LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY STRATEGIZING: A MIDDLE MANAGEMENT
PERSPECTIVE
MARTIN WHITEHILL
A submission presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements
of the University of Glamorgan/Prifysgol Morgannwg for the
degree of Doctor of Business Administration
27 September, 2010
STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP
The author wishes to declare that except for commonly understood and accepted
ideas, or where specific reference is made, the work reported in this thesis is his own.
I declare that while registered as a candidate for the University of Glamorgan’s
research degree, I have not been a registered candidate or enrolled student for
another award of the University or other academic or professional institution.
I declare that no material contained in the thesis has been used in any other
submission for any academic award.
Martin Whitehill
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Michael Sheehan for his guidance and
encouragement throughout the duration of my research and to the numerous
members of staff from the local government authority who participated in this
research study. Unfortunately, Michael Sheehan left the UK nearly two years before
the date of this thesis and I must thank the action research community around the
world for supporting me during this difficult time. I would especially acknowledge
and thank Bob Dick for his generous advice. Despite being one of the recognised
world leaders in the field of action research, he responded promptly to my emails,
provided me with personal advice and links to action research resources. Without
requesting it, he went out of his way to locate documents and articles for me. He
also followed up his emails with updates and encouragement.
I would also like to thank my wife Linda and daughters Michèle and Caroline
without whose encouragement, support and patience this thesis would not have been
possible.
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
ABSTRACT
For the past four decades, researchers have been discussing and arguing over the
implementation of strategy within the public sector. There is an emerging literature
on pluralism, and the interdependence of strategizing and organizing which is
especially relevant to public service organizations. The research undertaken and
reported in this thesis set out to identify how strategizing was implemented within
one large local government authority, from the perspective of middle management.
The study sought to ascertain which, if any, of the many implementation theories
were applied in practice, and the implications of the tensions between strategizing
and organizing.
Methodologically, there is a recognised paucity of participatory action learning and
research in the strategizing field. Equally, gaps were found in the extant literature on
strategizing from the middle management perspective. This research addressed both
of these research gaps. The case study herein reported used participatory action
research methods. Participatory action research teams followed an action research
framework of six questions to identify the gaps between espoused theory and theory
in practice.
The findings were that the local government authority was not designed for the
external strategizing pluralism or the internal organizing pluralism. The organization
was designed for regulation and control and so not best suited for the delivery of
other types of service. The strategizing process lacked the specific policy input from
the various marginalised communities who required the services most. It also
specifically avoided any input from the front-line professional staff that held the
relevant knowledge, experience and skills. The pluralistic nature of the society
served and the lack of commitment on the frontline led to another phenomenon –
street-level bureaucrats and the politicization of the community. These frontline
service deliverers, ‘street-level bureaucrats’, not only interpreted the strategy to fit
the specific, unique context of each neighbourhood but also educated the citizens to
appreciate their own power through their politicization. The staff also restated their
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
plans to fit the format of the current top-down strategy by rephrasing them using the
current political language of the day.
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective.......................
Statement of original authorship................................................................................................
Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................
Abstract.....................................................................................................................................
List of tables...............................................................................................................................
Table of Figures........................................................................................................................
Abbreviations...........................................................................................................................
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................................
Background to the research....................................................................................13
Research problem and research question................................................................15
Justification for the research...................................................................................15
Outline of this thesis...............................................................................................16
Overview Chapter Two – Literature Review......................................................16
Overview Chapter Three - Methodology............................................................18
Overview Chapter Four – Findings from the Action Research programme.......20
Overview Chapter Five – Discussion on Practice-Theory Gap..........................21
Definitions..............................................................................................................21
Middle Management...........................................................................................21
Organizing...........................................................................................................22
Practice-theory gap.............................................................................................22
Professional.........................................................................................................22
Strategizing.........................................................................................................22
Delimitations of scope............................................................................................22
Conclusion..............................................................................................................22
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
2. Literature review..................................................................................................................
Introduction.............................................................................................................23
Definitions..............................................................................................................25
Strategizing.........................................................................................................25
Organizing...........................................................................................................25
Differences between public services policy and strategy in the UK, and
modernization.........................................................................................................25
Modernization.....................................................................................................26
Pluralism.................................................................................................................29
Pluralistic organizing pressures have unintended strategizing implications.......31
Pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity...............................38
Theoretical frameworks and theories of public services policy implementation42
Protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing...................................49
Framework for pluralistic context.......................................................................59
Concluding three key principles.............................................................................66
Summary.................................................................................................................66
3. research Methodology..........................................................................................................
Introduction.............................................................................................................69
Philosophical commitments....................................................................................70
Constructivism........................................................................................................75
Research Purpose....................................................................................................78
Research strategy....................................................................................................78
Middle Management Perspective...........................................................................79
Research Type........................................................................................................80
Action Research......................................................................................................81
Participatory Action Research............................................................................83
Critiques of Action Research..............................................................................86
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
The Study of Practice and Participatory Action Research..................................86
Data Collection.......................................................................................................94
The role of Literature in Action Research..............................................................94
Validity and Reliability...........................................................................................96
Personal Bias.......................................................................................................96
Triangulation.......................................................................................................97
Alternative research methods considered...............................................................97
Interviews............................................................................................................97
Workshops..........................................................................................................97
Survey Questionnaires........................................................................................98
Observation.........................................................................................................98
Documents..........................................................................................................98
Ethical Considerations............................................................................................99
The selected Research Approach............................................................................99
Methods used, Validity and Trustworthiness....................................................100
4. The Participative Action research cycles...........................................................................
Introduction...........................................................................................................103
First PAR cycle: How do actors perceive the situation or the problem?..............105
Second PAR cycle: What results do they wish to achieve (i.e., objectives)?.......110
Third PAR cycle: What strategies do they intend to use in order to achieve these
objectives?............................................................................................................112
National policy documents................................................................................114
Local policy documents....................................................................................115
Fourth PAR cycle: What strategies do they actually produce in action?.............116
Fifth PAR cycle: What were the actual outcomes of these strategies?.................122
Sixth PAR cycle: To the extent that these outcomes were unintended (i.e. did not
match the desired results), what might account for this mismatch?.....................127
Summary...............................................................................................................137
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
5. discussion on practice-theory gap......................................................................................
Introduction...........................................................................................................138
Nature of conclusions drawn from emergent research......................................139
Structure of this chapter....................................................................................140
Summary of Conclusions drawn from research issues and patterns surfaced in the
Previous Chapter...................................................................................................143
External Strategizing Pluralism and Internal Organizing Pluralism.................144
Theory-Practice Gap.............................................................................................146
Pluralistic organizing has unintended strategizing implications.......................146
Pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity – for further research
...........................................................................................................................156
Protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing – for further research
...........................................................................................................................160
Theory-Practice Gap: Conclusion.....................................................................172
Conclusions about the research problem..............................................................175
Implications for theory.........................................................................................180
Implications for policy and practice.....................................................................180
Limitations............................................................................................................181
Reflections upon Methodology and Implications.................................................182
Implications for further research..........................................................................183
7. GLOSSARY.......................................................................................................................
Complex Adaptive System................................................................................185
Governance and Government............................................................................185
Managerialism...................................................................................................185
Middle Management.........................................................................................185
Organizing.........................................................................................................186
Policy................................................................................................................186
Practice-theory gap...........................................................................................186
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Professional.......................................................................................................186
Stakeholders......................................................................................................186
Strategizing.......................................................................................................186
8. Appendices.........................................................................................................................
Appendix One: Study Protocol.............................................................................189
Appendix Two: Analysis of government policy documents................................193
8. References..........................................................................................................................
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Strategy framework or lenses (adapted from Johnson, Scholes and Whittington, 2008)..................................................
Table 2: Managing modes of association between strategizing and organizing (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 643)......................
Table 3: Summary of researcher's position (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)...............................................................
Table 4: Positivism and phenomenology research philosophy (adapted from Gill and Johnson, 1991 and Easterby–Smith et. al., 1991).....................................................................................
Table 5: Key features of phenomenological methodological paradigm (Easterby-Smith et al. 1995).......................................
Table 6: Constructionists seek to engage participants in learning processes (adapted from Abell and Simons, 2000).....................
Table 7: Researcher's constructivist position (Lincoln and Guba 2000)...........................................................................................
Table 8: Eight-Stage Action Research Method (adapted from Cohen, et al, 2000: 235-7).......................................................................
Table 9: The research method stages defined by posing the questions each stage seeks to answer (Friedman, 2006: 133)....................................................................................................
Table 10: Three philosophical approaches to action research (Developed for the purposes of this thesis).................................
Table 11: Comparison of Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection Methods (Bouma and Atkinson, 1995).......................
Table 12: Selected Research Approach (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)..............................................................................
Table 13: Participatory Action Research Cycle to answer the question: How do actors perceive the situation or the problem? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)...............110
Table 14: Government documents cascading strategy February, 2004 (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)......................113
Table 15: Participatory action research cycle to answer the question: What strategies do they intend to use in order to achieve these objectives? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis).......................................................................................116
Table 16: Participatory action research cycle to answer the question: What strategies do they actually produce in action? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)...............................121
Table 17: Summary of Strategic Objectives (Developed for the purposes of this thesis).............................................................123
Table 18: Participatory Action Research Cycle to answer the question: What were the actual outcomes of these strategies? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)...............................126
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Table 19: Participatory Action Research Cycle to answer the question: To the extent that these outcomes were unintended (i.e. did not match the desired results), what might account for this mismatch? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)..................................................................................................136
Table 20: Summary of research questions and findings (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)..................................................137
Table 21: Key Contributions to Knowledge of Theory-Practice Gap (developed for the purposes of this thesis)...............................139
Table 22: Key Contributions to Knowledge........................................177Table 23: National Policies.................................................................193Table 24: Local Government Authority Documents............................206
TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Structure of Literature Review (Developed for the purpose of this thesis).................................................................
Figure 2: Theoretical frameworks and theories of public services policy implementation (adapted from Le Grand, 2007)..............
Figure 3: McKinsey 7-S Framework (Waterman, Peters and Phillips, 1980)...........................................................................................
Figure 4: Schematic of PAR Questions and Findings (Developed for the purposes of this thesis).......................................................105
Figure 5: The Context Drivers & Challenges (Developed for the purposes of this thesis).............................................................108
Figure 6: Presentation slide to senior management, September, 2004 (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)......................114
Figure 7: Linkages from government policy to individual objectives (Developed by the PAR Team and reproduced for the purposes of this thesis).............................................................118
Figure 8: Schematic of the strategic policy framework (LGA document made anonymous for the purposes of this thesis)..................................................................................................131
Figure 9: LGA Policy in to practice framework (LGA document made anonymous for the purposes of this thesis).....................132
Figure 10: Causes of Unintended Outcomes (Developed for the purposes of this thesis).............................................................136
Figure 11: Contribution to Knowledge - the Effects caused by Pluralism...................................................................................143
Figure 12: Schematic of Theory-Practice Gap: structured for regulation, command and control (developed for the purposes of this thesis)............................................................................147
Figure 13: LGA Schematic of the strategic policy framework............149Figure 14: LGA Policy in to practice framework................................150
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Figure 15: Structure of Discussion: Local Government is a Constrained CAS (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)..................................................................................................160
Figure 16: Schematic of Strategizing (adapted from Stacey 1993)..................................................................................................168
Figure 17: Structure of Discussion: Lack of Democratic Voice..........169
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ABBREVIATIONS
CAS Complex Adaptive System
LGA Local Government Authority
NPM New Public Management
PAR Participatory Action Research
RBV Resource-Based View of strategy
WAG Welsh Assembly Government
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1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter sets the context and overview for the research programme undertaken
and forming the basis of this thesis. The chapter starts with the background to the
research programme, explaining the choice of organization and the type of research
employed. Following is an outline of the research problem and a justification for the
research. The methodology employed is covered briefly and the other chapters in
this thesis are described. The definition of strategizing and delimitations of the
research scope are specified before this chapter is concluded.
Background to the research
For the past four decades, researchers have been discussing and arguing over the
implementation of strategy within the public sector. The past two decades have
witnessed the implementation of New Public Management. There has been almost a
universal cry by the leading academics in the field for more empirical
implementation research (Barrett, 2004; DeLeon, 1999; DeLeon & DeLeon, 2002;
Lester & Goggin, 1998; Schneider, 1999; Schofield, 2001; Schofield & Sausman,
2004; S. Winter, 1999, 2003). There is an emerging literature on pluralism, and the
interdependence of strategizing and organizing which is especially relevant to public
service organizations. The research herein reported addresses the problem of how
theory and practice changed over the past 40 years and the identification of a theory-
practice gap.
The research reported in this thesis set out to identify the implementation of
strategizing within one large public sector organisation in the U.K. and to ascertain
which, if any, of the many implementation theories were applied in practice, and the
implications of the tensions between strategizing and organizing. The herein
reported research specifically took the perspective of middle management. Middle
management is seen to comprise managers below top managers and above first-level
supervision (Dutton and Ashford 1993; Uyterhoven 1972). Middle management’s
uniqueness is not their location in the hierarchy but their function as mediators
between the organization’s strategy and day-to-day operations (Nonaka 1994) It is
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
middle managers who had to balance the concerns of senior managers and politicians
whilst delivering services to the client (McKevitt and Lawton 1996).
This research programme was carried out in one UK public sector organization, a
Local Government Authority (“LGA”) that had an annual expenditure of €600
million. The research study looked in depth at a service area within this organization
that covered several different types of services through separate departments. Its
annual expenditure was approximately €50 million. The organization requested that
its expenditure be expressed in Euros to enhance its anonymity.
The researcher had supervised a participatory action research programme that
crossed departments within this Local Government Authority (LGA) and several
functions within the National Health Service. Subsequently, the LGA invited the
researcher to supervise a Participatory Action Research (PAR) programme that was
to establish strategy outcome goals to ensure implementation. It was agreed that this
research would use the early stages of the PAR to capture data for the research
programme reported in this thesis. This research set out to understand and describe
strategizing within a major public sector organization, an LGA from the perspective
of middle management.
A subsidiary research aim was to understand better how local government is so
radically different following New Public Management (Aucoin 1990; Dawson and
Dargie 1999), typically summarized as the managerial state (Barrett 2004) or neo-
Tayloristic state (Pollitt et al. 1990), the contract state (Stewart 1993),
entrepreneurial government (Osborne and Gaebler 1992), and the headless chicken
state or gridlocked contract state (Hood 1995). Unlike other countries, the public
sector reform in the UK, New Public Management, was influenced by agency theory
(Stewart 2004). In the USA, public sector strategy was much closer aligned to
private sector strategy (Bryson 1995; Moore 1995).
In the UK, performance targets were handed down to agencies, meaning that
‘strategy’ was no more than a change management tool (Stewart 2004). So, whilst
managers were expected to come up with creative, innovative and better ways of
achieving the results, they were unable to employ strategy – purpose, policies,
programmes, actions, decisions or resource allocations (Bryson 1995). The New
Public Management agenda was seen to lead to an increase of policy centralisation
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
combined with quasi-markets and contracting out (Barrett 2004). Further, it was
seen to reinforce the separation of politics (policy and strategy formulation) and
administration (policy and strategy implementation), and to increase the distance
separating politics and administration (Barrett 2004). Barrett also alleged that it
suppressed dissent and policy challenge.
Research problem and research question
There was a lack of in-depth empirical studies of strategizing practices within local
government. Political changes were known to be changing the context, as discussed
above. This research addressed this empirical gap by identifying the strategizing
processes carried out by this LGA in comparison to the published literature to reveal
practice-theory gaps. The research problem was not merely a `problem-solving' one
but `tested out' the limits of previously proposed generalisations (Phillips & Pugh
1987, p. 45).
The research question is:
How does government strategize locally from a middle management perspective?
The broad area of interest here is strategizing within the public sector; the area of
decision-making is middle management within a local government authority, over a
time period of two years. This case study used participatory action research methods
for data collection, in-depth interviewing, and document and archive analysis.
Justification for the research
During the review of extant literature, three main gaps were identified. There was a
lack of contemporary empirical research of the strategizing processes (Mellahi and
Sminia 2009). There were gaps in published research from the middle management
perspective, as a unit of study (Wooldridge et al. 2008). Methodologically, there
was a lack of participatory approaches (Balogun et al. 2003). The research reported
in this thesis addresses some of these gaps.
Many authors have asked why research in strategy implementation has diminished
and called for a revival (Barrett, 2004; DeLeon, 1999; DeLeon & DeLeon, 2002;
Lester & Goggin, 1998; Schneider, 1999; Schofield, 2001; Schofield & Sausman,
2004; S. Winter, 1999, 2003). Some have argued that implementation studies are
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
still being carried out but are called by alternative names (O'Toole 2000). Certainly,
this may be true for the USA, if not the UK. Examples are institutional analysis
(Ostrom 1999), governance (Stoker 1991; Stone 1989) and network analysis (Kikert
et al. 1997; Rhodes 1997). The research herein reported looked at the current state
of strategy implementation in a local government authority.
The use of participatory action research within the strategizing field was still novel.
The majority of publications appeared to demonstrate the positivist approach to
research (Balogun et al. 2003) in which the observer is independent of what is being
observed (Easterby-Smith et al. 1995). The explanation and justification for the
participative action research strategy herein reported is outlined in the methodology
chapter of the thesis. This research resulted in the implementation of strategic
objectives for individuals, functions and departments that aligned to regional,
national and UK government strategic objectives. The value of this research to the
organization is reflected in the fact that subsequent to the completion of this
participatory action research programme, an audit on behalf of the Welsh
government recommended that a similar ‘line-of-sight’ approach to strategic
objectives should be implemented across the organization.
Outline of this thesis
Each of the subsequent chapters are briefly described in this section of the thesis.
Overview Chapter Two – Literature Review
This chapter reviews the emerging literature on pluralism, and the interdependence
of strategizing and organizing. After defining strategizing and organizing, and
explaining the differences between public services policy and strategy, the two
perspectives of the pluralism under study (pluralistic strategizing tensions and
pluralistic organizing tensions) are reviewed. The interdependence between
organizing and strategizing throw up three problems. They are that pluralistic
organizing has unintended strategizing implications; pluralistic strategizing pressures
strain organizing capacity and, protracted tensions between organizing and
strategizing. The pluralistic organizing pressures are revealed to have unintended
strategizing implications. There follows a discussion upon the rational analytical
approach and the emergent approach to strategizing. The pluralistic organizing
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
pressures will probably result in unintended, emergent strategy. The converse is also
possible – pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity. So, where
there are many external stakeholders making multiple demands for different strategic
objectives, the organization’s capacity to deliver all of these different, and possibly
conflicting objectives, could overwhelm an organization’s resource capacity. From
this discussion on pluralistic, external strategizing pressures come Agency Theory
and the implementation of public services policy. Again, but this time from the
organizing perspective, the rational analytical and emergent approaches are
discussed. The third problem was protracted tensions. This continual friction
between organizing and strategizing means that the organization is in a state of
continuous change. This stimulates a discussion on Complexity Theory and
Institutional Theory. From the framework developed by Jarzabkowski and Fenton
(2006), the three key principles tie back to this state of continuous change. Their
conclusion is that pluralism caused by multiple internal interests and identities and
by multiple external demands of different stakeholders is highly, and increasingly,
relevant for many organizations. Organizations are complex plural entities in which
a single vision or stable organization focus may be unlikely (Jarzabkowski and
Fenton, 2006). They go on to state:
Simarly, research needs to shift from the current dominant perspectives on strategy and organizations as largely coherent and reified states to embracing more socially dynamic and pluralistic views of the firm and its activities (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 647)
This gap in the research literature will be addressed by the research study reported
herein. The pluralistic perspective towards strategizing and organizing is taken when
answering the research question: How does government strategize locally from a
middle management perspective. Empirical confirmation will be sought of the above
discussion upon external strategizing pluralism and internal organizing pluralism as
well as the way the two tensions are balanced by management in the research site.
The study will look at the choice, compromise or balance between the different
strategizing and organizing practices (rational analytical, emergent or complex
adaptive system).
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
In the Strategy-as-Practice literature (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009), the importance
of developing practice-based links between micro and macro-phenomena is
highlighted. Empirical, practice-based research is still relatively novel as the
practice-turn originated only in the past decade and the nature of the research
necessitates significant investment of time. There is a research gap when it comes to
considering strategy practitioners as not just individuals but classes of practitioners
and also the concept of extra-organizational actors as strategy practitioners. There
appear to be gaps in the study of institutionalised strategy practices and the ways in
which they constitute a profession of strategy. There is a call to draw upon theories
from fields such as sociology and critical theory (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009) and
there is a lack of research studies upon outcomes and what strategists do that impact
those outcomes. A review of the process research approach to strategizing (Sminia
2009) identifies a gap addressed by this research programme. A move is required
from basic description to a form of normative prescription – having understood how
a strategy is realized, explain how to realize a successful strategy.
The next chapter outlines the methodology adopted to research these gaps identified
by the review of literature above. The research herein reported adds to the empirical
studies from the perspective of the new practice-turn, strategy-as-practice
perspective (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009). It takes middle management as its unit
of analysis for which there has been a dearth of empirical study (Wooldridge et al.
2008). The next chapter describes how the research is accomplished from the
methodological frontiers using participative action research (Balogun et al. 2003).
The research programme reported herein took up these challenges from the literature
review and sought to fill these identified gaps in empirical research.
Overview Chapter Three - Methodology
This chapter works its way from a statement upon the researcher’s philosophical
commitments, through the choice of research style, the purpose of the research, the
research strategy and the research type. The researcher’s philosophical commitment
is phenomenology. The research style is qualitative and the purpose is exploratory.
The research strategy is a case study and the research type is action research.
The management of the research site requested a participatory action research
approach to aid their learning. Participatory action research can be understood as a Page 20
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
variant of a case study and a field experiment (Galliers 1992). The case study
methodology is suitable as it is possible for a single case study or a limited number
of case studies to identify general properties (Baskerville 1996; Berg et al. 1995;
Fleck 1979; Galliers 1994; Gummesson 1991). Participatory action research is an
appropriate method for generating theory (Glasser and Strauss 1967; Kjellen and
Soderman 1980) while expanding scientific knowledge (Baskerville 1999).
