moore, Mark 2, 31–2, 33, 81 Moore-Burke pentagram 34–6 Morrison, Scott 243, 246 Mulgan, Richard 244 multi-level governance 3 National AI Research and Development 182–3 neo-Weberian State 233 Nespresso 214 Netherlands 20–21 network governance 294 Network Governance (NG) 20–21 New European Bauhaus (NEB) 136, 144 New Public Governance (NPG) 75, 233, 248, 281, 282, 294 New Public Management (NPM) in Australia 240–41 business practices and 20 differences of 234–5 evolution from 75 as hybrid 252 importance of 93 as old school 233 overview of 212, 240 reforms 18, 232, 248 strategic public management and 281 strengths and weaknesses of 282 trends within 261 new synthesis 232–3 New Zealand 70, 83, 135, 147, 152, 154, 157

nonprofit sector, strategic planning within 202 Norway 187, 190 Nyhan, Robert 262–3 Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) 286, 288 official mind 53 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 4, 76, 136, 137, 178, 190, 248, 249 organizational and societal change theme of strategic planning 204–5 organizational culture 17 organizational jungle 228 organizational sociology 13 organization-environment relationship 227–9 organizations action role within 168 change-making within 168 continuous state of changing within 166 control mechanisms within 263 as enacted environments 231–2 flexible adaption of 228 frontline managers role within 170–72 as institutional environments 229–31 as open systems 228 post-modern view of 231 power balances within 16–17 practice types within 168 practitioners within 168 praxis within 168 strategy formulation and implementation within 2–3 as technical environments 229–31 Ouchi, William G. 263 outcomes-based approach, 83 partnerships 21 patient-centered care 173–4 pedagogy in action 20 Pedersen, Anne Reff 165 permissionless innovation of AI 179 Pettigrew, Andrew 18, 20 planning in the public domain 10–11 platform model 215–16 policy entrepreneurs, public innovation labs (PILs) as 151–60 Policy Lab 136, 141, 144 policy system, public innovation lab (PIL) within 150–51

Index  307

Political, Economic, Social, Technological (PEST-analyses) 230 political mind 53 population ecology 228 populism, 51 portfolio management approach 283 practices, within organizations 168, 169 practitioners, within organizations 168, 169 praxis, within organizations 168, 169 presidentialisation 246 private sector 202, 218–19, 221–2 process-based regulation of technology 179 process perspective 261–2 process school of strategy 18–19 professional disciplines, functional theorizing regarding 29 professional knowledge 31–2, 33, 39 professional practitioner 37 professional rule 233 Progressive Public Administration (PPA) 281, 282 public administration graduate programs in international relations model and 58 levels within 4 old versus new 239–41 overview of 10 state-level strategy and 52, 59 strategic public management within 2–3 strategy at macro-level of 47 public administrators, artificial intelligence (AI) and 187–93 public governance diamond 233–4 public governance in complex systems theme for strategic planning 205–6 public governance paradigms 52 public innovation assumptions regarding 168–74 “Chemo at home” 169–70 in childcare 171–2 development period of 166 as emerging process 166 everyday innovation within 166–7 frontline managers and 170–72 garbage can decision model and 166 implementation period of 166 initiation period for 166 insights regarding 174–5 local concerns and 167 mobilization for 172–4 organizational perspective of 166–74 in patient-centered care 173–4

