1. Strategic management and public-policy-making: friend or foe
UPDATE ON THE PUBLICATION
Benedict Wauters
PAG network meeting, , EC, Brussels

2. Why this book?
“Strategic planning has gained widespread currency in government. Agency managers now view it as a valuable tool for charting future directions in changing and sometimes turbulent environments”. (Poister and Streib, 1990)
“We still know little empirically about how public sector organisations use strategic thinking in practice” (Johnsen, 2015)

3. Can you spot the difference?

4. Basic structure of the book
PART 1: Strategic management
PART 2: Public policy-making
PART 3: Public policy-making versus strategic management
PART 4: Case studies:
Kaplan and Norton’s system in a Ministry of Work
METROGIS in Minnesota (US): a case of strategic management at unit level
Early warning at the Dutch Agency for Rijkswaterstaat (Transport and Infrastructure)
Transitions in Flanders
Making “strategic government” a reality in Finland
The Amsterdam Youth Protection Agency in the Netherlands: strategy at the frontline

5. PART 1: Strategic management
Defining strategy and strategic management
Themes from the literature (general and public sector):
Entrepreneurial thinking aiming to transform core, value generating processes, guided by a longer term orientation
A continuous, non-linear process of learning, thinking and acting
Engagement that cuts across levels and boundaries to produce coherent action
Shaping ecosystems of actors
Current models:
Bryson
Mulgan
Strategic agility

6. PART 1: Strategic management
Relating this to fundamental theories concerning strategic management
Structure / Agency balance

7. PART II: Public policy-making
Defining public value, policy and policy-making
Themes from the literature
Setting the agenda
Formulating and deciding
Implementing
Evaluation and policy change
Tying it all together
Current models:
Real world policy-making and system stewardship
New political economy analysis and problem driven, iterative adaptation
Design thinking and innovation labs

8. PART II: Public policy-making
Degree of state autonomy / degree of constraint
Relating this to fundamental theories concerning public policy-making
Governance
Decision-making

9. HIERARCHICAL GOVERNANCE
NETWORK GOVERNANCE

10. PART III: Strategic public policy-making or public sector strategic management?
Osborne’s SERVICE
framework
Strategic management versus public policy-making?
Themes from the literature
Public and private are different
Public and private are similar
Similar AND different
Services (interaction) NOT products
Publicness as the pursuit of public value
Vanguard model

11. PART III: Strategic public policy-making or public sector strategic management?
Fundamental theories:
Systems theory(ies)
Giddens’ structuration theory
Weick’s Sensemaking and Mindfulness theories
Socio-technical systems theory
Services marketing theory

12. Hopefully, you are now curious!