Participatory action research permits intervention by the researcher into the events.
Participatory action research represents a highly unstructured field experiment
(Galliers 1992). The participatory action research methods evolved from the view
that research should lead to change and therefore change should be an integral part of
the research process itself (Easterby-Smith et al. 1995). Participatory action research
stresses the importance of collaboration between the researched and the researcher
(Baskerville and Myers 2004) so that a shared understanding develops (Reason and
Rowan 1981).
Five individual interviews are carried out with the members of the senior
management team. Each interview lasts, on average, about 90 minutes. Open-ended
questions are used, which are a consistent set of prompts to which participants can
respond in detail (Giola and Thomas 1996). Subsequently, group interviews are
conducted with the teams that report directly to each of these senior managers.
Action research projects are then carried out with three teams of middle managers
from different service departments. The research unit of analysis is the middle
management in this service area.
The case study results are presented to the senior management of the service area
(primary unit of focus) to check for any omissions and factual accuracies, therefore
providing internal validation of the findings (Miles and Hubermann 1994).
Documentary data are collected, including archived documents. Typically, the data
sources include emails, instructions, reports and publications. Secondary data,
including UK and Welsh government policy documents and government-initiated
inquiries and reports are accessed. All of this documentation is used to triangulate
the data collected from the participatory action research teams. As per the study
protocol, care is taken at each stage of the data collection and analysis to ensure
triangulation of data, in recognition of the possibility of researcher and informant
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
bias. Triangulation helps to assemble a more complete and accurate picture of
practices through converging sources of evidence (Eisenhardt 1989b); (Jick 1979),
(Yin 1994). These multiple sources are designed to counteract any potential bias as
a result of relying upon a single source of data (Denzin 1989; Eisenhardt 1989b),
especially where retrospective analysis is concerned (Golden 1992).
The participatory action research cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflecting
is not often as neat or progressive as suggested. Each phase may cycle back and
forth through these steps and the conclusions may be that the next phase may need to
address a different problem with different participants using a different research
approach. It does not matter if the participants have faithfully followed the steps or
not. The success criterion is whether the participants have a sense of development in
their practices, their understandings of their practices and the contexts of their
practice (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000). The action research framework chosen for
this research method are six questions (Friedman 2006).
The development of a protocol for the investigation is a critical step before data is
collected (Yin 1994). Yin developed the protocol as a way of dealing with the
problems of reliability. This protocol contains the instrument as well as the
procedures and general rules. It summarises the field procedures and the steps to
obtain informed consent of all the participants. Informed consent is obtained before
each interview.
Overview Chapter Four – Findings from the Action Research
programme
The findings from the participatory action research cycles indicate that the
community strategy action plan may have made more transparent the influence of
pressure groups but it still unquestionably imposed a top-down implementation
across the community. The gap, disclosed by the findings between the
policy/strategy documents and implementation in the field by the professionals,
demonstrates that professional discretion is missing from the documents. The
extensive external pluralism of the multitude of stakeholders, the diverse strategic
objectives, and the internal pluralism amongst the numerous different professions
and professionals, as well as middle and senior management, confirm that the LGA
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
is part of a complex system, specifically a complex adaptive system of autonomous
agents (humans) continuously adapting to interdependent events and their evolving
environment. The next chapter, entitled discussion on practice-theory gap, takes
forward these points based upon the findings and argues for the exploration of
alternative strategizing approaches and organizational models.
Overview Chapter Five – Discussion on Practice-Theory Gap
In chapter five, the findings are discussed in greater detail and compared to the
literature to identify the strategizing practice-theory gap. The findings are that there
is external strategizing pluralism and internal organizing pluralism. The strategy is
set by numerous external stakeholders and the implementation is organized by
numerous internal stakeholders. This empirical research confirms the literature
(Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). Additionally, there is evidence of pluralistic
organizing having unintended strategizing implications. The object of the research
site is an organization that was originally established as a local government
authority. It was found that the organization is structured as an authority, structured
for regulation, command and control. However, the findings also show that many
services being provided by the local government authority were for care and well-
being and not regulation and control. The findings disconfirm the literature as the
organization was structured to deliver a single service typology (regulation and
control). Evidence was also found of what American academic literature has called
‘street-level bureaucrats’ – service providers who use their own discretion when
interpreting the implementation of policy. The empirical findings here confirm the
published literature on research in the USA.
Definitions
Middle Management
Middle management is seen to comprise managers below top managers and above
first-level supervision (Dutton and Ashford 1993; Uyterhoven 1972). Middle
management’s uniqueness is not their location in the hierarchy but their function as
mediators between the organization’s strategy and day-to-day operations (Nonaka
1994).
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Organizing
‘...organizing can be defined as the creation and use of structural practices and coordination processes by internal stakeholders to enact the organization’s identity, culture and interests’ (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 632)
Practice-theory gap
The practice-theory gap is between theory (espoused theory) and practice (theories in
use), (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000).
Professional
Workers who possessed professional qualifications - they were “professionals”
(Lipsky 1980).
Strategizing
‘Strategizing refers to those planning, resource allocation, monitoring and control practices and processes through which strategy is enacted’ (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 632)
Delimitations of scope
This research focused upon the public sector only, specifically a local government
authority. The geographical location of the LGA was Wales. This LGA therefore
was a constituent part of the devolved UK government. The unit of analysis chosen
was middle management. The research data covered the period 1999-2005. This
case study used participatory action research methods for data collection, in-depth
interviewing, and document and archive analysis.
Conclusion
This introduction chapter laid the foundations for the thesis. It introduced the
research question and its context. The research was justified and the definition of
“strategizing” was presented. The methodology was summarized and justified. The
thesis structure was outlined and some of the limitations were noted. On these
foundations, this thesis proceeds with a detailed description of the research
programme and its outcomes.Page 24
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Strategy within a Pluralistic Context, Public Service Delivery and Community Voice
Introduction
The literature review developed throughout the research process as new patterns and
relationships emerged from the data, as that data was collected and analysed. In
addition to published literature about strategy formulation in public services, the
precise nature of the participants in the strategy decision-making process and the
democratization of the strategy process were also uncovered. The drivers and
constrainers of strategy and change also were addressed.
This chapters starts with summary definitions of strategizing and organizing,
followed by the differences between public services policy and strategy, in the UK.
There then follows a discussion drawn from the literature upon the pluralistic context
of an organization, especially the local government authority. From a strategizing
perspective, there are many different external stakeholder groups within the
geographical boundaries of the local government authority and each has their own
objectives, aspirations and expectations. But equally, within the organization there
are many levels of management, communities of different professional staff and
administrative staff. Again, each one of these internal stakeholders has their own
objectives. This discussion upon the literature looks at this external strategizing
pluralism and the internal organizing pluralism plus the protracted tensions between
the two.
The internal organizing pluralism causes tension between the traditional top-down
approach to strategy and emergent strategy, often implemented by employees
delivering the service. Pluralistic organizing pressures have unintended strategizing
implications. The external strategizing pluralism causes tension. This tension
reflects the public service delivery method and the voice of the local government
authority’s constituents and rationales for constituents’ participation in decision-
making. Pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity.
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
The protracted tension between internal organizing pluralism and external
strategizing pluralism results in continuous organizational friction. This is caused by
the continuous need to flex, adjust and change between both internal and external
communities of interest as they negotiate and adjust their positions towards each
community and their strategic objectives. This places additional requirements upon
the organization as it must be able to continuously evolve strategy and the
organization to deliver it.
The structure of this chapter as described above is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Structure of Literature Review (Developed for the purpose of this thesis)
The figure of the literature review’s structure shows the opening topics leading to the
discussion on pluralism. The interdependence between organizing and strategizing
results in three key problems which form the core of this literature review. First,
pluralistic organizing has unintended strategizing implications. With policy
developed and directed from the top in a rational and analytical way, employees
implementing the public service (“street-level bureaucrats”) may use their initiative
and flex the actual delivery to more closely meet the needs of the specific recipients.
Effectively, this bottom-up approach to strategy implementation results in strategy
that emerges from the implementation.
The second problem is pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity.
The strategizing process may attempt to take into account the expectations and
aspirations of a broad range of stakeholders and local government constituents.
Strategic objectives may be negotiated with key, and more influential and powerful Page 26
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
stakeholders. The resulting strategic objectives may, or may not be those held by the
public service recipients or those members of staff delivering that service. A key
area of literature here is Agency Theory and public services policy implementation.
The third problem to come out of the interdependence between organizing and
strategizing is the protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing. This
discussion of the literature around continuous change leads to Complexity Theory
and the stabilizing effect of Institutional Theory. These theories link to the
pluralistic framework proposed by Jarzabkowski and Fenton (2006). This chapter on
the review of literature starts next with the key definitions of strategizing and
organizing and the following section discusses the differences between public
services policy and strategy in the UK and modernization.
Definitions
Definitions and explanations of terms used will be incorporated throughout this
document as they are used. However, some terms are core to this research study and
this review of the literature. Those terms are defined here. The literature on
pluralism uses these terms continuously and so this opportunity is taken to settle
upon and set down here a consistent ‘suite’ of definitions.
Strategizing
‘Strategizing refers to those planning, resource allocation, monitoring and control practices and processes through which strategy is enacted’ (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 632)
Organizing
‘...organizing can be defined as the creation and use of structural practices and coordination processes by internal stakeholders to enact the organization’s identity, culture and interests’ (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 632)
Differences between public services policy and strategy in the
UK, and modernization
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Traditionally, there was a split between public services policy and implementation in
the UK public sector. Politics was deciding what to do and getting it done, policy
was the decision about what to do, and administration was getting it done (Baker
1972). However, the service delivered was the result of many individual decisions
by professional public sector service providers, not politicians or administrators
(Llewellyn and Tappin 2003). Workers who interacted directly with the public
possessed professional qualifications - they were “professionals” (Lipsky 1980).
Politicians did not want responsibility without control. Therefore, administrators
were replaced by managers and policies by strategy as part of the managerial agenda
in the UK during the 1990s (Llewellyn and Tappin 2003).
Prior to strategy and strategic management in the public sector, professionals or
functional specialists developed ‘shopping lists’ (Langley 1986). These lists made
no discrimination between, or elimination of, alternatives, resulting in a lack of clear
focus for future direction and action. As professional service providers, they
matched service provision to resources available (Champagne et al. 1997; Hardy et
al. 1983; Llewellyn 2001; Mintzberg 1979, 1989; Mintzberg and Waters 1985).
Effectively, this custodial resource management promoted conformity, reliability and
basic standards of service (Ackroyd et al. 1989), facilitating the development of
inward-looking bureaucracies resistant to change (Quinn et al. 1996). Even if the
individual professionals in public services had their own 'strategies', overall, public
sector organizations remained remarkably stable (Mintzberg, 1994, p. 406).
Modernization
In the last twenty years of the twentieth century, the management of public service
organizations was subjected to a radical change process (Horton 2003). The
management was being transformed from bureaucratic public administration to one
that was market-oriented and results-driven. Variations may be seen across Europe
but clear trends were apparent (Kickert 1997; Pollit 2001, 2002). During the 1990s,
a number of initiatives were taken to introduce New Public Management (“NPM”) in
attempts to tackle issues of cost, outcome, configuration and governance at the local,
national and European levels (Rhodes and MacKechnie 2003). The initiatives have
increased the complexity of public services. Public services are now delivered by
public, private and non-profit organizations in partnership or even in conflict
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
(Rhodes and MacKechnie 2003). The success of these various initiatives has been
mixed (Dunshire et al. 1994; Hood 2000; Kay 2002; Mackintosh 1998). As one
indicator of performance from the introduction of modernization, Rhodes and
MacKechnie point out OECD figures that show taxes and government outlays as a
proportion of GDP in the EU are about the same in 2002 as 1987 but government
debt has soared from 37 to 49 percent over the same time period (Rhodes and
MacKechnie 2003).
NPM has been typically summarized (Barrett 2004) as the managerial state or neo-
Tayloristic state (Pollitt et al. 1990), the contract state (Stewart 1993),
entrepreneurial government (Osborne and Gaebler 1992), the headless chicken state
or gridlocked contract state (Hood 1995). NPM had dominated public sector reform
in many OECD countries. NPM required the public sector organization to refocus
(Ryan 1997) from “process towards purpose, reorganise their structures around
programmes and strategy, adopt the financial and human resources management
approaches of the private sector, and the de-bureaucratised forms of organisation
emerging there” (p. 158). The new management role was seen to be (Clarke and
Newman 1993) “visions, missions, leadership by example, intensive communication
processes and thorough attention to the realm of symbols (as a way to create) the
mechanisms for creating the cultural conditions which mobilize and harness
enterprising energy” (p.430).
Unlike other countries, NPM was influenced by agency theory (Stewart 2004) which
posits that the resulting bureaucratic strategy is something to be constrained not
encouraged. In the USA, public sector strategy was more closely aligned to that of
the private sector (Bryson 1995; Moore 1995). In the UK, performance targets were
handed down to agencies meaning that ‘strategy’ was no more than a change
management tool (Stewart 2004).
So, whilst managers were expected to provide creative, innovative and improved
ways of achieving the results, they were unable to employ strategy – purpose,
policies, programmes, actions, decisions or resource allocations (Bryson 1995). The
NPM increase in policy centralisation combined with quasi-markets and contracting
out reinforced the separation of politics (policy and strategy formulation) and
administration (policy and strategy implementation) Furthermore, it increased the
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
distance separating formulation and implementation (Barrett 2004). Barrett also
suggested that NPM suppressed dissent and policy challenge. However, the major
cultural change in the UK was the change of the state from a provider to enabler.
The aforementioned shifts suggest that managerialism would have been towards the
top of the list of issues and challenges faced within the public sector. The public
sector had been encouraged to adopt a results-oriented approach similar to that of the
private sector (Gramberg and Teicher 2000). The implication was that certain core
management functions were applicable across both the private and public sectors
(Lawler and Hearn 1995). The scope of managerialism was defined (Gramberg and
Teicher 2000) as the predominance of the management role where values of
leadership, entrepreneurialism, strategy development and focus upon outputs “are
practiced within a framework of explicit goals and constraints set by government
which form the contractual obligations of the new public management” (p. 478).
The managers were free to develop corporate plans which identified specific
objectives, targets, incentives and constraints in the pursuit of efficiency and
effectiveness (Painter 1998).
After the election victory of New Labour in the UK in 1997, two drivers were central
to government policy: citizen participation and efficiency of public service delivery
(Coaffee and Johnston 2005). The approach adopted was part of a political concept
called ‘the third way’. It was a programme for permanent revisionism that involved
the development of a strong civil society and active government (Blair 1998). The
third way emerged within numerous complex, inter-linked policies that reshaped the
relationships between national and local government, and between local government
and its communities (Coaffee 2004; Johnston 2004), resulting in a shift from local
government service provider to enabler. Instead of being self-sufficient and
providing all services themselves, local authorities were to facilitate and co-opt other
organisations, including those from the private sector, to deliver services on their
behalf (Wilson and Game 2002). Local government has been required to develop a
more flexible, enabling approach reflecting pragmatism, accountability and
transparency, with wider consultation with citizens (Coaffee and Johnston 2005).
This means a bottom-up approach instead of a top-down approach. However, local
authorities have been left on their own to work out how to implement this complex
task (Merchant 2003).Page 30
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
This New Localism approach (Raysford 2004) is dependent upon the local authority
trusting localities not to misuse the opportunities. Previously in the UK, there had
been a tendency for national government to prescribe policy to localities (Johnston
and Coaffee 2004). New localism has made several fundamental changes to the
practices of local government. Strategy has been devolved. Community voice has
been enhanced and communities empowered with decision-making processes. Local
authorities are community leaders rather than service providers, and are now able to
decentralise service delivery to the sub-local level and give local communities a
voice in decisions through area committees (Coaffee and Johnston 2005). The Local
Government Act (2000) enabled and empowered area committees with limited
power and responsibility from the local authority executive to refine local service
delivery. This shift was part of the transformation to community-led governance
(Coaffee and Healey 2003; Taylor and Gaster 2001).
Neighbourhoods are now the centre of attention for citizen engagement and
improved accountability (Pratchett 2004). Neighbourhoods and city-regions
combine strategic capacity with local decision-making (Stoker 2005).
Neighbourhoods enable individuals and communities to exercise greater choice,
voice, and control over public services (ODPM 2006). The key problem facing local
government, and governance, is how to involve staff and marginalised communities
(Maddock 2002) and then how to resolve the huge professional and cultural gulfs
between stakeholders, especially between public services staff and policy makers.
The research herein reported looks at the involvement of staff and communities in
the strategizing process and identifies any gap between public services staff and
policy makers.
The above has reviewed literature that sets the context for the local government
authority research site. The tensions outlined above, including stakeholders,
centralisation and localisation are developed in the next section from the perspective
of the pluralism literature.
Pluralism
The notion of organizations as pluralistic entities within pluralistic contexts has
gained significant research agenda interest (Denis et al. 2001; Jarzabkowski and
Fenton 2006; Van de Ven 2004). Pluralistic contexts and organizations are those
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
shaped by divergent goals and interests of different groups both internal and external
to the organization (Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). Traditionally, much strategy
theory has been based upon the concept of the organization establishing a strategic
focus (Barney 1991; Hamel and Prahalad 1990; Porter 1985) which will not explain
strategic focus fragmented in a pluralistic context by competing internal and external
groups (Glynn et al. 2000a). Within pluralistic organizations, such as local
government, there are separate administrative, managerial and professional cultures
which in turn may contain subcultures and identities (Blackler et al. 2000;
Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). Pluralism is exhibited in the tension between
professional and managerial cultures and interests which lead to multiple organizing
processes. Local professionals work to fit local requirements not generic,
organization-wide initiatives. In addition to this internal pluralistic tension, there is
external pluralism caused by the divergent interests of external stakeholders that
result in multiple strategic goals and objectives. These pluralistic tensions are
caused by a wide set of internal and external stakeholders.
Pluralistic tensions impact upon strategizing in the public services sector with
seemingly conflicting pressures of commercially-oriented performance versus the
professional role in society and the quality of the public service provided (Satow
1975). Internal, pluralistic organizing pressures can lead to strategies that are
counter to the organization’s overarching objectives. This is especially likely in
organizations with diverse professionally-based knowledge workers with interests
that may be antithetical to those of their management (Jarzabkowski and Fenton
2006). In addition, external pluralistic tensions are typical in organizations that have
multiple stakeholders in the economic, political and social domains, such as a local
government authority.
Local governments experience external pluralistic tension when trying to provide a
quality service but at best value, maximizing resource efficiencies whilst under
increasing pressure to adopt a more commercial orientation. The external
strategizing and the internal organizing pluralities could result in multiple,
ambiguous and contradictory strategic objectives and goals being implemented
across diverse contexts, groups and organizational boundaries (Jarzabkowski and
Fenton, 2006).
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Pluralistic organizing pressures have unintended strategizing
implications
Strategies may emerge from implementation that are not in-line with the
organizations key strategic objectives due to the tensions that arise from pluralistic
organizing as a result of diverse, or even divergent, cultures and interests
(Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006). These tensions build where knowledge workers
from diverse professional backgrounds, identities and interests very different from
those of the local government authority’s leadership or politicians. These tensions
could be reflected throughout an organization providing a wide range of public
services. These tensions would place pressure on the authority’s ability to
implement a coherent strategy and may lead unintentionally to emergent strategy.
This emergent strategy may be the result of the adjustments to the nature of the
service delivered on the frontline by the service deliverer. Or, the way the service is
delivered may be flexed or changed by the deliverer, using their own discretion to
more closely meet the needs of the recipient. The result is the implementation of an
emergent strategy not that propounded by the corporate body. Emergent strategy can
result in not a single strategic objective but multiple strategic objectives.
At this stage it is important to state which approach is being taken to review the
strategizing perspectives. The framework chosen to understand the different strategy
perspectives is that of Johnson, Scholes and Whittington (2008). This is a core
strategy text used by many business schools and is the highest selling strategy text in
Europe. More importantly from the perspective of this review and research study,
they have developed their strategy lenses based upon philosophical positions
(positivist, interpretive/constructivist, critical theory and complexity theories).
These research philosophies are discussed in the next chapter on research
methodology in specific relation to this research study. In order to keep this
coherence between the literature review and research methodology, this framework
of strategy lenses (Johnson, Scholes and Whittington, 2008) will be adopted and is
shown in the next table. From the table, it can be seen that the different approaches,
such as rational analytical and emergent approaches to strategy, reflect the
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
underlying philosophical commitments of the participants, labelled in the table as
Research Philosophy.
Table 1: Strategy framework or lenses (adapted from Johnson, Scholes and
Whittington, 2008)
Lenses Approach Theories Research Philosophy
Design Rational,
analytical
Industrial
Organizational
Economics
Positivist
Experience Emergent Institutional Theory Interpretivist/constructivist
Ideas Disruptive,
radical change
Complexity Theory Complexity Theory
Discourse Power and
emancipation
Critical Theory Critical Theory
Having outlined above how unintended strategizing may be caused by pluralistic
organizing pressures, the discussion looks at these key issues in more detail. The
tensions between the ‘corporate’ governance of the organizations leaders,
stakeholders and frontline staff delivering the public services are now explored.
Implementation theory (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973) – the who, how and why
policy is put in to effect - transcends the traditional dichotomy of politics and
administration (Schofield 2001; Schofield and Sausman 2004). This review of the
published literature on public policy implementation divides into three types:
analytical models, different approaches (top-down or bottom-up), and key
implementation variables. The analytic models follow three chronological
generations (Goggin et al. 1990). The first generation, reflects an objectivist or
positivist position of policy makers using rational, linear models within their
environment. The second generation sought typologies for predicting policy
outcomes and concentrated upon the variables that impact upon implementation.