practice-based perspective of 168 processual features of 166 public innovation lab (PIL) agile approach of 149 bottom-up approach within 153 build teams of 156–8 as change agents 149 communities of practice of 156–8 decision legitimacy of 156 defining and reframing problems by 154–6 as design coalitions 148 designerly approach of 149 as design-for-policy entrepreneurs 148, 150, 155–6 design thinking techniques within 149 differences of 150–51 evidence-based approach of 149 experimentation by 158–60 innovation approaches of 159 open government/data of 149 overview of 147–8, 160–61 participatory design approaches of 155–6 pioneering of 157 as policy entrepreneurs 148, 151–60 policy trends regarding 152 political and economic precarity of 153 public management roles of 153 reasoning by 155–6 role of 6 social acuity of 152–4 spread of 147 statistics regarding 157, 158–9 threats to 153–4 uniqueness of 148–51 public management 33, 40–42, 47, 163 see also strategic public management (SPM) public managers Agency role of 34 Agent role of 34 analyzing by 227–8 archetypally roles of 33 characterization of 29 cynefin framework use of 231–2 enacted environments and 231–2 as entrepreneurs 33 event-happenings and 35 as explorers 22 governance paradigms and 233–5 institutional environments and 229–31

308  Handbook on strategic public management

intervention by 35–6 organization-environment relationship and 227–9 pentadic roles of 34 public value management by 232–3 Purpose role of 34 Scene role of 34–5 skills of 227–8 as small-scale statespeople 33 as strategic actor 2, 227–35 strategic maneuvering and 233–5 strategic role of 7, 33 technical environments and 229–31 public organizations 32, 35, 36, 200 public-private partnerships (PPP) 212–13, 222 public sector 21, 213–17 public service organizations 167, 238 public value of business model innovation 216 collaborative arrangements for 211 creating 32, 35, 280 focus of 93 management of 232–3 overview of 4, 22 strategic planning and 201–2 strategic triangle of 22, 32, 34 strategy management-at-scale and 107 public value governance (PVG) challenge recognition within 95–6 collective impact and 96–8 framework 281–2 macro-level of 100 meso-level of 100 overview of 92–93 strategizing in context of 93–5 strategy management-at-scale and 95–9, 105–9 strategy mapping within 100–105 Public Value Management 233 public values and stakeholder expectations theme of strategic planning 201–2 purpose-oriented networks 294 purposive theories 32 quadruple helix model 289–90 quality audit 274 quality management programmes 17 RAND Corporation 14, 15 Reagan, Ronald 53 red tape research 202–3

Resilience Resource Commons for Communities (ARRCC) 101 rhetorical criticism, pentadic method of 37 risk distribution, within business model innovation 216–17 Roberts, Alasdair 3, 47 Roberts, Alex 136, 288 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 66 Rothstein, Bo 270 Rudd, Kevin 246, 247 rules, regulations and bureaucracy theme of strategic planning 202–4 ruling group, in states 51 Rykkja, Lise H. 114 Scene-Agency ratio (Moore-Burke pentagram) 30 Scene pentode (Simon-Burke pentagram) 38 Schedler, Kuno 211 Scheller, Vibeke Kristine 165 Schön, Donald 142 Scotland Audit Scotland within 84, 85, 285 changes to leadership development activity within 81–4 Collective Leadership for Scotland within 82 The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act within 80 conclusions regarding 84–6 Departmental structure of 79 devolution within 78 Directors-General within 79 failures within 82–4 government restructure within 79 healthcare within 17 loss of focus within 81 lost opportunities regarding 82–4 National Performance Framework within 80 National Performance Network (NPF) within 78–80, 81 Police Scotland within 84 Programmes for Government within 78 Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act within 80 recent changes within 81 Scotland Performs 78–9 Scottish Approach within 85 Scottish Leaders Forum within 80 Scottish National Party (SNP) 77 strategic state and 77, 78–80

