Strategic Planning and Implementation Success in Public Service Organizations: Evidence from Canada

Abstract

In this article, we examine the role that formal strategic planning plays in determining the success of strategy implementation in a set of more than 150 public service organizations from Canada. We also analyse the mediating effects of managerial involvement in strategic planning and the moderating effects of stakeholder uncertainty on the planning-implementation relationship. A structured online questionnaire was used to collect the data. Our findings suggest that formal strategic planning has a strong positive relationship with implementation, which, though mediated by managerial involvement, becomes even more salient in the face of stakeholder uncertainty. Several implications of these findings are discussed.

Key words:

• Strategic planning
• strategy implementation
• implementation success
• managerial involvement
• public service organizations: Canada

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A part of this paper was written during the visit of the first author, as a visiting scholar, to Carleton University in Canada in the winter of 2013.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Strategic planning in the public sector is distinct from political public policy decision-making by elected officials. Elected officials do not participate in managerial strategic planning per se, and their roles are not part of this study.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful for the 2-year research grant received from the National Research Foundation, United Arab Emirates [UAE-NRF#: RSA-1108-00788], which enabled this research study to be carried out.