These two generations were both developing the rational analytical approach. The
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
third generation claim a synthesis that reflects the dynamic nature of implementation
(Schofield 2001), a more emergent approach. These differences can be summarized
as the rational analytic approach (“strategic planning”) and strategic emergence. In
relatively stable and predictable industries, larger firms were seen to be inclined to
plan while the adaptive, emergent approach applied more to firms in dynamic
industries (Mintzberg 1973b). The rational analytical approach is reviewed first.
The rational analytical approach to strategizing
The rational analytical approach, strategic planning, provided strategic direction
(Schendel and Hofer 1979). Strategy is based upon a formulation of comprehensive
analysis of a firm’s environment (Anthony 1965; Hofer and Schendel 1978; Porter
1980b). The analytical activities consider various competitive and organizational
insights and the organization’s strategic position is rationally determined (Porter
1996). This form of strategic planning is a central function with strategic issues
considered from the organization-level and therefore by the senior management team
(Andersen 2004).
The early research sought to describe the implementation process (Derthick 1972;
Murphy 1971; Pressman and Wildavsky 1973). This generation of studies saw
implementation failure as a function of imperfect primary legislation and a failure of
bureaucratic compliance (Sarbaugh-Thompson and Zald 1979). Often,
implementation was seen as two or more parties in opposition because they both
thought they were doing the right thing (Allison 1971).
This earlier research was followed by programmes that were more analytical
(Schofield 2001). They developed typologies and variables (Barrett and Fudge
1981; Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983) that have been categorized as policy,
organization and people (Goggin et al. 1990). Many studies in this generation
assumed a command and control, or top-down approach to strategizing (DeLeon and
DeLeon 2002). They developed rational, logical models described below, with some
misplaced precision (DeLeon 1999; Matland 1995; Meier and McFarlane 1995).
The top-down approach to strategy implementation followed the bureaucratic
separation of policy from implementation, co-ordination and control through
hierarchy and authority (Barrett 2004). The research approach to top-down
implementation studies was to identify the causes of problems or failures and Page 35
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
propose ways to increase compliance with policy objectives, mainly through
improved communication, co-ordination of the implementation delivery chain,
management of resources and control of implementation agents (Barrett 2004). It
assumed a linear progression from policy setting to implementation. Top-down
models did not cater for the messiness of policy-making, behavioural complexity,
goal ambiguity and contradiction (Schofield 2001). They lacked both micro and
macro political reality (Baier et al. 1986; Berman 1978). A command and control
organizational approach failed to capture the hearts and minds of the middle level
managers who were required to deliver the service (McKevitt and Lawton 1996).
Emergent and street-level bureaucrats approach to strategizing
This section discusses research initiatives, concurrent to the top-down studies
reported above, that looked at the bottom-up approach to strategizing. Importantly,
the top-down models failed to take in to consideration the discretionary action of the
client-facing implementer, or “street-level bureaucrat” (Hjern 1982; Hjern and Hull
1982; Lipsky 1971, 1980; Prottas 1979) and the street-level bureaucrats role of
interpreters of central policy (Thompson 1982). These lower-level bureaucrats had
considerable discretion and ranges of interpretation in how policy affected the
citizens with whom they had contact (Schofield 2001). Many of these workers who
interacted directly with the public possessed professional qualifications - they were
“professionals” (Lipsky 1980). During implementation of policy, these professionals
were likely to face dilemmas of work autonomy, responsibility to clients, and a duty
to implement policy as directed (Hill 1993). There was disagreement as to whether
this local discretion by the professional was necessary and desirable (Barrett and Hill
1984; Van Meter and Van Horn 1975) or anti-democratic and evidence of inadequate
top-down control leading to the subversion of policy (Linder and Peters 1987;
Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983). It has been argued that public bodies must be
prescriptive about the use of discretion in policy implementation to counter-act the
influence of the professional, personal and moral codes of the individual street-level
bureaucrats (Burke 1987).
This local interpretation of policy implementation could be conceived as adaptive
implementation (Mintzberg 1973b). Adaptive implementation was beneficial where
social policy was ambiguous or experimental (Maynard-Moody et al. 1990). The
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
bottom-up approach recognised that policy formulation and implementation were not
separate, independent functions (Milwood 1980). The role of street-level
bureaucracy was considered always to be important, probably more so for final
policy outcome than central policy-making (Sabatier 1991).
The ‘bottom-up’ term was seen to be misleading as this grouping included those who
considered implementation as part of the policy-making process in which policy
evolved or modified in the implementation process, as well as new methods for
implementation and evaluation (Schofield 2001). The bottom-up researchers
focused upon the local implementers and not central government and were
concerned with the motives and actions of actors (Schofield 2001). Context was as
important as the policy because implementation was when macro (central policy)
and micro (institutions, the public, the problem) interacted (Berman 1978).
However, there were conflicting models proposed in the policy-action relationship.
Some focused upon consensus building, influence and persuasion, positive-sum
negotiation (collaborative value added to both parties) and learning. Others focussed
upon conflict and the exercise of power, zero-sum negotiations (“what I gain, you
lose”) and power bargaining (Barrett 2004).
The proponents of top-down and bottom-up differed on several different levels. The
top-down approach to empirical theory was that influential implementation variables
were controllable by the higher hierarchy (O'Toole 2004). The normative orientation
of the researchers was also different. The top-down implementers often supported a
representative regime with consistent execution of the political leader’s choices.
Anything else was the hijacking of democracy (O'Toole 2004). The focus of the top-
down implementers was upon compliance and monitoring. These normative
differences compare to the positivist/interpretivist split in scientific paradigms in
social science (Burrell and Morgan 1979), shown in the strategy frameworks table
above, and explained in detail in the research methodology chapter.
Conversely, the bottom-up implementers argued that the field variables or those of
the context were more important (O'Toole 2004) than those variables within the
control of the top echelons of the hierarchy. The top-down normative stance was
rejected by the bottom-up implementers in favour of the emergence of meaningful
policy by the discretionary choices of implementing actors far from the central
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
control of political overlords (Hjern 1982; Hjern and Hull 1982). The bottom-up
implementers focused upon innovation, collaboration, and creativity, and not on
obedient compliance and monitoring. The bottom-up approach of participatory,
direct democracy followed a post-positivist, interpretive approach based upon
Habermas’ communicative rationality (Habermas 1987). This philosophical stance
is developed and explained in discussions in the research methodology chapter.
Advocates of the bottom-up approach called for a philosophical, normative, cultural
change from the top-down governing elite phenomenon to a more participatory,
democratic bottom-up orientation (DeLeon and DeLeon 2002). Street-level
discretion can be seen as another democratic check-and-balance against the abuse of
power (Ferman 1990).
This earlier research on bottom-up emergent strategy has been criticised for too
many case studies and not enough validation and replication (Goggin et al. 1990).
Others have criticised a lack of synthesis in implementation analysis (Matland 1995;
Ryan 1995). Alternative and subsequent research claimed to address these concerns
(Schofield 2001).
This alternative research (Berman 1980; Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983; Nakamura
and Smallwood 1980) used a wide range of approaches, many heavily influenced by
Goggin (Goggin et al. 1990). They developed a communication model based upon
the American structure of state, federal and local legislative levels. Others sought to
refine concepts of negotiation and learning (Barrett 2004), or synthesise the top-
down, bottom-up approaches, or focused upon the policy-action relationship (Goggin
et al. 1990; Palumbo and Calista 1990; Sabatier 1988). Giddens (1994) produced his
influential work on Structuration Theory where he argued that “institutionalised
structures shape action and behaviour, but which are themselves recreated and
reproduced by those actions and behaviours” p18, cited in (Johnson and Greenwood
2007). Many studies followed positivist approaches using theories such as game and
principal-agent theory (DeLeon and DeLeon 2002).
Others were developing a contingency theories approach (Ingram 1990; Matland
1995; Scheberle 1997). No single best way of implementation fitted all
circumstances. Different conditions might require different activities. These
aforementioned authors offered two-by-two matrices of different variables to show
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
the different implementation strategies required under the different circumstances.
Those following a positivist approach to discovery still strived for a universal meta-
theory of implementation and hoped something would come out of a synthesis of
communications theory, regime theory, rational choice theory (i.e. game theory) and
contingency theories (Lester and Goggin 1998).
DeLeon and DeLeon (2002) made the argument against this search for a single
universal law of implementation. They argued that the top-down approach was
susceptible to hierarchical, over-optimistic expectations. The political elite were
advised and lobbied by select and narrowly-focused interest groups. These authors
maintained that the opposite, bottom-up approach more truly reflected communal
interests because the policy was proposed by the community that would be directly
affected. The community had a greater say on where, when, how and why they were
changing. The bottom-up approach was more democratically represented and this
agenda (DeLeon and DeLeon 2002) for a more democratic approach to policy
analysis was justified by reference to other authors in general (DeLeon 1997; Drzek
1999; Schneider and Ingram 1997) and more specifically on policy stages such as
evaluation (Fischer 1995), implementation (Fox 1990), and various other aspects
(Fischer 2000; Hill 2000; Lin 2000; Press 1994).
This era of research has developed the previous street-level bureaucrat into an
argument for more participatory, democratic governance, not least because
participatory democracy is imperative for popular support of the implementation
(Mansbridge 1980). Government had institutional command and control of the
distinctive and separate roles of the local government, the citizens and private
institutions. Governance, though, was seen to be a facilitating institution.
Governance facilitates communities of citizens and social organizations to produce
social goods and services (Meek et al. 2007). The more traditional top-down
approach was too far removed from the community concerned with the political elite
making decisions based upon surveys and focus groups (Schneider and Ingram
1997). When street-level bureaucrats and clients work together in co-dependence to
deliver the policy outcomes, the clients have considerable influence despite the
professional and civil service structures (Lipsky 1980).
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The tension between top-down directive control and bottom-up innovation has been
confronted and resolved within smaller authorities (Dereli 2003) and smaller Health
Action Zones (Maddock 2002). These smaller organizations have been able to
underpin strategy with community vision and consultation. Democratic governance
and public service delivery are developed further in the next section.
Pluralistic organizing pressures have unintended strategizing implications as
discussed in this section. Internal organizing pluralities result from the different
levels of management, the many professional and departmental cultures, subcultures
and identities. This review of the literature has identified two different approaches to
this problem. One approach is based upon the centralisation of control, with
decisions taken towards the top of the hierarchical organization in a rational
analytical approach to strategizing. The second approach is the emergent approach
to strategizing that recognises, or even encourages, local discretion of service
delivery by the service provider, or ‘street-level bureaucrat’. The opposite problem
of pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity is discussed next.
Pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity
Public service organizations often find themselves in an environment where the wide
range of stakeholders place multiple and sometimes contradictory demands upon the
organization (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006). A local government authority has
key stakeholders in the political, economic, and social domains and these multiple
external stakeholders effectively cause pluralistic strategizing tensions. Pluralistic
tensions are caused by the need of the organization to implement multiple strategies,
as opposed to the pressure of internal pluralism from within the organization. The
pluralistic strategizing tensions place increasing pressure upon the organizing
capacity. This pressure upon the organizing capacity can result in organizing
processes and practices that were not intended. In turn, these unintended organizing
practices may prevent the successful implementation of multiple strategies. Even if
the organization is able to develop multiple organizing practices and processes to
meet the demands of implementing different strategies, it has a penalty of excessive
time-stress for the organization’s top managers (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006).
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At this point, it is pertinent to review the role and impact of Agency Theory, and
then public services delivery methods upon pluralistic strategizing pressures
straining organizing capacity.
Agency Theory
Agency theory suggests that there is a relationship between parties where the
‘principal’ delegates responsibility to an ‘agent’ to take decisions on behalf of the
principal (Angwin 2007). Agency theory aimed to explain the potential conflicts
that occur with the separation of ownership (principal) and organizational control
(agent). It is based upon the assumption that humans are rational actors seeking to
maximise their individual benefit (Jensen and Meckling 1976). This assumption can
be traced back through 200 years of economic research. Agency theory has been
used widely across many disciplines (Angwin 2007; Eisenhardt 1989a), such as
accountancy (Demski and Feltham 1978); economics (Spence and Zeckhauser
1971); finance (Fama 1980); marketing (Basu et al. 1985); political science (Mitnick
1986); organizational behaviour (Eisenhardt 1985, 1988; Kosnik 1987) and
sociology (Eccles 1985; White 1985).
Agency Problem
Agency problems are the potential conflicts between the principal and their agent.
There are three types of agency problem (Angwin 2007). First, when the agent is
seen to be able to maximise his or her own benefits at the expense of the principal.
Second, there is seen to be a problem of how to control the agents so they act in an
appropriate manner. Third, it is considered that the principal and agent may have
different attitudes to risk sharing leading to different choices of action.
Organizations implement controls on agents to minimise agency problems (Angwin
2007).
Agency Theory explains the centralised, hierarchical, top-down approach to
organizing and strategizing. The alternative, bottom-up, emergent strategy organized
by devolved responsibility and authority to the local level is characterised by Human
Agency in the next section.
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Human Agency
Human agency is the acceptance that individuals can make a difference in the world
(Spender 2007). Events are not pre-determined and individuals have choices along
with responsibilities to others that may be affected by those choices. Human agency
is the meaningful choice of actions, activities, decisions and behaviours (Deacon and
Mann 1999). Human agency is the capacity of individuals and organization actors,
with their diverse cultural interpretations and understandings, to play an independent
role in causing history (McLaughlin and Dietz 2008). More specifically, human
agency is the capacity of individuals to project alternative future possibilities and
then make them happen within the context of current contingencies (Emirbayer and
Mische 1998).
Sociology often focuses on the constraints upon individual action whilst for the past
200 years, economics has been based upon the assumption of the individual as a
rational and free actor (van Krieken 1997). Sociologists have concentrated upon the
constraints of free choice by the structural obstacles that confront individuals, such
as labour market discrimination, educational disadvantage, spatial segregation, class
location, economic restructuring, unemployment, benefit traps and the requirements
of a patriarchal capitalist economy (van Krieken 1997).
There are three approaches to agency relevant to the public services sector (van
Krieken 1997). The first two are more reflective of agency theory but the third takes
up the call for human agency. The first approach assumes that individuals will act
rationally in pursuit of their self-interest, and focuses upon incentives to channel an
individual’s pursuit that promotes a common good. Sticks and carrots work (Murray
1984). This approach assumes what economists call universal ‘tastes’, or
sociologists call values, beliefs and interests (culture) are inherent in the decision-
making process. They are a given and not problematic (Wilson 1985).
The second approach challenges the above assumption of rationality and emphasises
the use of compulsion to control individual behaviour to promote social well being
(Mead 1992). Mead’s approach is that the argument for incentives is bankrupt
because it assumes that individuals are able and willing to pursue their own
economic self-interests. However, there is a significant proportion of society that is
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long-term unemployed and Mead believes that these individuals will require
compulsion to spur them in to work (Mead 1992).
The third approach turns to moral arguments to change values and beliefs and
persuade individuals to act in ways deemed best for the common good. This
approach is a radical change from the previous two which are seen to reflect the
polarity between the public and private sectors, and between individual and the state
(Deacon and Mann 1999). The new intellectual-political map is the relationship
between the individual and the community and between freedom and order (Etzioni
1997). It requires the balance of autonomy and order, individual rights and
communal obligations. This is communitarianism, the search for a way to blend
traditional elements (order based on virtues) with modern elements (protected
autonomy) (Etzioni 1997).
Etzioni’s ‘new golden rule’ was a ‘mantra’ to sustain equilibrium between individual
rights and the common good (“respect and uphold society’s moral order as you
would have society respect and uphold your autonomy” p. xviii). This approach is
based upon the assumption that most of the members of society, most of the time,
will share a commitment to a set of core values and abide by them without being
forced to comply with those values (Etzioni 1997). These core values are embodied
in the social structures that shape individual behaviours (the family, the school, the
community and wider community of communities). Individuals will then be guided
by the ‘moral voice’ which will either come from the community or from within the
individual. This communitarian approach locates the source of action within the
individual and restores the dignity of agency and responsibility (Sacks 1997).
This last approach may better reflect the changing nature of our communities, and
society in general. Society has become more pluralistic and fluid, subjected to
change rather than fixed. Work, family and other traditional structures of society
such as class, gender and community are constantly changing and so not relevant to
universal policies or solutions (Williams 1992). Policies will need to be reflexive
and support those who try to address their specific needs, and not tell the individuals
to conform to inappropriate models.
The dominant theory in strategic management, as reflected in the standard texts and
academic journals, is industrial organization economics which is based upon agency
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theory and rational choice (Mayhew 1980). However, there has been a growing
interest in human agency theory by both economists and psychologists as the
limitations of agency theory have become more apparent in complex global
operating markets. Because rational choice could explain everything, it explained
nothing (Mayhew 2001). Important early influences in the discovery or rediscovery
of human agency theory were Veblen in economics (Hodgson 2000; Veblen 1898)
and Bandura in psychology (Bandura 1977, 1986). Anthropology (Leaf 1974) and
sociology (Giddens 1976) were also coming to terms with human agency. In
economics, it has taken longer (Mayhew 2001). As agency theory and rational
choice are still dominant in strategic management research, they are still valid today
and thus inform thinking in this thesis.
In exploring the literature on how pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing
capacity, the identity and nature of the external stakeholders who place strategizing
pressures is discussed next. The pluralistic organizing to meet these different
strategizing pressures are described in the public services delivery method.
Theoretical frameworks and theories of public services policy
implementation
This section starts with definitions of the attributes of public service provision and
the methods of delivering those services, drawing upon the seminal works of Le
Grand. A well provided public service has five attributes (Le Grand 2007). The
attributes are quality, efficiency, responsiveness, accountability and equitability. A
good public service offers high quality and is operated and managed efficiently. The
service provision must be responsive to the individual needs and requirements of the
recipients or users of the service whilst being delivered equitably. Lastly, the service
providers must be accountable to the taxpayers who are funding the service.
The efficient provision of services provides the highest possible quantity and quality
of service from the finite resources available (Le Grand 2007). The converse of this
is very interesting for the study here reported. Inefficient services are therefore those
that lower the welfare of the service recipients.
There is a trade-off between accountability and responsiveness and autonomy (Le
Grand 2007). Whilst a service provision may be highly desirable to a citizen, the
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majority of citizens may believe (perception) that the opportunity cost is too high.
The majority of citizens may insist that those resources are better employed
elsewhere. This argument applies when generic services are delivered across the
board to those who need them and those who can afford to go without. It also
applies when services are tailored to individual needs. Service users may want more
than the majority of taxpayers are prepared to pay (for example, free health care at
the point of need, for everyone in the U.S.A).
Equity is social justice and fairness (Le Grand 2007) and one main reason why the
services are in the public, not private domain. Some services are in both, for
example leisure centres. The publicly provided services are specifically targeted at
citizens and groups of communities that are unable to purchase the private sector
services. One part of society should not be disadvantaged when it comes to their
well-being through fitness and health.
The relationship of these attributes of good public services and theories of public
services delivery methods are shown diagrammatically below. The figure is
explained in more detail below it.
Figure 2: Theoretical frameworks and theories of public services policy
implementation (adapted from Le Grand, 2007)
In the above figure on Theoretical frameworks and theories of public services
implementation, the attributes of good public services, discussed above, are shown in
the top left of the figure. What follows next in this section, is a discussion on public
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services delivery methods and these are shown to the top and right in the figure. Le
Grand (2007) identified four public service delivery methods (trust, performance
management, voice and choice). In the figure is shown their relationship to public
sector ethos, Agency Theory and Human Agency. Lastly, to the bottom and left of
the figure are the rationales for participation in the development and implementation
of policy. As shown in the figure, participation is directly related to ‘voice’ and so
the rationales for participation are discussed under the section on voice.
Trust and public sector ethos
There are four public service delivery methods (Le Grand 2007). They are trust,
performance management, voice, and choice. Trust is where professionals,
managers and others are trusted to deliver a high-quality public service based upon
the public service ethos. The characteristics of public sector ethos have been defined
(O'Toole 1993) as:
First, and most important, it is about the setting aside of personal interests…working altruistically for the public good. Secondly,…it is about working with others, collegially and anonymously, to promote that public good. Thirdly, it is about integrity in dealing with the many and diverse problems which need solving if the public good is to be promoted (page 3).
Others have identified a set of core values that inform behaviour in local government
(Pratchett and Wingfield 1994). These values are accountability; honesty and
impartiality; serving the community, altruistic motivation and a sense of loyalty to
community, profession and organization. Pratchett and Wingfield’s research
established that although there was a consensus upon the core values, there was no
universal public sector ethos because these values were interpreted differently. This
may have reflected the internal pluralism of the local government organization as it
embraced several different public services, delivered by different professionals and
at different levels. It was this public sector ethos that some believed was being
undermined by New Public Management (Doig 1995; Hoggett 1996; Malde 1994;
Marr 1996; O'Toole 1993; Pratchett and Wingfield 1994).
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The public service delivery model (Le Grand 2007) of trust relies upon the
professionals and others to deliver a good service without interference or micro-
management by the government or their agents. The overall budget is set by the
government and the professionals spend it as they see best for the service. They are
trusted to deliver a service of high quality, efficiently, responsive to citizens’ needs,
with accountability and equitably. The service delivery and behaviour of the
suppliers and deliverers are guided by the ethos of the public sector. The service
delivery is often performed by the professionals in collaboration with one another in
formal and informal networks rather than through formal hierarchical organizational
structures. The professional training required by many professional bodies instils a
competence of autonomy and independence (Le Grand 2007). This professional
knowledge, experience and skills reflects the fact that these workers are knowledge
workers in a knowledge economy working for a professional service organization,
not best suited to a manufacturing hierarchy of command-and-control.