Index  309

Whitehall model and 82 whole-of-society approach within 79–80, 85 Workforce Scotland within 82 Scottish Parliament 77 self-referential systems 231 Senior Executive Service (SES) contractual reforms regarding 248 COVID-19 pandemic response and 253 design principles for 242 future regarding 253 growth of 245 overview of 238–9 performance management principles for 242 political advisors and 246 rationale regarding 245 skills status within 251–2 statistics regarding 248 strategic management skills development within 247–52 sense-giving tasks 27, 30, 170 sensemaking 167, 170, 172–3 servant leadership 276 shared leadership 276 shareholder value 22 Shekarabi, Ardalan 271 Shirk, Susan 50 Simon, Herbert 29, 37–40 Simon-Burke pentagram 37–40 Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Stories (SUCCESs) 27 single public agency 21 situated learning 274 skills, strategic management 247–52 smart phones 178 Social Impact Bond (SIB) 220 socialism 11–12 social justice 100–105 social movement 99 social transformation 92–3 Spett, Emma 178 spokespersons, innovation role of 173–4 stakeholder management theory 196 stakeholders 38, 172–4, 201–2, 227, 289–90 state-level strategy big questions regarding 58–9 dilemmas in strategy-making within 56 governance strategies regarding 51–3 grand strategy within 49–51 institutional reform within 56

institutional support for strategy-making within 56 leadership within 48 meso-level of 56–7 micro-level of 56–7 official mind regarding 53 patterns of change within 55 political mind regarding 53 propositions regarding 48 public administration and 52 quality of strategy within 57 research topics regarding 55–7 ruling group within 51 speculations regarding 57 strategic fragility within 53–5 strategic variability within 53–5 strategy formulation and adaptation within 55–6 strategy making within 3 teaching 57–8 tradeoffs within 56 understanding 48–9 state theory 3 strategic alliances 21 strategic fragility 53–55 strategic horizontal alignment 294 strategic issues management approach 283 strategic management skills 247–52 strategic maneuvering 233–5 strategic network governance alignment 294 Strategic Organization 16 strategic planning centralizing impulse within 63–8 change management and 204–5 collaborative governance and 201 complexity theory for 196 comprehensive framework of 281 differences within 200 in federal/national government 205 goal setting theory within 196 Harvard Policy Model for 196 history of 282–3 in international and supranational organizations 200 leadership for 202 in local government 205 meanings within 283 as meso-level approach 197 moving forward 198–206 organizational and societal change theme regarding 204–5 organizational outcomes and 197–8

310  Handbook on strategic public management

overview of 196–8, 206–7 as performance driver 200 process of 197 public governance in complex systems theme regarding 205–6 in the public sector 283 public values and stakeholder expectations theme regarding 201–2 purpose of 283 red tape research and 202–3 rules, regulations and bureaucracy theme regarding 202–4 stakeholder management theory for 196 “Strategic Change Cycle” and 204 strategic management versus 283 synoptic planning theory for 196 tensions regarding 197 in traditional organizations 200 transnational and network governance theme regarding 199–201 strategic public management (SPM) approaches, methods, techniques, and tools regarding 283, 288–94 challenges regarding 280 component alignment within 282–5 in crisis 5, 114–27 defining 26–31, 96, 282 emergent approaches within 16–17 goals within 106 learning-based approaches within 16–17 in literature 4 mind-map for 28 old problems and new challenges within 281–8 overview of 10–11, 283 processual approaches within 16–17 rise and fall of 11 as sense-giving 26–31 strategic planning versus 283 strategic triangle of 32 tensions and values conflict within 287 value of 4–5 ways to see 2–3 strategic state defined 76 development of 78–80 factors regarding 76, 84 future research regarding 85–6 loss of focus regarding 81 outcomes-based approach within 83 overview of 75–6

