Do Politicians See Eye to Eye? The Relationship between Political Group Characteristics, Perceived Strategic Plan Quality, and Strategic Consensus in Local Governing Majorities

Abstract

Although strategic consensus is a core concept in strategic management research, empirical evidence is lacking on (1) the degree of strategic consensus in public organizations, (2) how strategic consensus is impacted by group characteristics specific to public strategic decision‐making groups, and (3) how strategic plans impact these relationships. An analysis of multisource data from 1,075 governing majority members nested in 256 Flemish municipalities (Belgium) indicates that within‐group strategic consensus varies among governing majorities and is negatively impacted by political diversity and political power, but these relationships are mediated by perceived strategic plan quality. The results indicate that the idiosyncrasies of public decision‐making groups can impede high levels of strategic consensus, but strategic plans can attenuate this effect by fulfilling a boundary‐spanning role.

What motivates politicians to use strategic plans as a decision-making tool? Insights from the theory of planned behaviour

“…Instigated by the popularity of the New Public Management (NPM) reform movement, the adoption of rational planning practices has become widespread within public organizations (Boyne, and Walker 2010;Bryson 2010;Bryson, Edwards, and Van Slyke 2018;Meyfroodt, Desmidt, and Goeminne 2019). Rational planning promotes the use of strategic planning to define strategic goals and performance measurement to evaluate the implementation of the formulated strategic goals (Boyne 2001;George et al 2017;Poister, Pasha, and Edwards 2013).…”

“…In an attempt to harvest the presumed benefits of strategic planning, legislators across national contexts have mandated, using legislation or regulation, public organizations in a variety of settings to adopt strategic planning processes and to develop strategic plans (Meyfroodt, Desmidt, and Goeminne 2019). Such mandates can be viewed as an "authority decision" by a higher government (Boyne et al 2005) intended to coerce new managerial behaviours by imposing the adoption of new practices (Armbruster et al 2008).…”

“…Furthermore, PCSW-councils are populated by appointed party-affiliated politicians. Given that ideology and political fragmentation of a board has been proven to impact how strategic plans are perceived by politicians serving on boards (Desmidt, Meyfroodt, and George 2019;Meyfroodt, Desmidt, and Goeminne 2019), future research should focus on analyzing if and how political characteristics at the individual level (e.g., appointed vs. elected politicians, party-affiliated or not) and group level (e.g., ideological differences and fragmentation within a council) impact the adoption of strategic planning.…”

“…Second, the study results contribute to the literature on public strategic planning by focusing on an often-neglected subgroup of strategic actors (Askim 2009;Desmidt, Meyfroodt, and George 2019;Nielsen and Baekgaard 2015), namely politicians serving on the boards of public organizations. Despite the fact that legislators across national contexts have mandated public organizations in a variety of settings to adopt strategic planning processes (Meyfroodt, Desmidt, and Goeminne 2019) and thus 'forced' politicians to use planning tools, evidence from a variety of fields demonstrates that mandating the use of decision tools does not always leads to the adoption of these instruments (Boyne et al 2005). Hence, more research is needed which analyses the actual utilization of such imposed practices by politicians Brewer 2008, Walker, Avellaneda, andBerry 2011).…”

Bowling Alone, Rigor, and the Decline of Social Capital in Academic Service

“…This work helps us to better understand policy innovation in a context where professional connections connect far‐flung jurisdictions more directly than geographic contiguousness when policy innovations are portable. Finally, Meyfroodt, Desmidt, and Goeminne () examine the role of strategic plans in moderating differences in political group characteristics across local governing majorities.…”