Performance management: The rational analytical approach to organizing
Performance management (Le Grand 2007) is the command-and-control approach
that uses targets as a means to control the behaviour of service deliverers to comply
with the expectations of a higher authority. The command-and-control model
depends upon a hierarchy of management and control wherein the superiors at the
top of the government or agency instruct their subordinates to deliver the services
(Le Grand 2007). These instructions are delegated down the hierarchy to the point
of service delivery. The British government has used this model with a system of
targets and performance management approaches. Mainly numerical targets are set
for public service organizations and the government then rewards or penalizes staff
for their performance against these targets. This model has been shown to be
successful in the National Health Service (“NHS”) (Le Grand 2007). Upon
devolvement of power, the Welsh National Assembly abolished targets for the Welsh
NHS and adopted the trust model. The English NHS continued to improve its
services to the public while the Welsh services declined markedly (Alvarez-Rosete et
al. 2005; Bevan and Hood 2006; Hauck and Street 2007; Wales 2005).
Voice: Emergent strategy and street-level bureaucrats approach to
organizing
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In response to the emergence of the protest movements of the 1960s and the financial
crisis of the 1970s, western governments moved away from relying solely upon
representative democratic structures and included citizen participation in some
decision-making processes (Muir 2004). Prior to this shift, mass participation other
than by voting had been considered undemocratic (Pateman 1970). At about the
same time, Arnstein (1969: 216) defined citizen participation as:
‘The redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future’.
The current agency system of elected politicians and the local government paid staff
acting on behalf of the whole community is unrealistic, ineffective and outmoded
(Campbell and Marshall 2000). The electorate, the community, is more
cosmopolitan and more pluralistic than the old distinctions based upon class
(Cochrane 1996; Gyford 1986). This pluralism now makes the appropriateness of
the traditional ‘command and control’ approach (Healey 1998) questionable.
Paternalistic local government may not fit a more pluralistic community. In
addition, the politicians and the paid officers may not be able to represent all the
views of this wider community (Campbell and Marshall 2000). There is now a move
from local government towards local governance (Meek et al. 2007). Governance
facilitates communities of citizens and social organizations to produce social goods
and services. The issue of public participation in the decision-making process is not
new and is officially documented from before 1968 (Institute 1968). Later
(Campbell and Marshall 2000), there has been a communicative turn (Forester 1993;
Innes 1995) and collaborative planning (Healey 1997, 1998). The research study
herein reported specifically looks for and addresses this issue of participation.
The Labour government in the United Kingdom since 1997 has stressed changes to
local government democracy (Department of the Environment 1998a, b). Although
there are contrary arguments in the literature (Tewdwr-Jones and Thomas 1998;
Thomas 1996) they may just be defensive reactions (Evans 1995; Reade 1987).
Much of the published work concentrates upon the operationalization of public
involvement and not why the public should participate and its implications which
may reflect the ambiguity of the concept (Thomas 1996; Thornley 1977) which was
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later adopted and adapted by the Labour government. The research herein reported
looked for empirical evidence of local government democracy through devolvement
of power and participation in decision-making.
Campbell and Marshall developed a framework of the rationales for public
participation (Campbell and Marshall 2000), expanded and developed from previous
frameworks (Stoker 1997; Thornley 1977). In this framework, the rationales are
based upon the underlying motivations, ranging from those that concern the
individual to those that concern the whole community. The framework’s five
differing rationales for participation are instrumental participation, communitarian
participation, the politics of presence, deliberative democracy and the politics of the
consumer (freedom of choice) (Campbell and Marshall 2000).
Instrumental participation is the basic right of individual citizens to express and
pursue their own self-interests. Communitarian participation is the obligation and
responsibility of every citizen to participate with the intention of securing the
collective well-being. Geographical locality forms the centre of community and
communitarian thinking.
Politics of presence is the right of excluded groups to have presence within the
decision-making process on the basis that ‘you must be in it to win it’. In other
words, ‘Voice’ where users and recipients of public services communicate directly
their views, expectations and aspirations for the services. ‘Voice’ is bottom-up, not a
top-down, command and control model. The originator of the term (Hirschman
1970) described it so :
“Change, rather than to escape from, an objectionable state of affairs, whether through the individual or collective petition to the management directly in charge, through appeal to a higher authority with the intention of forcing a change in management, or through the various types of actions and protests, including those that are meant to mobilize public opinion.” (p.30)
However, some believe that only direct action will transform politics (Coit 1984;
Sandercock 1998). Deliberative democracy is the promotion of collaboration and
focuses upon decision-making and not interests, unlike the others (Campbell and
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Marshall 2000). The politics of presence and communitarian participation focus
upon transforming political processes.
Choice
The politics of the consumer build upon public choice theory and align the process to
the power of the market. Choice is where service users choose from amongst
competing service providers for the provision of services. The user choice model for
the delivery of public services is coupled with provider competition so that it can
deliver greater user autonomy, higher service quality, greater efficiency, greater
responsiveness and greater equity (Le Grand 2007).
There are more examples of community government in the USA than there are in the
UK (Campbell and Marshall 2000). In the UK, the conception of public
participation is secondary to that of service delivery (Batley and Stoker 1991;
Goldsmith 1996; Wolman 1995, 1996). In the USA, local government balances
participation, pluralism, responsible democracy and efficiency, whilst the
fundamental premise of democracy is that authority resides with the people (Sharpe
1973). However, more democracy brings more constraints in the form of more
institutions, structures and rules (Diggins 1998). Group decision making rarely
challenges the status quo (Lowndes 1995). More sophisticated thinking is required,
focussing upon the role and purpose of public participation (Campbell and Marshall
2000).
A rights-based approach to public participation delivers deadlock and collective
values are squeezed out (Campbell and Marshall 2000). Small community decisions
are not always best for social justice, whilst voice alone is not sufficient to change
political structure. Public participation must be justified first so that the appropriate
form of participation is adopted. The different types of decisions must be identified
for those that are for the collective good and those that are for the individual or group
preferences. There is a need for values-based decision making (Campbell and
Marshall 2000) as an understanding of universal values is imperative before
determining a particular value (Merrifield 1997). Making change is about values
(Harvey 1993, 1996; Squires 1993). Finding ways to remedy what is perceived to be
unsatisfactory is fundamentally a matter of values (Campbell and Marshall 2000).
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Each service delivery model (trust, performance management, choice and voice) has
advantages and disadvantages compared to the others. The specific delivery model
used should be related to the nature of the service. For example, a regulation and
control function may be more suited to a performance management (“command and
control”) delivery system whilst regenerating an inner city may benefit from
consultation with the inhabitants. This tension will be considered in the research
undertaken and herein reported when exploring and discussing the matching of
organization and strategizing pluralism (Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006).
The above discussions drawn from the literature contribute to the explanation of why
pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity. With so many
demanding stakeholders with different objectives any attempt by the organization to
accommodate the multiple strategies will strain the organization’s capacity.
Differing strategies may involve duplicate organizational capacities. Any attempt to
devolve responsibility to the constituents or service participants will have an
organizing capacity implication.
The first core section of the literature review looked at how the pluralistic nature of
organizing has unintended strategizing implications and the second core review
looked at how pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity. The
review of literature now moves on to look at the implications of the continual friction
between organizing and strategizing.
Protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing
Local government authorities are subjected to high organizing and high strategizing
pressures. This is because these organizations are comprised of staff from different
professional qualifications, cultures and interests which are often contrary to those of
the senior management. In addition, local government organizations are subject to
pluralistic strategizing tensions as stakeholders may have competing demands for the
provision of quality public services and demonstrating value for money, efficiency
and a more commercial orientation. The nature of new government policies cross
functional boundaries and even agencies. This intensifies the competing demands
and reporting metrics. This combined pluralistic strategizing and organizing
tensions result in difficulty to align strategizing with organizing (Jarzabkowski and
Fenton, 2006). Frequently, the high levels of resultant conflict experienced by these
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organizations mean that the leadership role is difficult and the continuous
adjustments between organizing and strategizing processes may take increasingly far
longer than anticipated to resolve. This organizational environment more closely
resembles that described by Complexity Theory which is discussed next, followed by
Institutional Theory.
Complex Adaptive Systems and Complexity Theory
Public service organizations are driven by the sub-cultures of staff groups, managers,
boards and users. Public service organizations are not predictable, and staff are
emotionally affected by their own sub-cultures as well as formal protocols (Maddock
2002). Strategy emerges as a result of the change process through process, openness,
accident and coincidence not from planning (Stacey 1992). The next discussion on
complexity theory is another approach to understanding these phenomena.
There is not a single unified theory of complexity because the theory has evolved
from several different natural sciences. Many of the tenets of complexity theory are
not new but the science of complexity has been used by researchers to explain better
many phenomena in organizations (Allen 1994, 2001; Allen 1990; Allen et al. 1977;
Anderson 1999; Capra 1996; Garnsey and McGlade 2006; Goodwin 1994; Maguire
and McKelvey 1999; Mitleton-Kelly 2003; Richardson 2005).
Complexity Theory has evolved from five different fields of research which have
been identified as Complex Adaptive Systems (“CAS”); Dissipative structures;
Autopoiesis Theory; Chaos Theory and Increasing Returns, and path dependency
(Mitleton-Kelly 2003). All of these theories do share common ideas (Klijn 2008),
including that the whole system is more than the sum of its parts, whilst
developments of the whole system result from the interaction of the parts; systems
develop non-linearly and are influenced by various feedback mechanisms; the
systems are dominated by self-organization and co-evolve with other systems. The
research herein reported focuses upon Complex Adaptive Systems. Complex is not
just complicated. Complicated can be defined as many elements within the system,
whilst in complex systems they are mutually interdependent and heavily influence
the probabilities of many kinds of later events (Axelrod and Cohen 2000).
Complex adaptive systems have been studied for decades at the Santa Fe Institute in
New Mexico and the results published by Stuart Kauffman (Kauffman 1993, 1995, Page 52
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
2000), John Holland (Holland 1995, 1998), Chris Langton (Waldrop 1992) and
Murray Gell-Mann (Gell-Mann 1994). There are basic principles of complex
adaptive systems and complexity theory (Boulton and Allen 2007). They are that
there is more than one possible future; complex systems may tip in to radically new
forms with new characteristics; there is a need for interconnectivity - variation is a
requisite for novelty; the system is not fixed, it is emergent, self-organizing and co-
evolving, and organizations must have self-conflicting mindsets to pursue
simultaneously both exploitation and exploration. These principles are explained
now briefly.
There is more than one possible future. The future is unknown and unknowable.
From the ontological and epistemological position of this researcher (see the
methodology chapter for a more detailed explanation), the future is influenced and
socially constructed by the participants according to their social norms and
expectations. The uncertainty of the future is heightened at junctures, or bifurcation
points, when the system could tip in any direction but it is not known which way it
will take. These points of change may be open to influence or guidance but are not
predictable. The contest for the new industry standard between the Blue-ray DVD
recording technology and HDD was an example with Blue-ray winning out. We will
now be “locked-in” (Arthur 1983) to Blue-ray technology until another new
disruptive technology emerges.
Complex systems (i.e. the climate, economies, organizations) may tip in to radically
new forms with new characteristics. The final tipping may be triggered by
seemingly insignificant events (‘the final straw that broke the camel’s back’ is a
common saying that illustrates the phenomena). A new industry standard or a new
disruptive technology (Christensen 1997) could lead to an example of a market or
industry tipping. Equally, a system may tip due to unintended consequences of
rational, logical thinking, decisions and plans.
There is a need for interconnectivity. An ‘open’ or interconnected organization will
be better able to respond to a changing environment than an organization that is
‘closed’ to outside interconnectivity. Creativity, evolution and change can only
occur if there is diversity and elements within the system are strongly inter-related
(Allen and McGlade 1987). Variation is a requisite for novelty. This reflects the
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law of requisite variety in cybernetics (Ashby 1956). Connectivity and
interdependence within a (human) living system means that a decision and action
taken in any part of the system will impact upon others connected to that system.
This is one illustration of how complex behaviour arises. Participants may act
independently, but they are dependent on other participants in the system to varying
degrees (Rhodes 2006).
It is quite possible that an employee will, of course, be part of the organization’s
hierarchy but they may spend more of their time interacting with other members of
the network external to the organization. Networks will not replace hierarchies that
are more efficient to deliver the routine. Networks will complement the hierarchy
(Krackhardt and Hanson 1993). They will be more effective in problem-solving and
developing new services for society. Networks permit ‘ordered chaos’ (Mandell
2004). Within a collaborative network, the traditional hierarchical command and
control system is replaced by facilitation skills, shared leadership, consensus and
objectivity (Meek et al. 2007).
The knock-on effect may vary depending on the state or preparedness of the
recipient (Mitleton-Kelly 2003). As an organization becomes increasingly
interconnected, it becomes more interdependent. This means that in a larger
organization, an improvement in one part of the entity may have a negative impact
upon another part. For this reason, it is often more difficult for larger firms to adjust
and change rapidly to environmental changes.
The system is not fixed. The system is emergent, self-organizing and co-evolving.
The systems are interacting, overlapping and co-evolving. The system will be able
to self-organize in response to positive and negative feedback and so change and
adapt if it is not too rigid (Briggs and Peat 2000). If the system elements are able to
shift and change as a result of rich diversity and inter-connectivity then creativity
and survival are enhanced (Boulton and Allen 2007). All actions are based upon the
interpretations of each participant, according to the way they interpret the
possibilities of adding value (Boisot and Child 1999; Burns and Stalker 1961).
Therefore, the initiatives will not be predictable or consistent as interpretation will
tend to vary between participants, even in similar circumstances (Rhodes and
MacKechnie 2003).
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The management of organizations is a paradox: both exploiting the existing
competences and exploring for future opportunities. There is a need for traditional
‘operational’, rational, logical thinking for the routine business but emergent
thinking (complexity approach) to explore, experiment and pilot creative new ideas
is required. Several authors have proposed that complex adaptive systems theory has
the potential to explain public administration (Blackman 2001; Chapman 2002;
Pierce 2000).
There is an explanation of why and how some individuals are able better to balance
the exploration/exploitation paradoxes. Within psychology is a concept that goes by
two different names depending upon the author and their field of research: cognitive
or integrative complexity. Cognitive or integrative complexity is the degree to
which an individual makes distinctions and perceives relationships within a cognitive
domain (Suedfeld and Tetlock 2001).
Effectively on one axis, this is identifying how well an individual can perceive
several dimensions and points of view relevant to the topic. The identification of
multiple dimensions and points of view establishes the differentiation variable. The
other axis measures how well the subject can relate the different views to each other.
This identification of the relationships is the integration variable. By discourse
analysis the researchers (Suedfeld and Leighton 2002) are able to measure an
individual’s cognitive complexity. The ability to think in a complex way affects how
and not just what a person thinks (Suedfeld and Leighton 2002).
Under stressful environmental conditions, whilst being able to see each side of an
argument may lead to a better understanding of the problem, it may cause
information overload and slow decision-making by the individual. This insight may
be another argument for devolved decision-making.
Integrative or cognitive complexity explains how somebody with a higher score on
the integrative or cognitive complexity model described above is able to comprehend
complexity theory as an integrative theory of strategic management. Holding the
complexity theory perspective to strategic management, an individual with a higher
integrative complexity ability will be able to integrate both the rational analytical and
emergent approaches. The integration of complex, pluralistic perspectives was
summarized by Boulton and Allen (2007) “The complexity worldview presents a
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new, integrated picture of the behaviour of organizations, marketplaces, economies
and political infrastructures” (p215).
Future events are more certain when closed change is relevant (Stacey 1993).
Towards the other extreme, open-ended change is more relevant on the edge of chaos
where both uncertainty and complexity are key characteristics. At a point between
both of these is contained change where probalistic forecasts of the future are
possible (Stacey 1993). It is argued that varying levels of uncertainty and
complexity may be experienced by different parts of an organization at any time. It
is possible that a single organization will be operating in all three of these
environments at the same time. Effectively, they could all be associated with
different points in the service life-cycle.
These three points of Stacey’s model have been chosen for ease of discussion. The
three points are closed change, contained change and open-ended change. But, it is
also useful to note that along a continuum, there are many shades and blends
between the ends of that continuum. Travelling along the continuum, they blend in
to each other. The three points on the model are described in the next three sections
(closed change, contained change and open-ended change).
Closed Change: Complexity Rejection
Closed change featured unambiguous problems, clear connections between cause
and effect and reasonably accurately forecastable consequences of the change
(Stacey 1993). This accuracy of planning was reflected in the traditional economic
models that assume that marketplaces move towards equilibrium unless barriers to
competition enable superior rents to be earned (Peteraf 1993). This rational planning
school goes through a linear process of strategic analysis, strategy development and
strategy implementation (Lynch 2000).
The dominant strategy paradigms are that of industry attractiveness and generic
strategies (Porter 1980a), based upon the application of industrial organization
economics to an industry. This framework forms the core of the industry analysis
and positioning strategizing approach. An organization’s strategic analysis identifies
a gap in the industry, the organization takes up a position to fill that gap and then
defends its position. The key issues are to reduce the power of the other industry
actors to achieve higher returns by building barriers to entry and migration within the Page 56
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
industry whilst at the same time increasing switching costs for both suppliers and
buyers, thereby locking them in and the competition out. Higher returns from a
sustainable competitive position may then be earned (Porter 1980a).
This sustained period of advantage assumes a period of equilibrium when all the
forces to change the situation are equally matched by all the forces maintaining the
status quo. It is a defensive strategy based upon the control of the environment
through the construction of barriers and switching costs and attempts to prevent
strategic change within the industry segment (Porter 1980a). The dominant form of
change is incremental. Some scholars have criticised the work for lack of rigour
(Grant 1991), for example social and organizational dynamics influence the selection
of industry standards and not just rational, technical logic. This strategic planning
approach to strategy is dominated by the analysis of the industry and the ‘fit’ of the
strategy to it.
The above approach to strategizing is based upon the analysis of the external
environment. However, performance differences between organizations can also be
due to the actions, resources and assets of the organization itself. This is the
Resource-Based View (“RBV”) of strategy. A resource-based approach (Wernfelt
1984) was developed by building upon the work on the growth of the firm (Penrose
1959). Firms create competitive advantage by developing unique resources that are
costly, rare and non-replicable.
The primary source of competitive advantage is intangible resources. Firms have to
differentiate between two forms of activity: specialization to gain competitive
advantage, and other activities that maintain close integration in order to achieve
economies of scale and focus (Bartlett 1979; Doz 1976; Ghoshal 1986; Prahalad
1975). Researchers looked inside organizations at their stock and application of
resources in search of explanations as to why two more or less identical
organizations, operating in the same industry segment achieved widely differing
returns. If the industry attractiveness was the same for both and they followed
similar generic strategies then the answer to the cause of differing returns was felt to
be within the organizations themselves. Scholars have questioned the theoretical
foundations of RBV and empirical contributions (Hoopes 2003).
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The industry analysis and positioning strategy explains the forces within the industry
segment and the defensive position within it taken by the organization. The RBV
explains how the resources, capabilities and competences within the organization
contribute to the generic strategy (differentiation, focus or lowest cost). However,
outside of the private sector, although surpluses are important to fund future
development, excessive surpluses may not reflect the social nature of the
organization. Many services provided by the LGA are dependent upon taxes
collected from local inhabitants, although it must be appreciated that the services
provided by the LGA range from the purely commercial to the purely social. Most
LGAs have a portfolio of services that separately serve both the public and private
sectors. For example, in the provision of sport and leisure services, the LGA is in
direct competition with private leisure and sports clubs. Strategizing for competitive
advantage is relevant and essential for sectors of the service portfolio.
For other regulatory, statutory and discretionary services, there is not an obvious
element of competition, except that Best Value means that every service, function
and staff member are potentially open to competitive tendering from outside the
organization. Stakeholder analysis carried more importance prior to 1997 when it
would be debated as to who was the ‘client’. Possible candidates for designation as
‘the client’ were the individual member of the community who received the service,
a pressure group or NGO, the LGA’s taxpayers, the Councillors or the central
government. With the enactment of New Public Management and managerialism, it
became clearer because it was mandated that the Councillor took the decisions and
carried the responsibility for those decisions. The LGA’s staff carried out the
decisions of the councillors. This acquiescence was deemed to be a great cause of
tension for professionals in the field who want to use their discretion when
implementing the councillors’ strategy. This environment of unambiguous
problems, clear connections between cause and effect, and reasonably accurately
forecastable consequences of the change may be more reflective of some of the
traditional statutory and regulatory services performed by the LGA, and internal
administrative services such as payroll.
Contained Change: Complexity Reduction
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Contained change was more uncertain and featured probalistic forecasts of the
consequences of the change programme (Stacey 1993). In order to understand and
strategize in a more dynamic environment, scholars adapted the planning school
approach of industry analysis and RBV for changes in the environment. They
developed the Dynamic Capability approach to strategy (Eisenhardt and Martin
2000; Teece et al. 1997). It attempted to account for more than incremental change.
In addition other strategizing approaches and techniques are applicable to this level
of uncertainty and complexity, such as game theory and real options theory which
will not be described here. In many ways, they are modern-day extensions to the
Planning school. Agreed, they are more scientifically quantifiable techniques than
those developed by Igor Ansoff in the 1980s but they follow the same underlying
modernist assumptions of the Classical Planning School.
The other significant approach to strategizing is scenario planning (Schwartz 1996).
Unlike the traditional strategic planning approach of industry analysis and the
resource based view which focus upon a single best answer (single destination and a
single route to it), this approach caters for multiple possible futures. This approach
makes scenario planning more useful under environmental conditions of uncertainty
and dynamic change (Schoemaker 1991).
Open-ended Change: Complexity Absorption
In the open-ended change, the future consequences were made difficult due to the
ambiguous purposes and equivocal preferences of the external and internal pluralism
(Stacey 1993). Such an outcome appeared to be the case in this LGA when it came
to the implementation of government policy that cut across functions, professions,
organizations and even sectors.
One approach, and one that most organizations face, is to act and react to events
within the industry. This is almost inevitable. However, there is a different
approach – an organization can set the pace and force the rest of the industry to
follow at its speed. This is time-pacing (Brown and Eisenhardt 1998b). Change
becomes a rhythm. A well-known example is Intel which since 1975 has followed
the rhythm of doubling the power of computer chips every 18 months. This
maintains the pressure on their research engineers for development but also means
that the whole organization has settled in to this rhythm. In a dynamically changing Page 59
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environment it is less stressful to set the pace than to be continuously dragged along
behind, scrambling to catch up.