recent changes regarding 81 as whole-of-government approach, 85 see also Scotland strategic steering 243 strategic thinking 283, 294 strategic triangle of public value 22, 32, 34 strategic variability 53–5 strategic vertical alignment 294 strategizing 284 strategy, defined 96 strategy as practice school, 19–20 strategy for growing 52 strategy formation 96 strategy management-at-scale advocacy within 98–9 approaches to 106 coalition building within 98–9 collective impact regarding 96–8 community organizing within 98–9 defined 92 evaluation and 107–8 leadership within 106–7 logic models regarding 108–9 overview of 95–9 practice, research, and education observations regarding 105–9 public value regarding 107 research approaches to 109 strategy mapping for 100–105, 108, 109, 294, 297–8 theories of change regarding 108–9 strategy mapping 100–105, 108, 109, 294, 297–8 street-level professionals, empowerment through trust-based public management 262–4 Sturrock, John 83 subgovernments 65 subsidies 221 SUCCESs (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Stories) 27 supranational organizations, strategic planning within 200 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 92 Sweden detailed management control within 261–2 Government web page of 271 incentive systems within 261–2 knowledge seminars within 265 outcomes within 270–73

Index  311

Trust Commission within 261, 265–70, 277 trust examples within 270 trust forum within 269 trust initiatives within 268–9 Trust Network of the Academy within 271, 273 trust reform within 260–61, 264–73, 277 trust research within 269, 272 trust visit within 269–70 Switzerland 65, 70, 71, 212, 214, 219, 220, 222 symbolic action 30 synoptic planning theory 196 technical environments 229–31 teleology of public organizations 32, 36 Thatcher, Margaret 53 theoretical discussion of apt action 32 theory of inventive problem-solving (TRIZ) 38 Thøgersen, Ditte 165 Tiggelaar, Maria 196 Total Quality Management (TQM) 17 total war, era of 49 Traditional Public Administration (TPA) 75 Trägårdh, Lars 270 transnational and network governance theme of strategic planning 199–201 transportation, artificial intelligence (AI) use within 182, 185 Transport Canada 185 Trubowitz, Peter 50 Trump, Donald 51 trust-based public management communication within 273 decision-making practices within 275–6 delegation within 275–6 empowerment within 262–4 goal limitations within 273–4 indicator limitations within 273–4 inspection focused on learning within 274 lessons regarding 273–7 literature regarding 264 multi-professional and multi-organizational teams within 275 overview of 7, 260–61 professional quality development within 274

psychological safety within 276 relationships within 276 rule limitations within 273–4 servant leadership and shared leadership within 276 shared ethics and organizational confidence within 276–7 shared mission within 276 time and patience within 277 trust reform (Sweden) as 7, 264–73, 277 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) 11–12 unitary governments, division of power within 65 United Kingdom artificial intelligence (AI) use within 190–91 Blairism within 53 Civil Service Learning within 83 healthcare within 68 Network Governance (NG) within 20–21 New Labour within 21, 22 policy mistakes within 75–6 public value within 22 Thatcherism within 53 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 135, 199, 200, 205–6 United States Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) of 71 artificial intelligence (AI) use within 183, 189, 191 Clintonism within 53 Constitution of 65 COVID-19 pandemic response of 63, 70–71 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of 186 Data Innovation Lab of 187 Declaration of Independence of 65 Department of Defense (DOD) within 14–15 facial recognition use by 186 Federal Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) of 186 federal system within 66 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of 186 foreign policy within 50–51 General Accountability Office of 187

312  Handbook on strategic public management

Government Performance Results and Modernization Act of 202 Great Society within 66, 68–9 healthcare within 68–70 Hurricane Katrina within 121–2 Medicaid program within 68–9 New Deal within 12–13, 66 9/11 crisis 121–2 Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) within 14–15, 212 policy adoptions within 59 political climate of 59 public values within 107 Reaganism within 53 shocks within 58–9 state power within 71 subgovernments within 65 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 12–13 Tenth Amendment of 65

turbulent periods within 59 value creation systems 7–8, 216 values-based conflict resolution 189–90 Vandersmissen, Laure 196 Vanhengel, Sven 196 Welsh NHS district 17–18 whole-of-society approach 285, 294 wicked problems 21, 117 Woods, Shelley 238 World Bank 135 Ysa, Tamyko 2, 280 Zaki, Bishoy Louis 196 Zaremba, Maciej 264 zoom in/zoom out concept of strategy thinking 294