Strategic management and performance in public organizations: Findings from the miles and snow framework

Richard M. WALKER*

*Corresponding author for this work

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

69 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article integrates the research evidence that applies Miles and Snow's strategic management framework to the performance of public agencies. Miles and Snow developed several strategy types, arguing that prospectors (searching for new approaches) and defenders (sticking with the existing pattern of services) are aligned with processes, structures, and the environment in ways that lead them to outperform reactors (awaiting for instructions from the environment), which have no consistent strategy or alignment. Six key lessons for the practice of strategic management in public organizations are provided based on a critical review. Findings point toward the importance of employing a mix of strategies in public organizations, contrary to Miles and Snow-a strong evidence base for the association between prospecting and defending and performance and for relationships between strategy types and processes and structures. However, no empirical evidence is provided for alignment across strategy, structure, process, and the environment. The findings, largely derived from the United Kingdom and United States, suggest that the most successful strategy recipe depends on the ingredients, and thus managers must pay attention to the connections between the outlined contingencies to generate the best results using the adopted strategy. © 2013 by The American Society for Public Administration.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)675-685
Number of pages11
JournalPublic Administration Review
Volume73
Issue number5
Early online date16 Jul 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2013
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

I am grateful to Rhys Andrews, George A. Boyne, Jennifer Law, Kenneth J. Meier, Raymond Miles, Laurence J. O’Toole Jr., and Charles C. Snow for their insights and assistance in the development of the evidence presented in this article. Valuable comments were received from three anonymous reviewers and the Theory to Practice editor. Interpretations are, of course, mine.

Funding

The research reported in this article was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea Grant (NRF-2011-330-B00194), funded by the Korean government and a City University of Hong Kong Startup Grant (#7200332).

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