Another approach is to have a few simple, key rules and not volumes of policies and
procedures. Policies and procedures typify the other two organizations that follow
closed or contained change. Volumes of rigorous policies and procedures prevent an
organization from rapidly adapting and changing to environmental circumstances.
Just a handful of rules within each of five criteria are all that are needed for a nimble,
creative and entrepreneurial organization – How-to rules, Boundary Rules, Priority
rules, Timing rules and Exit rules (Eisenhardt and Sull 2001). These rules are
established for the organization’s key processes. The How-to rules specify the key
process’s features and what makes the process unique. The Boundary rules specify
which types of opportunities can be followed and which cannot. The Priority rules
help to rank options and Timing rules synchronize the various opportunities across
the organization. Lastly, the Exit rules guide managers when to stop a solution to
yesterday’s problem. These five simple rules could keep the LGA focussed on
evolving key processes.
Under open-ended change, discussion has identified time-pacing and a few simple
rules will set the context for strategizing, but next is a solution for developing
strategy under conditions of turbulence with ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity.
The solution is by developing a portfolio of initiatives (Beinhocker 1999; Brown and
Eisenhardt 1998a; Bryan 2002). In this LGA, they might group several different
initiatives around the strategic objectives for reducing obesity in the community.
Their performance can be monitored and action taken as necessary. So, as initiatives
fail to achieve their objectives, the organization can learn from the experience and
reallocate the resources to those successful initiatives that require the resource. This
is a fluid strategy approach more attuned and aligned to a turbulent and complex
environment. In recommending a portfolio of initiatives approach, that most
positivistic organization, McKinsey & Co. declared that the whole process resembled
art more than science (Bryan 2002).
Theoretical constraints upon organizational adaptability - Institutional
Theory
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Institutional theory is based upon the concept of social construction. The underlying
assumptions are that the external and internal worlds of the organization are
subjectively constructed, interpreted and understood by the people within the
organization (Johnson and Greenwood 2007) and influenced by social norms and
expectations. Additionally, institutional theory assumes that when individuals
perceive their worlds through their interpretation and understanding, they behave
according to that understanding with the consequence that this activity influences the
creation of a world that fits that individual’s perceptions.
Institutional theory states that organizations are not autonomous and free to follow
their own economic activity but are constrained by social prescriptions as they
conform to the social norms of the society and a web of interactions within which
they operate. The social web within which they operate influences, constrains and
shapes the organization’s strategy, structure, practices and managerial decisions
(Johnson and Greenwood 2007; Meyer and Rowan 1977; Tolbert and Zucker 1983,
1996). The prescribed ideas and beliefs on management conduct are conveyed to
organizations from the government, professional institutions and other bodies
(DiMaggio and Powell 1983).
In return for conforming to these social prescriptions, the organization earns support
and approval, thereby increasing their legitimacy (Baum and Oliver 1991). The
social prescriptions over time become ingrained within the organization as part of the
unquestioned or even unrealised (‘that’s the way we do things around here’) values,
beliefs and assumptions that form the organization’s culture (Meyer and Rowan
1977). Even if surfaced, these deeply embedded prescriptions can be difficult to
refute or change (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Conforming to social prescriptions
may result in decisions that are less efficient than those taken in a free market
environment but the social web’s support and approval may ensure longer-term
survival (Oliver 1997). The result of this social web is that similar organizations will
conform to the same prescriptions which results in all the organizations adopting
similar decisions and strategies (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Johnson and
Greenwood 2007; Meyer and Rowan 1977).
The above discussions on Complexity Theory and Institutional Theory adds to our
understanding of pluralism and the protracted tensions between organizing and
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strategizing. Jarzabkowsi and Fenton (2006) proposed a framework to explore and
help explain the interdependence between organizing and strategizing. The
framework is discussed in the next section.
Framework for pluralistic context
A framework to show how either internal or external pluralism are interdependent
was proposed by Jarzabkowski and Fenton (2006). The framework proposes three
different ways for diagnosing the sources of strategizing and organizing problems
and their implications. The three modes are interdependence, imbalanced and
destructive associations between strategizing and organizing in pluralistic contexts.
Effectively, the three modes sit on a continuum with the interdependence being the
more favourable option, then imbalanced and the final, worst option, being
destructive. Each of the three modes have different characteristics of strategizing
and organizing. This implies that they each have different management implications
and potential risks.
The best mode option is interdependence, it is an ideal state. In the interdependence
mode, organizing and strategizing are mutually reinforcing and so organizing
practices are designed to meet the demands of different strategic goals, whilst
strategizing practices recognise the interests and identities of different organizational
groups. Towards the opposite end of the continuum is a context that exhibits
extreme pluralism in both external strategizing and internal organizing. This mode is
destructive. From the external strategizing perspective, there are multiple strategic
objectives that cannot be aligned. Meanwhile, the internal organizing experiences
being pulled in many diverse ways which cannot be accommodated, or are in conflict
with some of the strategic objectives. The organization, being pulled in so many
different directions, cannot meet the multiple demands placed upon it. There are two
possible solutions, either major change or organizational breakdown. Towards the
mid-point of this continuum is the imbalanced mode. Organizations in this mode
tend to find that pluralism has crept up upon them over a period of time without
management’s awareness. The symptoms are that strategic objectives are blocked by
organizing practices. An example here is HR systems for appraisal and reward.
They encourage employee behaviour in favour of alternatives, focusing the
employee’s attention on some goals at the expense of others. Or, some strategizing
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practices focus upon the interests of part of the organization to the detriment of
others, which could cause conflict between sub-cultures and identities (Rivkin and
Sigglekow, 2006).
The characteristics of the three modes, the actions for management and the potential
risks are shown in the next table and the implications for each mode are explained in
more detail after the table.
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Table 2: Managing modes of association between strategizing and organizing (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 643)
Positive Association
Characteristics Strategizing & Organizing Actions Potential Risks
Inte
rdep
ende
nt
Ideal type with ongoing mutual adjustment between strategizing and organizing
Strategizing practices enable response to different strategic objectives without marginalising the interests of different organizational constituents
Organizing practices are consistent with the identities and interests of different organizational constituents without blocking the realisation of strategic objectives that are not particular to any one group
Ensure MIS provides quality and timely feedback on performance towards each of the multiple goals
Frequent dialogue (quarterly where indicated) with organizational constituents to ensure recognition of their interests and help them to place interests in the wider context
Adjust strategizing and organizing practices, even marginally, as often as quarterly in order to ensure they continue to reflect interests and agreed goals and targets
Excessive demands on top management time and attention overstretch their capacity
Difficult to maintain the high levels of flexibility in incentive, planning and monitoring systems, which tend to become rigid and rule-based over time
Difficult to maintain the close managerial contact required as the organization grows and/or becomes more geographically diverse
Imba
lanc
ed
Imbalance between strategizing and organizing. The organization is continually in a catch-up cycle as it adjusts either strategizing or organizing practices in response to unintended consequences that give rise to more unintended consequences
Strategizing practices are too homogeneous to accommodate the legitimate identities and interests of multiple organizational constituents, deflecting these interests and generating conflict
Organizing practices privilege some strategic goals over others by enabling the interests of some organizational constituents to dominate those of others
As for the interdependent mode, with additional corrective actions as below
Synchronize change programmes so that organizing practices are considered at the same time as new strategizing practices are implemented and vice versa
Avoid singular or inflexible strategizing and organizing practices, which are too rigid to accommodate mutual adjustment
As for independent mode plus additional risks as below
If managers adopt a reactive approach to strategic and organizational demands, waiting to see outcomes before adjusting commensurable practices, they will exacerbate the vicious cycle of catch-up
Des
truct
ive
Organization is on a destructive course as competing internal and external demands result in increasing proliferation of interests and goals which are mutually exclusive
Strategizing practices abound to respond to different strategic objectives but are so non-aligned with organizational capacity that they cannot be realised
Different organizing practices spring up in the different constituencies, fragmenting the organization, as each group attempts to realise its interests by appropriating the organization’s strategic resources
As for the interdependent mode, with additional corrective actions as below
Minimize pluralism by restructuring into smaller or more discrete units, each of which can have greater goal coherence
Identify competing goals and interests and map the trade-offs and prioritizing that these involve
Acknowledge that breakdown may be the most viable solution
As for independent mode plus additional risks as below
Continual adjustment to multiple internal and external demands may result in lack of focus on any specific goal
Pluralistic tensions may be incommensurable, so that the organization is always on a destructive path
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Negative Association
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The foregoing table on Managing Modes of Association between Strategizing and Organizing is now explained in more detail for each of the modes in turn (Interdependent, Imbalanced and Destructive).
Interdependent association between strategizing and organizing
Larger organizations do not have a single organizational culture and identity focused
upon the achievement of a single strategic objective. Most organizations operate
within pluralistic contexts, with some pluralism in both organizing practices and
strategizing practices. Before interdependence can be achieved, management must
first acknowledge pluralism. In order to achieve interdependence, management must
adjust alignment between strategizing and organizing in order to create organizing
practices that are designed to meet the needs of different strategies plus the interests
and identities of the different organizational groups. This may require the continual
adjustment to organizing practices to meet the interests of key stakeholders. At the
same time, strategizing activities must be monitored to ensure that some strategic
objectives do not override others during the attempt to accommodate all
stakeholders’ interests.
Traditionally, organizations have run their systems on an annual timetable with
strategy being an annual planning event. This annual timetable is not successful in a
pluralistic context. Interdependence requires an adjustment to systems, processes
and practices. Even minor problems indicate the misalignment between external
strategic goals and internal interests and these problems can grow rapidly. In order
to change or correct behaviour, incentives, planning systems and performance
metrics must be flexed and changed, in order to align strategizing and organizing
practices. Of equal importance is routine dialogue (two-way conversation) between
managers and their constituents (Jarzabkowski and Sillince, 2007, 2010). This
dialogue is required in order to surface different interests and to place those interests
within the context of multiple goals and interests (Schein, 1993).
In order to achieve interdependence between strategizing and organizing is very time
consuming for management. Interdependence requires continual flexing and
adjusting organizing and strategizing practices plus continual dialogues on these
adjustments. The continual pressure and demands upon management results in the
risk that they are over-stretched. This can be aggravated by the organization’s
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
general tendency for managers to become less flexible in their approach to
strategizing and organizing. Management fall back upon more rigid, rule-based
procedures that push the organization to the imbalanced mode of association.
Interdependence is not a steady-state or equilibrium. Interdependence is a
continually changing state to which organizations must continuously aspire.
Sufficient managerial and financial resources must be allocated to achieve and
maintain the continual flexibility of the interdependence mode.
Imbalanced association between strategizing and organizing
Pluralism does not usually manifest itself over night, it usually builds up slowly
without management being aware of it (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006).
Management therefore do not spot the sources and their implications as they arise.
New strategies or new organizing practices are blocked because the organization is
in imbalance between organizing and strategizing (Rivkin and Siggelkow, 2006).
Unless there is synchronized adjustment of both strategizing and organizing as in the
interdependent mode, the changing strategic demands and the moving interests
within the organization, the sources of pluralism will be imbalanced. Often
organizations change their strategy and even their structure without considering other
existing ways of organizing that may block the achievement of that strategy. This
need for a more balanced approach was also reflected in the McKinsey 7-s, where if
one of the seven S changed then all seven needed adjusting (Waterman, Peters and
Phillips, 1980).
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Figure 3: McKinsey 7-S Framework (Waterman, Peters and Phillips, 1980)
The McKinsey framework deliberately reflected the interdependence of each
element of the organization. In the centre are the shared values or organizational
culture. If one of the harder factors are changed, such as strategy, structure or
systems, then the more difficult softer organizational characteristics will require
flexing to maintain the balance, such as shared values, leadership style, staff
demographics and skills. Organizations that operate on a system of annual strategic
planning will be more susceptible to imbalance because these annual processes of
fixing strategizing and organizing practices will lack the ability to flex and adjust
during the year as new sources of pluralism become apparent. More rigid, single
approaches to strategizing and organizing are often adopted by management in an
attempt to reduce uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The result is often the
opposite. A singular approach to strategizing and organizing will not take into
account the external or internal pluralism. The risk is that organizations enter a
period of alternate adjustments to operating processes and strategizing processes as
unforeseen consequences are realised, corrected and again subsequent consequences
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realised. This can become a vicious cycle in which they never manage to catch-up
and synchronize the external and internal pluralism demands (Masuch, 1985).
Pluralism requires deliberate, rapid mutual adjustments to organizing and
strategizing to avoid imbalance (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006). If action is
delayed for the review of the outcome of adjustments made, then that will be too late
and there is a risk of incurring a vicious cycle of continuous catch-up.
Destructive association between strategizing and organizing
Where organizations are subject to extreme pluralism with both high external
strategizing pluralism and high internal organizing pluralism, then this can be a very
complex management problem. If action is not quickly and successfully taken to
balance the internal and external demands, then the result can be destructive
association between organizing and strategizing. In extreme cases, the competing
strategizing and organizing demands may be incommensurable. This could lead to
organizational breakdown (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006).
Action can be taken by management to minimize the impact of pluralism. The
organization can be restructured into smaller, discrete units. This will enable some
of the sources of pluralism to be reduced. A smaller unit serving fewer stakeholders
should be better placed to balance its strategizing and organizing. Restructuring may
not eliminate pluralism but it may be minimized. The new units will still require
continual mutual adjustment between strategizing and organizing, in an attempt to
achieve the interdependent mode. Frequently, in organizations that are subject to
high pluralism, the strategic objectives are ambiguous. These competing interests
need to be identified quickly and a dialogue opened to discuss the multiple
expectations from the organizations diverse stakeholders. Some goals may be
traded-off against others and some may be dropped in an attempt to balance different
priorities and to balance organizing and strategizing. It must be accepted though that
for organizations operating in contexts of extreme pluralism, the organizations will
never be stable (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006). The political interests driving the
pluralism will result in continuous shifting of priorities and trade-offs. This in turn
delivers another risk that the organization will lose focus as it is continuously pulled
in different directions.
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From the above discussions on the framework for pluralistic context, Jarzabkowski
and Fenton (2006) drew the conclusion that there were three key principles to be
carried forward. These are discussed next before a summary and conclusions are
made upon the review of the literature from a pluralism perspective.
Concluding three key principles
From the foregoing discussion on the balancing of organizing and strategizing, there
are three key principles (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006). They are continuous
change, the strive for interdependence and frequent dialogue. For those
organizations operating in a context that has external strategizing pluralism and
internal organizing pluralism, equilibrium and steady-states are not feasible.
Continuous change must be the norm. This means that both the strategizing
processes and organizing processes must be changed to reflect this continually
changing environment. The annual strategic planning process must be replaced with
a strategic management process of continual adjustment and refinement. This means
emergent strategy. Organizations operating in contexts of pluralism must
continually try to achieve interdependence between external organizing pluralism
and internal organizing pluralism by correcting the many imbalances as they occur
with mutual adjustments as a continual process. Lastly, the priority is to ensure that
there is continual, routine dialogue between top managers and their constituents.
This is necessary for different interests and goals to be surfaced and common ground
established so that they may be addressed.
Summary
This chapter has reviewed the emerging literature on pluralism, and the
interdependence of strategizing and organizing. After defining strategizing and
organizing, and explaining the differences between public services policy and
strategy, the two perspectives of the pluralism under study (pluralistic strategizing
tensions and pluralistic organizing tensions) were reviewed. The interdependence
between organizing and strategizing threw up three problems. They were that
pluralistic organizing has unintended strategizing implications; pluralistic
strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity and, protracted tensions between
organizing and strategizing. The pluralistic organizing pressures were revealed to
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have unintended strategizing implications. There followed a discussion upon the
rational analytical approach and the emergent approach to strategizing. The
pluralistic organizing pressures would probably result in unintended, emergent
strategy. The converse was also possible – pluralistic strategizing pressures strain
organizing capacity. So, where there are many external stakeholders making
multiple demands for different strategic objectives, the organization’s capacity to
deliver all of these different, and possibly conflicting objectives, could overwhelm
an organization’s resource capacity. From this discussion on pluralistic, external
strategizing pressures came Agency Theory and the implementation of public
services policy. Again, but this time from the organizing perspective, the rational
analytical and emergent approaches were discussed. The third problem was
protracted tensions. This continual friction between organizing and strategizing
meant that the organization was in a state of continuous change. This stimulated a
discussion on Complexity Theory and Institutional Theory. From the framework
developed by Jarzabkowski and Fenton (2006), the three key principles tied back to
this state of continuous change. Their conclusion was that pluralism caused by
multiple internal interests and identities and by multiple external demands of
different stakeholders was highly and increasingly relevant for many organizations.
Organizations are complex plural entities in which a single vision or stable
organization focus may be unlikely (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006). They go on to
state:
Simarly, research needs to shift from the current dominant perspectives on strategy and organizations as largely coherent and reified states to embracing more socially dynamic and pluralistic views of the firm and its activities (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 647)
This gap in the research literature will be addressed by the research study reported
herein. The pluralistic perspective towards strategizing and organizing is taken when
answering the research question: How does government strategize locally from a
middle management perspective. Empirical confirmation will be sought of the above
discussion upon external strategizing pluralism and internal organizing pluralism as
well as the way the two tensions are balanced by management in the research site.
The study will look at the choice, compromise or balance between the different
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strategizing and organizing practices (rational analytical, emergent or complex
adaptive system).
The next chapter outlines the methodology adopted to research these gaps identified
by the review of literature above. The research herein reported adds to the empirical
studies from the perspective of the new practice-turn, strategy-as-practice
perspective (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009). It takes middle management as its unit
of analysis for which there has been a dearth of empirical study (Wooldridge et al.
2008). The next chapter describes how the research is accomplished from the
methodological frontiers using participative action research (Balogun et al. 2003).
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3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter outlines the research philosophy, strategy and methodological
framework which underpin this study. The research strategy is discussed and shows
how it is crucial to any study as it determines the type of questions being asked and
presents a flexible action research methodology whereby the answer to the research
question emerges from work grounded in practice and informed by literature in a
constant and iterative loop of enquiry and reflection. The research herein reported
was a phenomenological study of a public sector organization. The organization was
self-selecting as this researcher was invited to facilitate a participatory action
research programme on the strategizing process. The participatory action research
stages lasted some two years and were supplemented by data from the analysis of
documents and archived material over a four year history, plus semi-structured
interviews.
The structure of this chapter starts with an overview of the researcher’s philosophical
position and the research method. These are then explained and justified in greater
detail, topic-by-topic (Robson, 1993). The researcher’s phenomenological
commitments are compared to the alternative positivistic stance, highlighting the
difference in beliefs, research behaviour and methods. The researcher’s interpretivist
and constructivist philosophical position is discussed along with the choice of
qualitative research. There then follows discussions leading the reader of this
document from the purpose of the research, through the research strategy, and
research type, with a detailed explanation upon the choice of action research variant
and its critiques. The data collection methods are discussed as well as the role of
literature in action research. Validity and reliability (trustworthiness) are discussed,
as well as alternative research methods, and ethical considerations. The chapter ends
with a summary of the selected research approach, methods used and the steps taken
to ensure validity and trustworthiness.
Any discussion about methodology must highlight the vital link between theory and
method. Such discussion will depend on the world view of the researcher, the type
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of research question to be explored, and the techniques adopted in addressing the
question (Morgan and Smircich 1980). A summary of the researcher’s position is
shown in Table 3, next.
Table 3: Summary of researcher's position (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
Philosophical commitments Constructivist, non-deterministic view of
human existence, qualitative
methodologies
Methodological paradigms Phenomenology, action research
Research strategy Case study, participatory action research
Methods used Participatory action research, document
and archive analysis, in-depth individual
and group interviewing
The researcher’s philosophical commitments are discussed and explained in more
detail in the next section of this chapter.
Philosophical commitments
When designing a research programme, Patton (1990) states that it is important to
understand the methodological paradigms debate in the field of social inquiry in
order to appreciate the different choice of methods and perspectives (worldviews or
paradigms) available to a researcher. There are two major and opposing perspectives
on which research into social inquiry is based, the Positivist paradigm and the
Phenomenology paradigm. There are a number of other research perspectives
available to a researcher (see Denzin and Lincoln, 1994, pg. 13), but for the purpose
of this research the more traditional perspective of Positivism is outlined and
contrasted to the alternate perspective of Phenomenology.
Bryman (1988) argues the nature of the inquiry should determine the research style
and Henwood and Pidgeon (1992) suggest:
“Framing the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research in terms of these two epistemological poles is important in alerting us to the fact that there are competing claims regarding what constitutes warrantable knowledge” (Henwood and Pidgeon, 1992:99).
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Hartley (1994) importantly argues that techniques are not of themselves positivist or
phenomenological, it is how the techniques are used and how the data is interpreted
that defines the epistemological assumptions on which they are based. The
distinctions between positivism and phenomenology research philosophies are
outlined in Table 4, next.
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Table 4: Positivism and phenomenology research philosophy (adapted from Gill and
Johnson, 1991 and Easterby–Smith et. al., 1991)
Positivism – Deduction Phenomenology - Induction
Basic beliefs • Explanation via analysis of causal relationships and fundamental laws.
• World is external and objective.
• Observer is independent. • Science is value free.
• Explanation of subjective meaning held by subjects through understanding.
• World is socially constructed and subjective.
• Observer is part of what is observed.
• Human interests drive Science.
Researcher should • Use various controls,
physical or statistical, to allow the testing of hypotheses.
• Use highly structured research methodology to ensure above.
• Formulate hypotheses and test them.
• Reduce phenomena to simplest of elements.
• Be committed to research everyday settings, to allow access to, and to minimise reactivity among the research subjects.
• Use minimum structure in research methodology to ensure above.
• Develop ideas through induction from data.
• Look at the totality of each situation.
