Does Strategic Planning Improve Organizational Performance? A Meta-Analysis

Bert GEORGE*, Richard M. WALKER, Joost MONSTER

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

215 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Strategic planning is a widely adopted management approach in contemporary organizations. Underlying its popularity is the assumption that it is a successful practice in public and private organizations that has positive consequences for organizational performance. Nonetheless, strategic planning has been criticized for being overly rational and for inhibiting strategic thinking. This article undertakes a meta-analysis of 87 correlations from 31 empirical studies and asks, Does strategic planning improve organizational performance? A random-effects meta-analysis reveals that strategic planning has a positive, moderate, and significant impact on organizational performance. Meta-regression analysis suggests that the positive impact of strategic planning on organizational performance is strongest when performance is measured as effectiveness and when strategic planning is measured as formal strategic planning. This impact holds across sectors (private and public) and countries (U.S. and non-U.S. contexts). Implications for public administration theory, research, and practice are discussed in the conclusion.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)810-819
Number of pages10
JournalPublic Administration Review
Volume79
Issue number6
Early online date15 Oct 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

The authors are indebted to the late Evan Ringquist, whose book on meta-analysis proved extremely helpful. The authors also want to thank the public administration group at Erasmus University Rotterdam—in particular, Joop Koppenjan, Erik-Hans Klijn, and Bram Steijn—for their helpful insights on an earlier version of this article.

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