Preferred Methods • Generation and use of
quantitative date. • Operationalisation and
measurement. • Large samples. • Generalisation. • Rigour and Validity.
• Generation and use of qualitative data.
• Multiple methods / viewpoints.
• Small in depth samples. • Context-bound
understanding.
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• Trustworthiness, utility and triangulation.
There are two major perspectives on research, positivism and phenomenology. The
positivist position claims that all sciences, including the social sciences, are
concerned with developing explanations in the form of universal laws or
generalisations. Any phenomenon is explained by demonstrating its reference to a
specific law. The laws are of the form of constant conjunctions between events, or in
the case of social sciences, statistical correlations or regularities (Blaikie, 1993). In
contrast, the phenomenological approach states that reality is socially constructed
rather than objectively determined. The focus here of the inquiry is on inductively
understanding what is happening and why, by collecting and understanding data
from social interactions.
In the phenomenological approach to social inquiry, the social sciences are applied
to social phenomena and theory is generated from and grounded in, the data
collected (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Qualitative methods allow researchers to
develop “theoretically grounded critical accounts of “what happens” which lead to
an understanding of both practice and generalisable “underlying social processes”
(Finch, 1985: 114).
As stated earlier, the public sector organization requested this researcher to act as
facilitator in a participatory action research programme to review their strategizing
process. In parallel with this aim, the research that is reported here, had a separate
aim, which was to address the following research question:
How does government cascade strategy from a middle management
perspective in a local government authority?
The research approach was phenomenological. A phenomenological approach
suggests that reality may be seen to be socially constructed, not objectively
determined. The observer was part of that observed. The research focused on
meanings to understand what was happening. This research did not gather data and
measure how often patterns occur which is the approach of a positivistic
methodological paradigm. This research appreciated the different constructions and
meanings that people placed upon their experience (Easterby-Smith et al. 1995).
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Empirical data was captured by participatory action research; individual interviews;
group interviews; document and archival analysis. The phenomenological research
method paradigm described above is shown in Table 5, next.
Table 5: Key features of phenomenological methodological paradigm (Easterby-Smith
et al. 1995)
Feature Phenomenological Methodology
Basic Belief The world was socially constructed and
subjective. The observer was part of what
was observed. Science was driven by
human interests.
Researcher’s role Focused on meanings. Tried to
understand what was happening.
Developed ideas through induction from
data.
Methods Used multiple methods to establish
different views of phenomena. Small
samples investigated in depth or over
time.
The interpretivist research commitment of the researcher is now explained in more
detail. Whilst the purpose of positivism, may be to offer causal explanations,
interpretivism aims to understand human action (Schwandt 2000). Understanding
requires interpretation. This researcher’s epistemological position is interpretive,
philosophical hermeneutic and constructivist (explained in next section). The
researcher is not an uninvolved observer in the research herein reported. Inherited
bias and prejudice shape a researcher and how they understand the world (Gallagher
1992). Understanding requires the engagement of a researcher’s bias (Schwandt
2000). Sense-making of a social action or text is temporal and specific to that
occasion (Aylesworth 1991; Bernstein 1983; Gadamer 1975). Meaning is not
discovered, it is mutually negotiated in the act of interpretation (Schwandt 2000).
There is never a final correct interpretation. Knowledge of the social world resides
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in sense-making or meaning-making and cannot be separate from the knower
(Polkinghorne 1989; Salner 1989).
Constructivism
Constructivism is also known as interpretive (Schwandt, 1994) or naturalistic
(Lincoln and Guba, 1985) research. Constructivism views reality as being socially
constructed. Feyerabend (1978) argues that reality can only be constructed
conceptually. People attach different sets of meanings and classifications to the
world due to the fact that different cultures and societies posses conceptual systems
that are not the same. Reality is a cultural interpretation, with the society inviting the
inquirer to view things from a different perspective, not as an absolute truth.
Constructivist researchers reject the notion of objectivity.
Constructivists follow the relativist tradition, where reality is said not to exist outside
of human consciousness. Constructivists believe the researcher’s role is to
understand the multiple social constructions of meanings and knowledge.
Constructivists tend to favour research methods such as interviews and observations
which enable the researcher to acquire multiple perspectives. Research participants
collaborate with the researchers to socially construct their reality. Because there are
multiple realties the research questions cannot be formulated in advance of the
process. Abell and Simons (2000) report constructionists seek to engage participants
in learning processes, as per Table 6, next.
Table 6: Constructionists seek to engage participants in learning processes (adapted
from Abell and Simons, 2000)
Participant Learning processes
1 Heighten the understanding of relational processes and knowledge
management
2 Create venues for the expression of multiple stories
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3 Encourage the participants to reflect upon their beliefs and values and how
they impact on event outcomes
4 Offer a venue for joint collaborative reflection to occur
Positivists view action, and participation, as contamination of research processes and
results. Control, rigour, objectivity and validity preclude traditional inquirers from
voice, reflexivity and issues of textual representation. By contrast, interpretivists,
constructivists and participatory researchers see action on research results as an
important outcome of the inquiry process (Lincoln and Guba 2000). In these new
paradigms, research control is a way to stimulate emancipation, democracy,
community empowerment and redressing power imbalances (Heron and Reason
1997; Mertens 1998). In summary, this researcher’s philosophical commitments are
constructivist with relativist ontology, and subjectivist epistemology. The
researcher’s approach was constructivist because it is this understanding that seemed
best to resonate with the researcher’s view of the world. This researcher’s
constructivist paradigm assumes a relativist ontology (multiple realities), a
subjectivist epistemology (co-created understanding) and a naturalistic set of
methodological procedures.
Qualitative research techniques often focus on constructivist approaches where there
is no clear cut objectivity and social life emerges from the shared creativity of
individuals (Filstead, 1978). Van Maanen (1979) describes qualitative methodologies
as an:
“umbrella term covering an array of interpretive techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate and otherwise come to terms with meaning not the frequency, of certain more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world”(Van Maanen, 1979: 520)
Qualitative research is intrinsically subjective (Bryman, 1988). He argues that it is
impossible for a researcher to be objective because his interpretation of events is
influenced by his perspective on life. This view is corroborated by Glouberman
(2003) who states that people are not capable of thinking about anything that does
not fit into their normal view of the world but adds “the more perspectives we can
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imagine, the more channels we can open up” (Glouberman, 2003: 32). Burgoyne
(1994) argues that qualitative methods are flexible, enabling researchers to question
themselves and change the nature of their interventions with emerging insights.
Situations can frequently be complex, making it difficult to define issues at the
beginning of the study.
Qualitative research can generally only take place in natural settings (Denzin, 1971;
Lincoln and Guba, 1985) and focuses on everyday activity as “defined, enacted,
smoothed, and made problematic by persons going about their normal routines” (Van
Maanen, 1983:255). Flyvbjerg (2001:4) believes that “context and judgement are
irreducibly central to understanding human action.” Flyvbjerg further argues that his
perspective on social science is based on a contemporary interpretation of the
Aristotelian concept of phronesis, (variously translated as prudence or practical
wisdom):
“In Aristotle’s words phronesis is a state, reasoned and capable of action with regard to things that are good or bad for man. Phronesis goes beyond both analytical, scientific knowledge (episteme) and technical knowledge or know how (techne) and invites judgements and decisions made in the manner of a virtuoso social and political actor. I will argue that phronesis is commonly involved in social practice, and that therefore attempts to reduce social science and theory either to episteme or techne, or comprehend them in those terms are misguided” (Flyvbjerg, 2001:2).
The philosophical commitments of this researcher lie with the constructivism
approach (Lincoln and Guba 2000). The constructivist epistemology is that
knowledge is deemed to be shaped and formed by social activity (Gephart 2004).
Within that epistemology, the aim of inquiry was to understand how middle
managers in one local government authority understood and made sense of the
approach to strategy as practice. Its quality criteria were trustworthiness and
authenticity. This constructivist research looked at the meaning-making, sense-
making activities as it was these that shaped action. These sense-making activities
can be changed when they are determined to be no longer appropriate. This research
was not ‘value-free’ and the voice as facilitator was as a passionate participator.
Values (axiology) fed in to the research in many ways and have been characterized
(Lincoln and Guba 1985) by choice of the problem, choice of theoretical framework,
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choice of major data-gathering and analysis methods, choice of context, treatment of
values already resident within the context, and choice of presentation format. The
philosophical commitments of the researcher detailed above are summarized in
Table 7, next.
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Table 7: Researcher's constructivist position (Lincoln and Guba 2000)
Item Constructivist position
Inquiry aim Understanding; reconstruction
Quality criteria Trustworthiness and authenticity
Values Included – formative
Voice “passionate participant” as facilitator of
multi-voice reconstruction
Ontology Relativism – local and specific constructed
realities
Epistemology Transactional/subjectivist; created findings
Research Purpose
Robson (1993) states that in addition to the desire to make a contribution to
knowledge the purpose of research may be to either explore, to explain or to describe
a particular event or situation. Exploratory research is exploring subject areas
looking for new insights. It is the discovery of what is happening and asking
questions of new and emerging subjects. Generally, it is qualitative in its approach.
Explanatory research seeks to explain an established situation. Descriptive research portrays an accurate profile of a person, activity or condition. The
researcher must have substantial knowledge of the situation to assist in gathering
information to conduct the research.
The purpose of this research programme is exploratory and explanatory (Robson,
1993). It was exploratory because it sought new insights by asking emerging
questions and assessed phenomena in a new light, based upon mainly qualitative
data. The research programme was also explanatory because it explained the
unintended outcomes of the strategies adopted.
Research strategy
There are three main research strategies to be considered (Robson, 1993), they are
case study, experiment and survey. Experiments test theories and hypotheses
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systematically. The researcher controls and fixes all possible variables within a
controlled environment (usually laboratory). The researcher then manipulates the
variables and measures the effect of the change. Experiments occur through the
direct intervention of the researcher under laboratory conditions (Gill and Johnson,
1991). Surveys entail gathering information from a sample of the larger population
to understand something about that population. This method usually employs the use
of a standardised questionnaire or / and a structured interview, with standard
questions (Robson, 1993). Case studies are empirical investigations “of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence Robson (1993).” The case studied can
involve one person, a group of people, an institution, or an innovation. The purpose
is to develop detailed information and understanding about a single ‘case’ or of a
small number of related ‘cases’ (Yin, 1989). The method of data collection is via a
number of techniques for example, interviews, observation, and workshops.
Case studies have been used successfully over many years to examine work in
different organisations and academic fields (Bromley, 1986). A case study is a
research strategy, involving empirical investigation of problems within their real life
context using multiple sources of evidence (Yin, 1994). Bromley (1986: ix) argues
“The individual case study or situation analysis is the bed-rock of scientific
investigation”, however this may be a minority view. Nevertheless, Cook and
Campbell (1979) argue the case study as a legitimate approach and Robson
(1993:40) has defined a case study as being the development of detailed, intensive
knowledge about a single case, or a small number of related, “cases.” A case study
can be widely used and answers the why, what and how questions by giving a rich
understanding of the context, content and the processes being used (Morris and
Wood, 1991).
In this research programme, experiments were rejected as not relevant or appropriate
to the research question. It was not possible to control or fix key variables, such as
the political environment, within the organization which was the location for this
research. The case study approach was chosen for this research programme.
Middle Management Perspective
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Middle management is seen to comprise managers below top managers and above
first-level supervision (Dutton and Ashford 1993; Uyterhoven 1972). Middle
management’s uniqueness is not their location in the hierarchy but their function as
mediators between the organization’s strategy and day-to-day operations (Nonaka
1994). This group of managers is the focus of the research study herein reported.
Three principle reasons have been identified for taking the middle management
perspective to strategic management research (Wooldridge et al. 2008). Firstly,
middle managers connect disconnected actors and domains (Floyd and Wooldridge
1999; Nonaka 1991). Middle managers can act as sources of resistance (Guth and
MacMillan 1986) or as agents of change (Huy 2002). Secondly, middle management
can be a complement to the view of elites and a key source of organizational
influence on outcomes (Hambrick and Mason 1984). Large organizations cannot be
managed by single actors but must rely upon middle managers as important
mediators (Balogun and Johnson 2004). Thirdly, middle managers may have a
greater role and influence in identifying capability and performance gaps (King and
Zeithaml 2001) and so have the insight necessary to build and renew capabilities
(Wooldridge et al. 2008).
Understanding why some middle managers are more involved in and influence the
strategizing process remains an important research issue (Pappas and Wooldridge
2007). Understanding how managers participate in the strategizing process is a key
part of middle management research (Wooldridge et al. 2008). In their review of
future research requirements, Wooldridge et al set high priority on research in to
agency problems that arise due to middle management gaining strategic influence
without formal authority. This research programme addresses this important issue.
Additionally (Wooldridge et al. 2008), it has been stated that future research should
examine how individual managerial behaviours are connected to group-level
activities and organizational outcomes (Rouleau 2005; Westley 1990). The latter
suggestion informed the development and conduct of the study reported in this
thesis.
Research Type
Pure research aims to expand the limits of knowledge rather than directly involving
the researcher in a particular, pragmatic problem (Zikmund, 1991). The purpose of
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pure research is to lead to theoretical developments, that may or may not have any
practical implications with results often disseminated across an academic audience
(Robson, 1993). Applied social science research is conducted upon a specific
social problem, and is aimed at answering specific questions or in deciding on a
particular course of action (Zikmund, 1991). Dissemination is often to both academic
and wider commercial audiences, and is seen to be more pragmatic in its approach.
Robson (1993) points out however that this categorisation is too rigid to characterise
what happens in most academic disciplines, where, for example, research generates
its own concepts and does not just rely on the application of ‘pure theories’. This
leads to the third research option, known as Action Research, which assumes that
research should lead to change, and that change should be incorporated into the
research process. It rests on the notion that to understand something well, you should
try changing it, and understand how a phenomenon develops over time. Or,
“One begins with the assumption that one cannot understand a human system without trying to change it. The essential dynamics of the system are assumed to remain invisible to the passive observer. Only by becoming a member of the system and learning over a long period of time how it operates could the passive observer decipher it” (Schein, 1989).
This research programme adopted an applied, action research approach (Robson,
1993). It is applied research because it seeks to solve an organization’s problem.
The method will be action research to resolve an issue that is of genuine concern to
the organization and the research participants in which there is an intent by all to
take action based upon intervention. The research will not be pure research.
Action Research
Action research is deliberate, solution-oriented investigation that is group or
personally owned and conducted. It is characterized by spiraling cycles of problem
identification, systematic data collection, reflection, analysis, data-driven action
taken, and, finally, problem redefinition (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988). Cohen et al
(2000) highlight the vast range of possibilities for the use of action research:
‘The scope of action research is impressive. Action research may be used in almost any setting where a problem involving people, tasks
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and procedures cries out for solutions, or where some form of change of features results in a more desirable outcome.’ (Cohen et al, 2000: 226).
Action research participants are deeply involved in all aspects of the research process
− from creative thinking about what goes into the endeavour, to decision-making
and contributing to the action which is the subject of the research. Baldwin (2001)
makes this point:
Relationship is fundamental to the creation of reality, and a [method] that separates the researcher from the researched denies that relationship. Ontologically, such a process would invalidate knowledge created, because it would not construct a reality that has meaning for the subjects of the research. (p. 289)
What is not Action Research? Ferrance (2000) stated:
Action research is not what usually comes to mind when we hear the word “research.” Action research is not a library project where we learn more about a topic that interests us. It is not problem-solving in the sense of trying to find out what is wrong, but rather a quest for knowledge about how to improve. Action research is not about doing research on or about people, or finding all available information on a topic looking for the correct answers. It involves people working to improve their skills, techniques, and strategies. Action research is not about learning why we do certain things, but rather how we can do things better.
Influence and the instigation of change is the purpose of action research (Argyris et
al., 1985). Each geographic continent, each field and each philosophical stance have
interpreted action research in many ways and with a wide variety of different labels.
However, three themes have emerged. The research purpose and the management of
change (Cunningham, 1995) is first, followed secondly by the close collaboration of
the researcher and the practitioners as joint participants in the research. These first
two themes mean that the findings from the action research programme result from
the researcher’s involvement with members of an organization on a matter of
genuine concern to the practitioners (Eden and Huxham, 1996). The researcher is
therefore an active participant in the organization within which the research and
change take place (Zuber-Skerritt, 1996). The third and final theme is that the action
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research should have implications beyond the research programme by informing
other contexts.
Participatory Action Research
A key feature of action research is the collaboration between researchers and
practitioners and this collaborative form of action research has been called
participatory research (Park, 1993), or participatory action research (Selener, 1997).
There are many different methodologies and methods within action research and
participative action research. This section reviews different phenomenological and
interpretive research methods.
Lewin (1948) defined a process consisting of four steps to conduct action research in
a natural setting.
“Lewin is credited with coining the term ‘action research’ to describe work that did not separate the investigation from the action needed to solve the problem” (McFarland and Stansell, 1993, p14)
The four stages were plan, act, observe and reflect. This was a spiralling, non-linear
pattern of planning, action, and fact-finding upon the results (Noffke and Stevenson,
1995). Action research is the combination of an intellectual process (acquisition of
knowledge) and the practical action (application of that knowledge in its natural
environment). The ‘simple’ model from Lewin has been built upon and refined by
different action research practitioners. McKernan (1991, cited in Cohen et al, 2000:
235) represented the spiralling process as each one consisting of:
‘Cycle of analysis, reconnaissance, re-conceptualisation of the problem, planning of the intervention, implementation of the plan and subsequent evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention’ (Cohen et al, 2000: 235).
Reflection upon feedback between the stages is seen as being essential (Ebbutt,
1985). This is confirmed in another four-stage model (Altricher and Gstettner,
1996). They argued that first a starting point for the research must be established.
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Secondly, the situation to be researched must be clarified. Next, the action strategy
is developed and implemented. The fourth and last stage is to make the participants’
knowledge public.
The original four-stage model has evolved in to an eight-stage model by Cohen et al.
(2000), as shown in Table 8.
Table 8: Eight-Stage Action Research Method (adapted from Cohen, et al, 2000: 235-7)
Stage Details
1 Identification Identification of problem for review
2 Preliminary discussion Confirm problem exists with stakeholders
and agree a research process can be
established
3 Literature review Analysis of previous research on the topic
4 Modification/redefinition Modify or refine research question
following review of literature
5 Selection of research
procedures
Appropriate research methods chosen
6 Evaluation procedures Definition of evaluation process
7 Implementation Implementation and collection of data
8 Data Interpretation Inferences, conclusions and rationale for
future research
The field of participatory action research includes several different approaches to
inquiry. The field includes action learning and action science, as well as
participatory action research. Action learning is used to solve the problems of
organizations and is achieved through a group of people who learn from each other’s
experience. They study their own situation, define the organization’s desired
outcome and seek to remove obstacles (Clark 1972; Pedler 1991; Revans 1980,
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1982). The emphasis of action learning upon efficiency ignores the deeper values
and social purposes of the organization and those of the participants that may differ
at different hierarchical levels and geographic locations. Action learning also denies
a critical perspective by bowing to the solutions and reasoning of others (Kemmis
and McTaggart 2000).
Action science differentiates two aspects to professional knowledge. The first is
formal taught knowledge which all members of the profession receive and in to
which they are inducted. The second aspect of professional knowledge is
interpretation and enactment. Action science distinguishes between theory
(espoused theory) and practice (theories in use) so that gaps are revealed. The gaps
are then subjects for change. Action science develops reflective practitioners
(Argyris 1990; Argyris et al. 1985; Argyris and Schon 1974, 1978; Reason 1988;
Schon 1983, 1987, 1991).
The initial sense-making processes of the participatory action research team, when
the participants tried to make sense of their situation and define their problem has
strong parallels with the action science approach to participatory action research.
Action science focuses upon the gaps between formal professional knowledge and
that of interpretation and enactment, espoused theories and theories in use. A key
focus of the research was to analyse the gaps between theory and practice and help
the professionals to unmask the cover-ups in place (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000).
Elsewhere, the research method stages have been defined by posing the questions
each stage seeks to answer (Friedman, 2006: 133), as per Table 9, next.
Table 9: The research method stages defined by posing the questions each stage seeks
to answer (Friedman, 2006: 133)
Question
1 How do actors perceive the situation or the problem?
2 What results do they wish to achieve (i.e., objectives)?
3 What strategies do they intend to use in order to achieve these objectives?
4 What strategies do they actually produce in action?
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5 What were the actual outcomes of these strategies?
6 To the extent that these outcomes were unintended (i.e. did not match the
desired results), what might account for this mismatch?
Friedman (2006) argues that these questions can lead to detailed, context-rich
theories in practice which reflect recurrent patterns of behaviour by individuals or
organizations. These patterns can be graphically illustrated in the form of ‘maps’
(Argyris and Schon, 1978; Argyris et al., 1985; Friedman and Lipshitz, 1994; Weick
and Bougon, 1986). The method and set of questions put forward by Friedman
(2006) enable the gap between social science theory and social science-based
professional practice to be established (Schon, 1983,1987). This is the approach
adopted in this research programme.
Critiques of Action Research
Habermas (1972) rejects the notion of action research. Habermas maintains that the
development of theory and the development of practice are two completely different
activities. Habermas argues that in developing practice the aim is to achieve a form
of worldly success. Whilst, in the development of theory the aim is to reflect or
interpret the truth. These two separate activities require different mindsets.
Habermas’ criticism is based upon his argument that society is oppressed and the
route to society’s liberation is through the development of theory out of which new
practices may emerge.
Action research is premised on the belief that if practitioners are involved then the
decisions will be better informed and more effective practices engaged. The
practitioners will gain a better understanding of their context and practices. It was
precisely for these reasons that the researched organization requested an action
research programme. This research programme is conducted from a constructivist
stance and so Habermas’ argument is rejected for this study.
The Study of Practice and Participatory Action Research
A different approach to participatory action research can be adopted depending upon
the researcher’s philosophical approach variously labelled: positivist, interpretist,
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radical humanist (Burrell and Morgan 1979), or empirical-analytic, hermeneutic,
critical (Habermas 1972), or technical, practical, emancipatory (Kemmis 2006).
These different approaches will now be explained.
Participatory action research integrates research with an action orientation to solve
an organisational problem (David 2002). The various definitions of action research
are broadly divided by two aspects. First, they follow the sociological paradigm
splits (Burrell and Morgan 1979). Second, in line with this split is the differentiation
of focus between improving the process (positivist), improving the decision-making
process of the participants in the process (interpretivist) and social movement,
changing the context (critical post-modern) (Kemmis 2006).
McKernan defined the action research process as self-reflective problem-solving
with the goal being to understand and solve problems in social settings (McKernan
1988). This definition was subsequently extended so that the process was collective,
collaborative, self-reflective and critical, and undertaken by the participants
(McCutcheon and Jung 1990). The goal was the understanding of practice, the
articulation of a rationale of practice, and the improvement of practice (McCutcheon
and Jung 1990).
In the study of practice, this research took the subjective view of practice. This is the
way individual practitioners’ intended actions appear to them. It is the practitioner’s
subjective perspective of practice based upon their intentions, shaped by meanings,
judgements and values (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000). This approach can be traced
back to Aristotle in Western philosophy. Practice is the judgement of people acting
in situations in which they are obliged to act even though it is uncertain and never
fully justified according to technical rules or principles, but reflects the person’s best
judgement (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000).
A critical approach to the study of practice and participatory action research has been
led by Kemmis and although this researcher was influenced by the author and his
approach, the approach taken in this study, and now explained, is practice reason and
not critical reason (Kemmis 2006). There are different understandings and
approaches to the social relationships in the study of practice. The social relations
will involve technical, practical and critical reasoning about practice. Technical
reason is employed when attempting to improve efficacy or efficiency of the means
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to achieve prestated and accepted goals. The ends are not in question only the means
to those ends (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000). Proponents of technical reason
usually see their work within the traditional scientific approach and view their
research subjects as objects and not knowing subjects. Technical reason aims to
achieve control. Practical reason treats both the means and the ends as problematic.
Objects of its study are knowing subjects whose actions are influenced by their
reasons and perspectives that can change if and as they gain a richer understanding
of their situation and its context. It does not aim to control but to educate the
practitioners to better understand the consequences of their actions. Critical reason
aims to understand how things evolved as a consequence of choices and then to
consider how the practitioners could have different choices from those that were
forced upon them by the way things are currently (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000).
The research herein reported took a practical reasoning approach to social
relationships, a practical view of the purpose of the research.
The term practice means something different to each methodological paradigm. The
constructivist paradigmatic aspect of practice emphasised in this investigation was
the way individual practitioners’ intentional actions were based upon the subjective
meanings and values of the practitioners. The focus was on the individual’s meaning
and values which shaped intentional action and not the social discourse (Kemmis and
McTaggart 2000). The constructivist methodological paradigm of this research
understood behaviour was shaped by values, intentions and judgements of the
practitioner. This understanding of praxis can be traced back to Aristotle as the
exercise of human judgement by practitioners that reflected the best judgement of the
practitioner.
The positivist approach to action research focuses upon improving the practices of
the participants (Kemmis 2006). The positivist, empirical-analytic, technical
approach is about getting things done effectively (Kemmis 2006). It is action
research that produces functional improvement through changing outcomes of
practices (i.e. ‘increase production rate’). This approach does not question the goals
themselves, nor the social context (Kemmis 2006).
The interpretivist, hermeneutic, practical approach is about wise and prudent
decision-making in practical situations (Kemmis 2006). It is participatory action
research that informs the practical decision-making of practitioners. This approach
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aims to improve functional practices as well as to understand themselves within the
context (Kemmis 2006). Unlike the positivist, technical approach described above,
the interpretivist and practical participatory action research practitioners aim to
understand themselves within the context as well as the outcomes of their practices.
The critical, emancipatory approach aims to emancipate people from determination
by habit, custom, illusion and coercion (Kemmis 2006). This approach to action
research reconstructs the practice, the practitioner and the practice setting. It helps
practitioners to develop a critical and self-critical understanding of their situation
(Kemmis 2006). The Critical, Emancipatory Action Research (‘CEAR’) approach
also seeks to improve outcomes and self-understandings of practitioners but in
addition it seeks to assist practitioners at critiquing their work setting. CEAR aims
to make strong and explicit connections between action research and social
movement. When successful, it helps people understand themselves as agents of, as
well as products of history (Kemmis 1993).
The three different philosophical approaches to action research are summarised in
Table 10, next. The research reported herein takes the interpretivist approach.
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Table 10: Three philosophical approaches to action research (Developed for the
purposes of this thesis)
Author Framework
(Burrell and Morgan
1979)
Positivist Interpretist Radical Humanist
(Habermas 1972) Empirical-analytic Hermeneutic Critical
(Kemmis 2006) Technical,
instrumental, or
means-ends (getting
things done
effectively)
Practical interest
(wise and prudent
decision-making in
practical situations
Emancipatory
(emancipating
people from
determination by
habit, custom,
illusion and
coercion)
Action research that
produces functional
improvement
through changing
outcomes of
practices (i.e.
increase production
rate)
Action research that
informs the practical
decision-making of
practitioners. Aims
to improve
functional practices
as well as to
understand
themselves within
the context
Action research that
reconstructs the
practice, the
practitioner and the
practice setting.
Helps practitioners
to develop a critical
& self-critical
understanding of
their situation.
Does not question
the goals themselves,
nor the social context
Unlike Technical
action research
practitioners, aim to
understand and
change themselves
as well as the
outcomes of their
practice
Critical,
emancipatory action
research reconstructs
the work, worker and
workplace.
Within the participatory action research field there are three different approaches:
first, second and third-person research (Reason and Bradbury 2006). All three
approaches will be integrated within the client’s participatory action research
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programme, as explained next, although only the second-person research is reported
here.
All participants will be encouraged to follow a first-person practice. This practice
fosters an inquiring approach to their own life, to be aware of actions and choices
and to assess consequences of their actions on the outside world (Reason and Torbert
2001). This self-questioning inquiry elicits the inquirers interests and priorities,
clearer understanding of the frameworks through which life and contexts are viewed,
a greater awareness of personal behaviour in response to phenomena being studied,
and their implications within the greater environment (Reason 2001). Five
interrelated behaviours of first-person participatory action research have been
identified (Marshall and Mead 2005). Supported by participation in co-operative
inquiry, they may enhance the integrity of insights achieved in the first-person
inquiry. The five encouraged behaviours are living in the inquiry; practising new
behaviours; reflecting-in-action; conceptualizing new learning about one’s identity;
and staying present to a range of emotional responses (Marshall and Mead 2005).
Methodological frontiers in studying strategizing have been identified as three
approaches (Balogun et al. 2003). They are interactive discussion groups, self-
reports and practitioner-led research. These authors acknowledge that action
research is a possible answer but offer their three approaches as being less time-
consuming. The participatory action research described in this thesis incorporated
all three of their suggested methodological approaches. However, the self-reports
(first-person approach) became personal diaries and so led to an alternative research
study not included in this thesis.
The research study reported herein focuses upon the second-person approach.
Second-person participatory action research focuses upon inquiry with others to
improve personal and professional practice. This inquiry includes interpersonal
dialogue and the development of communities of inquiry and learning organizations
(Reason and Torbert 2001). Third-person participatory action research aims to
create a wider community of inquiry. This can be achieved by the writing and
reporting of the processes and outcomes of inquiries (Reason and Torbert 2001),
such as this document and future publications. The second-person participatory
action research approach is reported in this document.
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More recently, scholarly strategic management research has grown enormously in
confidence and stature (Hoskisson et al. 1999; Mahoney and McGahan 2007).
Comprehensive reviews of research have been completed, past and current research
trends have been identified (Herrmann 2005; Hoskisson et al. 1999; Mahoney and
McGahan 2007). In 2009, a special issue of the International Journal of
Management Reviews brought together a team of prominent scholars in the field of
strategic management to review and indicate future research opportunities (Mellahi
and Sminia 2009).
Mellahi and Sminia (2009) point out that the rational agency approach to strategic
management was seen to be more theoretical than empirical (Bower 1970; Cyert and
March 1963; March and Simon 1958; Mintzberg 1973a; Pettigrew 1985; Quinn
1980). A consistent pattern started to emerge from the empirical research of
strategizing not being dependent upon analytical strategy formation and
implementation but processes in which internal politics, organizational culture and
management cognition dominated (Mellahi and Sminia 2009). Research on the
processes of strategizing was revealing significant variance from the theory. A new
group of scholars who focus upon the individuals who practice strategic management
has now joined this process approach. The approach is called strategy-as-practice
(Jarzabkowski 2005; Whittington 1996).
In the Strategy-as-Practice literature (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009), the importance
of developing practice-based links between micro and macro-phenomena was
highlighted. The research programme undertaken for the purposes of this thesis
deliberately identified links between the micro and macro phenomena. The ‘micro’
activities of the individual strategy practitioners was linked to the government
policies and their implementation. The review of the literature explored the
individual strategic objectives, the macro phenomena in the form of UK government
policies and strategies, Welsh National Assembly Government policies, local
policies and influences from other government agencies and professional bodies.
Empirical, practice-based research is still relatively novel as the practice-turn
originated only in the past decade and the nature of the research necessitates
significant investment of time. There is a research gap when it comes to considering
strategy practitioners as not just individuals but classes of practitioners. The concept
of extra-organizational actors as strategy practitioners also needs further
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investigation (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009). The research programme herein
reported looked for extra-organizational actors who influenced the community
strategy and looked at the classes of practitioners within the organization serving as
the research site.
There are gaps in the study of institutionalised strategy practices and the ways in
which they constitute a profession of strategy (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009). The
organization in the research herein reported was identified to have an
institutionalised strategy practice. The benefits and limitations of this
institutionalised strategy practice were explored and highlighted along with their
implications.
A review of the process research approach to strategizing (Sminia 2009) identified a
gap addressed by the research study. A move is required from basic description to a
form of normative prescription – that is, having understood how a strategy is realized
explain how to realize a successful strategy. The discussion and conclusions from
this research thesis goes some way towards explaining how to realize a successful
strategy.
Participatory action research will not fit a linear pattern or recipe (Dick 2002). By its
very nature, participatory action research spirals through several plan-act-observe-
reflect cycles. So, whilst the direction is clear, the actual route is discovered along
the way. It emerges in the form of evolutionary research (Herr and Anderson 2005).
Grounded theory develops theory through the comparison of data (Glasser and
Strauss 1967). Like a lot of grounded theory research, participatory action research is
data-driven and not theory-driven. The alternative theory-driven (positivist)
approach would be to start with a theory or hypothesis and then seek data to confirm
or disconfirm the theory (Easterby-Smith et al. 1995). Action research is driven by
the data. As data is collected (‘plan-action’), it is analysed (‘observe-reflect’) and
may cause the specific research question to change, or the research method and
participants may change (Herr and Anderson 2005). Through each successive plan-
act-observe-reflect cycle, the understanding of ‘the problem’ both deepens and
widens. As these cycles spiral, the research question is refined or changed, new
literature is reviewed in line with this new understanding and new research methods
may emerge (Herr and Anderson 2005). The role of literature in action research is
discussed in more detail within the next section, data collection.
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Data Collection
There are two distinct methods for data collection and analysis (Robson, 1993).
These two different methods reflect the underlying different philosophical
commitments. One method is to collect the data and then analyse it. This is typical
of a positivist, quantitative approach. The alternative approach is that the data
collection and analysis can be a concurrent process. This is more typical of a
phenomenologist, qualitative approach. This research study followed the qualitative
data collection method consistent with the phonemonological action research
approach adopted. The differences between the two different approaches to data
collection are shown in table 11.
Table 11: Comparison of Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection Methods
(Bouma and Atkinson, 1995)
Research Aspect Quantitative Qualitative
Relationship between researcher
and subject
Distant Close
Research strategy Structured Unstructured
Nature of data Hard and reliable Rich, deep
Relationship between theory and
research
Confirmation Emergent
The role of Literature in Action Research
‘I initially developed a format for the thesis and commenced the task of writing up the study, based on the accepted sequence, and academic norm, of literature review, methodology, research design, findings and conclusions. However, the cyclical and evolving nature of action research meant that new areas of literature were constantly added to the research process, new data kept on being generated, and new meanings and additional lines of inquiry were regularly suggested’ (Davis, 2004: 15)
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Richardson (2000) states that the conventional approach to writing in social science
research has been a linear function. The writer is discouraged from writing until
they know all of the key points. However, Richardson continues:
The model has serious problems: it ignores the role of writing as a dynamic, creative process; it undermines the confidence of beginning qualitative researchers because their experience of research is inconsistent with the writing model; and it contributes to the flotilla of qualitative writing that is simply not interesting to read because adherence to the model requires writers to silence their own voices and to view themselves as contaminants. (p. 925)
The traditional five chapter model (Introduction, literature review, methodology,
findings, discussion and conclusions) is only one possible format (Winter, 1996). He
goes on to encourage action research reporters not to be overawed by the cultural
authority of the scientific expert and should resist the scientific format and rhetoric.
Both Dick (1993) and Winter (1996) maintain that action research reports require
different ways of writing because action research is a continuously changing inquiry,
with understandings and actions being provisional. Both the context and the
research have no end-state, and so the action research thesis can only ever be a
provisional and incomplete account of the research programme (James, 1999).
Winter (1996) views action research reports pluralistically, stating they are more like
a collage than a description. This is supported by Denzin and Lincoln (2000) who
describe the researcher as a ‘bricoleur’ or quiltmaker. “There is no single way –
much less one ‘right’ way – of staging a text” (Richardson, 2000: 936).
Literature was accessed continuously throughout the research process. Review of
the literature was triggered by queries and questions emerging from analysis, or the
desire to search for confirming or disconfirming perspectives about what the data
suggests (Dick, 1993). Dick further argues that the search for disconfirming
evidence and argument in the literature, when the researcher is tentatively making
interpretations, will aid the researcher to reach conclusions more confidentally and
so actions are better informed. Winter (1998) calls this process ‘dialectic analysis’
and being ‘theoretical’ about the data, contemplating it, speculating about it, and
placing it in a wider context. Richardson (2000) describes a similar process as
‘crystallization’. This process of generating interpretations, ideas and actions from
both evidence and from the literature is a major research strategy of action research
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(Davis, 2004). Literature was viewed as data in the action research cycles of this
research study.
Validity and Reliability
It is essential to a social inquiry to demonstrate that the methods used were reliable
and the conclusions valid (Silverman, 2000). Trustworthiness of qualitative research
can be a contentious issue because some scholars only find research credible or
trustworthy if it fits their prejudices. For example, a more extreme relativist stance is
taken by Wolcott (1994) who rejects the notion of evaluative criteria such as
reliability and validity because of the inappropriateness of its privileged position.
Lincoln and Guba (1985) avoid the terms validity and reliability, preferring instead
‘credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability’.
Validity tests that the researcher has measured that which they intended, and
reliability is the consistency of findings and whether the research could be duplicated
with the same conclusions (Hopkins, 1985). Relevant to exploratory research, Yin
identifies three forms of validity – construct validity, external validity and reliability.
Construct validity is the degree of certainty that the phenomenon has been
appropriately measured and studied. External validity is the confidence that the
findings can be generalised beyond the immediate case. Reliability is the conviction
that the research findings are repeatable.
Personal Bias
Bias is the main validity concern for the type of research conducted in this research
study. There are three possible biases (Robson, 2002): reactivity, respondent bias
and researcher bias. Reactivity is concerned with the way in which the researcher’s
presence may influence the behaviour of the other study participants. Respondent
bias includes obstructiveness and the withholding of information if the researcher is
perceived as a threat. Researcher bias can be caused by assumptions and
preconceptions by the researcher which may affect the researcher’s behaviour, the
kinds of questions asked or the selection of data for reporting and analysis. The
researcher must be aware that their judgement may be affected through their close
relationship with the participant group (Cohen et al, 2003).
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The collaborative nature of participative action research lessens any biased impact of
the presence of the researcher as they are accepted as democratic and unthreatening
equals. Equally, the collegiate team approach of participatory action research means
that peer pressure will reduce respondent bias by any member of the action research
team. As an equal member of the research team, the researcher will, like all other
members, have their assumptions and preconceptions challenged by peer review.
Respondent validation, in which the researcher returns their findings to the
participants for verification, was routinely followed in this study.
Triangulation
Triangulation is the use of two or more data gathering methods in order to validate
the phenomenon under investigation (Hitchcock and Hughes, 1989). Denzin (1988)
has identified four types of triangulation: data, observer, methodological and theory.
In this research study, data was collected by more than a single method (interviews,
action research cycles, documents, archival material, observations). Every member
of the action research teams was an independent observer and provided peer review.
At the conclusion of the action research cycles reported in this research study, the
interpretations and understandings of the action research teams were confirmed with
the departmental staff and management. Equally, there were regular reviews of the
research in presentations to academic research communities.
Alternative research methods considered
Interviews
Interviews were used throughout the research design. Initially interviews were used
with members of the senior management team to identify a significant problem of
concern to them for this action research programme. Subsequently, during the action
research cycles, interpretations and understandings were confirmed in interviews
with the relevant senior managers.
Workshops
If the action research cycles are disregarded as forms of workshops, then workshops
were only used with departmental staff from within the researched organization to
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validate and confirm the data, interpretation and understandings of the action
research teams.
Survey Questionnaires
‘Survey research is the method of collecting information by asking a set of preformed questions in a predetermined sequence in a structured questionnaire to a sample of individuals drawn so as to be representative of a defined population’ (Hutton, 1990: 8).
As this was an exploratory inquiry with no hypotheses to test, it was not possible to
pre-forecast the relevant questions. The use of survey questionnaires for the method
was rejected in favour of semi-structured interviews.
Observation
This technique is highly subjective as it is describing behaviour by others through
the perceptions and bias of the researcher, although, as it can record peoples’ actions
in their natural environment it has an appeal (Robson, 1993). Observational methods
require disciplined training and rigorous preparation (Patton, 1990). Robson (1993)
describes a participant observation as a qualitative style with roots in anthropology
studies. As a participant in the action research programme reported herein, the
researcher was observing the other participants, their processes and the organization
which formed the context of the study. However, the learning and personal
development of the actors participating within an action research programme more
closely met the requirements of the organization studied and the research criteria.
Observation, therefore, formed only part of the participatory action research process.
Documents
Whenever possible, documents and archival retrieval was carried out to provide data
input, along with other literature reviewed and also to validate and triangulate the
research. Document collection and analysis formed a continuous role in the action
research cycles. Documents were therefore part of the action research process.
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Ethical Considerations
There are four ethical considerations (Bogdan and Bicklen, 1992): participant’s
anonymity, participant co-operation and disclose to them of the nature of the
research, honour any contract with the programme’s sponsors, and the researcher has
a duty to report accurate findings. In this research study, all of these four points
were included in the study protocol (copy included in Appendix One to this
document). In the study protocol (Yin, 1994), informed consent was obtained from
all interviewees and action research participants at the beginning of every meeting.
The selected Research Approach
This chapter has worked its way from a statement upon the researcher’s
philosophical commitments, through the choice of research style, the purpose of the
research, the research strategy and the research type. These are summarised in Table
10.
Table 12: Selected Research Approach (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
Research Question How does government cascade strategy from a
middle management perspective in a local
government authority?
Philosophical Commitment Phenomenology
Research Style Qualitative
Purpose of Research Exploratory
Research Strategy Case Study
Research Type Action
The researched organization requested a participatory action research approach to aid
their learning. Participatory action research can be understood as a variant of a case
study and a field experiment (Galliers 1992). Following the constructivist paradigm
described within this chapter, there is not a single universal approach to all problem
situations (Galliers 1994). The case study methodology is suitable as it is possible
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for a single case study or a limited number of case studies to identify general
properties (Baskerville 1996; Berg et al. 1995; Fleck 1979; Galliers 1994;
Gummesson 1991). Participatory action research is an appropriate method for
generating theory (Glasser and Strauss 1967; Kjellen and Soderman 1980) while
expanding scientific knowledge (Baskerville 1999). Participatory action research
permits intervention by the researcher into the events. In most instances, planning
and recording interventions for evaluation purposes forms the essential mechanism
of participatory action research. Participatory action research represents a highly
unstructured field experiment (Galliers 1992).
This research is a variant of a case study. Data has been collected for the period
(1999 to 2005) comprising four years retrospective data plus two years of real-time
observation through participatory action research. Separate case studies of
departments (secondary units of analysis) are embedded in the overall service area
case study (primary unit of study). This allows contextual data at multiple levels to
be gathered about the wider organization, whilst maintaining focus upon the primary
unit of analysis, which is the main service area (Yin 1994).
The participatory action research methods evolved from the view that research
should lead to change and therefore change should be an integral part of the research
process itself (Easterby-Smith et al. 1995). If somebody really wants to understand
something well they should try changing it (French and Bell 1978; Holmen 1979),
this is what participatory action research does. Participatory action research stresses
the importance of collaboration between the researched and the researcher
(Baskerville and Myers 2004) so that a shared understanding develops (Reason and
Rowan 1981).
Methods used, Validity and Trustworthiness
The Leisure service area was the subject of this case study and its main departments
of Administration, Leisure Centres, and Libraries. All middle managers from these
three departments participated in the participative action research. There were three
Administration managers, four leisure and four library managers. They were not a
representative sample, they were the whole cohort. The aim of the participative
action research method adopted for this research study was to answer the research
question by revealing any gaps between the espoused theory and practice. Five
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individual interviews were carried out with the members of the senior management
team. Each interview lasted, on average about 90 minutes. Open-ended questions
were used, which were a consistent set of prompts to which participants could
respond in detail (Giola and Thomas 1996). Subsequently, group interviews were
conducted with the teams that reported directly to each of these senior managers.
Action research projects were then carried out with three teams of middle managers
from different service departments. The research unit of analysis was middle
management, in line with the research question:
How does government cascade strategy from a middle management perspective in
a local government authority?
The case study results were presented to the senior management of the service area
(primary unit of focus) to check for any omissions and factual accuracies, therefore
providing internal validation of the findings (Miles and Hubermann 1994).
Documentary data were collected, including archived documents. Typically, the
data sources included emails, instructions, reports and publications. Secondary data,
including UK and Welsh Assembly government policy documents and government-
initiated inquiries and reports were accessed. All of this documentation was used to
triangulate the data collected from the participatory action research teams. As per
the study protocol, care was taken at each stage of the data collection and analysis to
ensure triangulation of data, in recognition of the possibility of researcher and
informant bias. Triangulation helps to assemble a more complete and accurate
picture of practices through converging sources of evidence (Eisenhardt 1989b);
(Jick 1979), (Yin 1994). These multiple sources were designed to counteract any
potential bias as a result of relying upon a single source of data (Denzin 1989;
Eisenhardt 1989b), especially where retrospective analysis is concerned (Golden
1992).
The participatory action research cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflecting
is not often as neat or progressive as suggested. Each phase may cycle back and
forth through these steps and the conclusions may be that the next phase may need to
address a different problem with different participants using a different research
approach. It does not matter if the participants have faithfully followed the steps or
not. The success criterion is whether the participants have a sense of development in
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their practices, their understandings of their practices and the contexts of their
practice (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000). The research method adopted will identify
any gaps between espoused theory and practice by using the six question method in
preference to the alternative action research methods discussed in this chapter.
The development of a protocol for the investigation was a critical step before data
was collected (Yin 1994). Yin developed the protocol as a way of dealing with the
problems of reliability. This protocol contained the instrument as well as the
procedures and general rules. It summarised the field procedures and the steps to
obtain informed consent of all the participants. Informed consent was obtained
before each interview. A copy of the study protocol can be found at Appendix One.
The study protocol outlined the purpose of the collaborative field research for the
benefit of the participants. Under procedures, it detailed the initial scheduling of
field visits and the determination of persons to participate. In addition to specifying
that informed consent would be obtained from participants, it clarified who was
conducting the research, what was required, and it emphasised that each participant
was a volunteer and may withdraw at any time. Participants were assured of
confidentiality and that specific comments would not be attributed to individuals.
Permission to record was requested from all participants before commencement.
Any questions from the participants about the research were answered by the
researcher before beginning the session.
The details of the participatory action research cycle for each of the six questions are
summarised in the next chapter.
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4. THE PARTICIPATIVE ACTION RESEARCH CYCLES
Introduction
The studies reported in this thesis set out to identify how strategy was implemented
within one large public sector organisation, a local government authority (“LGA”);
and to ascertain which of the many implementation theories were applied in practice.
The service area covered education and leisure. The studies specifically approached
the problem from the perspective of middle management. It was middle managers
who had to balance the concerns of senior managers and politicians whilst delivering
services to the client (McKevitt and Lawton 1996).
As stated earlier, the researcher was ‘engaged’ by the LGA to facilitate an action
research programme to identify suitable performance measures for strategic
objectives. This programme was the basis for the academic research reported herein
on how government cascades strategy, from the perspective of middle management.
The programme followed action research cycles. The cycles built and tested theories
bridging the gap between research theory and practice (Friedman 2006), following
the research framework of six questions.
Each stage of the Participative Action Research (“PAR”) programme cycled through
the plan-act-observe-reflect process but was then followed by another observe-reflect
process by comparing the first findings to the relevant literature. The research
cycled through several deductive (theory stimulated following the relevant literature)
and inductive periods (inspired from the data collected), which was in turn
deductively motivated by reference of this data to the relevant published literature, at
each stage of the action research process. This action science/research method and
data collection enabled the compilation of this case study. The data included 23
recorded interviews, each about ninety minutes long, the action research cycles
described herein, as well as documents and retrieved archive material.
The spiralling cycles and emergent nature of action research meant that new areas of
literature were continually identified whilst new data were generated constantly,
including during the reflexive process of writing up the thesis, and new meanings
and lines of inquiry were regularly suggested (Davis 2004). A continuous cyclical
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process was generated as new interpretations were assembled from the examination
of new literature and the field experience. Equally, writing was also a ‘way of
knowing’ that was a method of discovery and analysis (Richardson 2000). Such
discovery and analysis continued throughout these last chapters. Action research
was seen to be emergent and therefore an unpredictable form of research where it
was not possible to specify where it would end up (Winter 1998). This emergent
construction was described as “bricoleur” or quilt-making (Denzin and Lincoln
2000), which added rigour, breadth, complexity, richness and depth to the inquiry.
The review of literature in action research cannot be confined to a single chapter.
Literature was seen to be closely aligned with data analysis and interpretation that
was dominant in the previous chapter as well as the discussion chapters. Literature
was accessed continuously throughout this research programme; before, during and
after data collection and interpretation. Such continuity mirrors the reflexive nature
of action research in which understandings developed from literature and practice
generate ideas and actions, and vice versa in a cyclical spiral (Davis 2004).
This chapter is a mix of narrative, critical commentary, literature review, data
analysis and interpretation. Such a mix is the nature of action research. Research
conclusions are therefore the exploration of issues and dilemmas, the raising of
questions, and the presentation of possibilities (Davis 2004). These tentative and
emergent findings are compatible with the role of the author as collaborator and
participant (Winter 1996) rather than observer and judge.
In this chapter, following the framework of six questions (Friedman, 2006), the first
action research cycle was utilised to identify the problem and issues by asking the
question ‘what do actors perceive as the problem?’ This stage was followed by a
reflective review of the literature relevant to the identified problem of gaining staff
commitment in order to answer the second question ‘what results do they wish to
achieve?’ This second cycle looked at the top-down strategies intended to meet the
objective of successful implementation of government policy/strategy by committed
staff. The third cycle asked the question ‘What are the intended strategies to achieve
this?’ The answers to the fourth cycle question of ‘what strategies are actually
produced?’ revealed a gap between the bottom-up and top-down strategizing process
adopted. The fifth question asked ‘what were actual strategy outcomes?’ The actual
outcomes of the strategizing process were revealed in the fifth cycle that identified
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the role of the street-bureaucrat, or the ways that professionals use their discretion in
interpreting the strategy, in spite of the system designed to eliminate all local
professional discretion. Effectively, it was ‘business as usual’ irrespective of policy
or strategy. The final, sixth cycle elaborates the unintended outcomes due to the
actual strategizing process in use by asking the question ‘why unintended
outcomes?’ The following schematic (Figure 4) provides pictorial detail of the data
gathering process described above.
Figure 4: Schematic of PAR Questions and Findings (Developed for the purposes of
this thesis)
First PAR cycle: How do actors perceive the situation or the
problem?
The first task the Participatory Action Research (‘PAR’) team set for itself was to
identify the drivers and challenges for this project. A map of the drivers of change
and the challenges facing the service area was drawn up. The map summarised the
context for this stage of the research programme. This contextual map was drawn
with the collaboration and support of other members of the senior management team.
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The external driver for change was identified by the team to be the requirement for
Best Value. At this point, literature and reflection upon Best Value was necessary to
ensure that all participants were fully informed and understood the issue and any
implications. Best Value is only part of the changes and requirements imposed upon
local government by the UK central government, often referred to as New Public
Management (“NPM”). Structural changes to decision-making were made to ensure
that executive decisions were taken by elected councillors and not management, or
professionals. The council set the policy and agreed the budget but it was an
executive sub-group of councillors, or the elected mayor, who were responsible for
policy delivery. A scrutiny and overview function was performed by those
councillors who were not part of the executive.
Each local authority was required to complete a community strategy document that
was approved by the full council but implemented by the executive group. This
community strategy was required to include programmes from other public agencies
with actions prioritised by the Local Strategic Partnership (Allmendinger et al.
2003). These post-1997 changes had moved emphasis away from the previous
committee style of organization and towards a greater focus upon outcomes and
citizens’ requirements. The aim of Best Value was to change services so that they
were cheaper and with clearer standards for cost and quality but additionally, the
services had to be acceptable to local citizens through greater responsiveness and
accountability.
The emphasis upon performance through Best Value challenged the powerbases of
the traditional functional hierarchies of the professionals (Woodman 1999). From
one view point, the increase in regulation and scrutiny was seen as an attempt to
replace quality of service with quantity (Tewdwr-Jones and Harris 1998). The
increased regulation and scrutiny were considered to have limited professional
discretion and undermined professional ethos. Traditional professional values and
attitudes were seen as being challenged (Allmendinger et al. 2003).
The changes delivered further challenges to professional independence. The
pluralistic external environment of multiple, varied stakeholders (‘general public
good’) was replaced with one single stakeholder – the councillor. All of the
decisions and actions by the professionals were now subject to scrutiny by
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councillors. Professionals were also subject to Best Value reviews of their own
services, as well as benchmarking and possibly competition.
Following this period of review of the relevant literature and reflection, the initial
findings of the external and internal strategy drivers seemed quite clear to the
research team. The map drawn, as shown below in Figure 5, entitled The Context
Drivers and Challenges, reflected a predominant concern for the challenges faced by
the strategizing process. There were several issues around defining and setting
suitable targets and also the lack of any equivalent historical data from which to
draw comparisons and conclusions. The other significant cluster of issues revolved
around strategy implementation. This included how to cascade strategy down the
organisation and how to gain commitment from all of the employees involved. The
converse was a grave concern: how to diffuse and eliminate dissention and rejection
of the strategy and its strategic objectives with individual targets.
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Figure 5: The Context Drivers & Challenges (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
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The researcher’s reflections at this point upon prior review of the literature were that
the PAR group had anticipated the issues to be more broadly around how radically
different priorities were following New Public Management (“NPM”) (Aucoin 1990;
Dawson and Dargie 1999), and the resulting managerialism (Gramberg and Teicher
2000).
Upon further reflection and discussion by the team, it was agreed by the team that
although the map of drivers looked comprehensive it was too detailed and lacked any
indication of the key issues. Focus was lost. Eventually, following further
discussion and open reflection by the team, it was agreed that the key issue was the
implementation (or ‘imposition’) of performance measures upon the workforce,
whom the managers saw as reluctant or resisting change. From this map, the team
found it clear that the staff needed to identify their key measures and collect the data
with the conviction that it would help to improve their working lives. If not, it
would be seen as another ‘number crunching’ exercise with little purpose. It was
concluded by the team that the staff would need to participate in the process of
setting performance targets for themselves and their peers, if ownership and
conviction were to be assured.
It was agreed and planned to run PAR teams within each department to identify their
own strategy and targets so as to deliver the service area’s strategic objectives. In
order to prepare for those teams, it was decided to run the next strategy team PAR
cycle to discover and learn about the relevant government policies that set strategic
objectives for the service area. These would then form the initial data to launch the
departmental teams.
The following Table 13 summarises the first cycle of the participatory action
research that established the perceived problem and context of the research.
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Table 13: Participatory Action Research Cycle to answer the question: How do actors
perceive the situation or the problem? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
Plan Discover the drivers and challenges
Act Survey of senior management team
Observe Map of drivers and challenges
Reflect Lack of focus upon key issues
Second PAR cycle: What results do they wish to achieve (i.e.,
objectives)?
From the initial research cycle summarized in the above Table 13, it was concluded
by the PAR team that the key objective was to gain staff commitment to the
implementation of policies. This conclusion was derived by the PAR team from the
reflection process that had occurred in relation to the map of drivers and challenges
as part of the first cycle. That map revolved around the successful implementation
of strategies. Upon closer inspection, reflection and discussion, the key challenge of
staff commitment was surfaced by the team. The issue of staff commitment was
seen to underpin the majority of points identified as challenges.
At this stage, the team requested a briefing upon ‘commitment’ because although
deciding that that was what they needed, they did not have a consistent or coherent
shared understanding of the concept. The literature was reviewed. Commitment to
strategy has long been identified as crucial to the successful implementation of
strategy (Brodwin and Bougeois 1984; Floyd and Wooldridge 1992; Hrebiniak and
Joyce 1984; Mintzberg 1994; Ouchi 1981; Quinn 1980; Westley 1990; Wooldridge
and Floyd 1990a). Within the strategy and implementation literature, middle
management is often identified as being key to strategy implementation success or
sometimes deliberate failure (Guth and MacMillan 1986).
A widely accepted (Angle and Perry 1981; Kim and Mauborne 1993; Randall 1987;
Wooldridge and Floyd 1990b) framework for commitment has been defined
(Mowday and Steers 1979; Porter et al. 1974) as consisting of three factors. First, is
a strong belief in, and acceptance of, the organization’s goals and values. Second, is
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the willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization. Third, is a
definite desire to maintain organizational membership.
There was seen to be two dominant approaches for bridging the commitment gap
between strategy formulation and implementation. First, that the strategizing process
should become more inclusive. Second, the process ought to be less formalized
‘strategic planning’. The literature on commitment appears to take two broad
approaches. First is the more traditional approach of reward and punishment to
influence behaviour. Second is a focus on appropriate processes and practices for a
more inclusive approach.
The traditional view of behaviour control is based upon Agency Theory (Eisenhardt
1989a; Harris and Raviv 1979; Jensen and Meckling 1976; Ross 1973) within which
commitment is viewed as fear of punishment or self-interest. These two concepts
govern the way an individual will behave when acting as an agent for a principal.
By contrast, the appropriate processes and practices approach calls for more
individual freedom and opportunities for development in a plea for the
‘humanization’ of work (Dessler 1999; Kinnear and Sutherland 2000).
Inclusive strategy (Oswald et al. 1994) has been suggested as the panacea for a more
appropriate approach. Inclusiveness was seen to comprise the need for everybody in
a team to be involved (Korsgaard and Schweiger 1995) for activity to occur
throughout the organization (Hamel 1996); for a dialogue or conversation to be held
vertically and horizontally across the organization (Westley 1990); and for the
opportunity for subsidiaries to challenge corporate strategic decisions (Kim and
Mauborne 1993). De-formalizing the strategizing process has been strongly
propounded (Mintzberg 1994). Large bureaucratic organizations are liable to drift
into excessive planning. Such drift limits an organization’s ability to flex and adapt
as well as draining its energy for change and strategic capabilities.
Commitment has traditionally relied upon the public sector ethos. The
characteristics of public sector ethos have been defined (O'Toole 1993) as working
altruistically for the public good; working collegially to promote that public good,
and integrity in dealing with the many and diverse problems. Others have identified
a set of core values that inform the behaviour in local government (Pratchett and
Wingfield 1994). These are accountability; honesty and impartiality; serving the
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community; altruistic motivation; and a sense of loyalty to community, profession
and organization. Pratchett and Wingfield’s research established that although there
was a general consensus upon the core values, there was no universal public sector
ethos because these values were interpreted differently. This understanding may
have reflected the internal pluralism of the local government organization as it
embraced several different public services, delivered by different professionals and
at different levels. It was this public sector ethos that some believed was being
undermined by NPM (Doig 1995; Hoggett 1996; Malde 1994; Marr 1996; O'Toole
1993; Pratchett and Wingfield 1994).
The PAR team, now informed by the literature, was clear that the perceived problem
was the lack of support for implementing strategy and measuring its success. The
objective the PAR team sought was to gain commitment from the staff to the
implementation of government policy. The environmental changes imposed by the
introduction of tools and practices from NPM and its resulting impact upon the
traditional public sector ethos were the key influencing factors.
Third PAR cycle: What strategies do they intend to use in order to
achieve these objectives?
The third participatory action research cycle undertaken by the team was to carry out
research to identify the numerous UK, Welsh Assembly Government, and local
government policy documents that could and/or should be linked to the “service
area” strategy. The service area covered education and leisure. It soon became
apparent that there were an enormous number of policy documents. As the
documents were identified, they were studied and the key themes noted along with
any performance measures specified (a copy may be seen at Appendix Two). As the
list became longer, it was decided to code their importance/relevance for ease of
understanding. A traffic lights colouring system was used. Documents that were
core to the service area policy and strategy were coloured red in the document shown
in the appendices. Documents of secondary importance to the service area were
coloured amber. Those documents relevant to only one or a few services delivered
by the service area and partnership working were coded green. Those documents in
black were for background information only. The policy documents were also cross-
referenced to show how they fit together.
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Once the relevant policy documents were identified, they were put in to a table (see
Table 14 below). The government policy documents were listed in the first column,
similar or linked local government policy documents were listed in the second
column. Lastly, any service area documents were linked in the third column. This
table was used as an overhead slide in presentations during February and March,
2004 to separate meetings of the academic research community, and staff and
management of the service area.
Table 14: Government documents cascading strategy February, 2004 (Developed for
the purposes of this thesis)
Presentations, which were routinely made as the research progressed, acted as
‘reality checks’ for and with the staff as well as validity checks for this academic
research. Some of the detail originally contained on the slides presented to the staff
and management of the LGA (see Figure 6 below) have been made more anonymous
to protect the identity of the organization. The last presentation was made in March
2010 to the Business School’s research community.
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2 September, 2004 © Martin Whitehill 4
Recap of story so far…
• Review of Documentation– UK, National, City, Department– Academic journals & popular press
• Interviews
Figure 6: Presentation slide to senior management, September, 2004 (Developed for the
purposes of this thesis)
For national, and UK political reasons, the Welsh government policy documents had
clearly superimposed objectives between local government and Whitehall (UK
government). Welsh policy documents were identified as being those relevant to the
service area. With the establishment of the new Welsh Assembly, there had been a
flurry of research studies commissioned that were subsequently adopted as national
policy documents. Several policy documents were found to set objectives for
services that were in whole or part supplied by the service area such as “Wales, a
better country” (Government 2003); “The learning country” (Government 2001); “A
winning Wales” (Government 2002); and “Climbing higher” (Government 2005).
The various relevant policy documents are summarised below for each level of
cascade (National, and Local).
National policy documents
The Welsh government set the strategic agenda for Wales. The WAG published the
first strategic plan for Wales (“Betterwales.com”) for the financial year 2001-2
(Government 2000). The stated intention of the plan was:
“…to guide partners and agencies to shape their own programmes so that we could all make the most positive impact on the issues that matter to Wales”
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In 2003-4, a follow-up strategy was launched - “Wales: A Better Country”
(Government 2003). This policy document set out key commitments and aims
within six key themes. These themes were education and training; economic policy;
culture and sport; countryside, planning and the environment; communities; health
and social care. Whilst the primary policy drivers for the service area were
contained in two themes, namely education and training, and culture and sport,
nevertheless the strategic direction of service development and delivery was also
influenced by three other areas namely economic policy; communities, health and
social care.
There were two key strategic documents from the Welsh government that related
specifically to education and training, and culture and sport. Together, information
in those documents influenced the strategic direction of the service area. One was
The Learning Country (Government 2001) whose objectives, especially those under
the sub-heading “Extending Entitlement” were seen to be particularly relevant. The
other key policy document was “Climbing Higher, A draft strategy for sport and
active recreation” (Government 2005).
Local policy documents
The Community Strategy is a statutory document that must be developed and
published by each council. The local council produced theirs together with their
partners in the private, public and voluntary sectors. The key themes of this strategy
document reflected the strategic direction set by the Welsh government. The key
themes were education and training for life; enterprise and transport; sport, leisure
and culture; environment; housing and social justice; health, social care and well-
being.
The key policy objectives relevant to the service area were contained within
education and training for life, and sport, leisure and culture. Again, other policy
themes impacted upon the service development and delivery, especially health,
social care and well-being. It was obvious to the PAR team that the community
strategy for the local council plan’s objectives mirrored those of the Welsh
government in their ‘Wales, A better country’ document (Government 2003).
However, the key document that outlined the Council’s priorities was a white paper
on the future. The paper was published in January 2004. Prior to this publication,
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the strategic direction ‘for the authority’ (the language of the Council’s management
and staff) had been documented in another paper outlining ambitions for the local
authority area, and prior to that in the mayor’s annual address.
The white paper on the future identified eight priority themes for the council (a
greater place; improving services; engaging with citizens; unlocking potential;
promoting health, social care and well-being; tackling disadvantage; promoting
growth, and protecting the environment). Within this publication were links to the
six key themes of the community strategy document.
Upon reflection, the members of the strategy team noted that it was themes (such as
inclusivity), rather than LGA functional activities, that linked the documents. These
themes appeared to be cross-functional and in many instances cross-entity, some
even bridging the public and private sectors (such as reduce obesity). The service
area was predominantly structured by functions that reflected the different
professionals that staffed and ran the organization, and not the policy themes. Table
15 below summarises the third cycle of the PAR.
Table 15: Participatory action research cycle to answer the question: What strategies
do they intend to use in order to achieve these objectives? (Developed for the purposes
of this thesis)
Plan Discover relevant government and local policies
Act Trawl libraries for relevant policies
Observe Tables drawn-up showing the connections and relevance
Reflect Social themes going across functions
Fourth PAR cycle: What strategies do they actually produce in
action?
The team considered that there was an issue beyond the linking of policy documents.
They decided to piece together the strategizing processes that formed this cascading
of government policy. The team assembled an audit trail from individual
government policy statements, through the organization’s policies and department
strategic objectives, to individual objectives.
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A map or figure was drawn to reflect the organisation’s strategising processes; levels
of responsibilities and the contributing documents; regulations; and instructions from
the stakeholders. It was shown as a pyramid, and is shown below in Figure 7,
Linkages from government policy to individual objectives. At the apex of the
pyramid, “Corporate Aims” were generated by the Board and Corporate Managers
from government policy documents that therefore formed the basis of the
organization’s strategy. These documents identified the key themes for the
organization. These themes were translated into measurable objectives and activities
in the organization’s performance plan document.
“Portfolio Aims” appeared in the performance plan document and was the link
between the organization and service area aims. “The Service Area Aims and
Objectives” were developed based on the corporate requirements identified in the
above documents. These aims and objectives were then documented in the annual
service area Business Plan.
The service area adopted a number of key performance indicators for the service for
the financial year 2000-1. They had been added to and developed since, principally
as better information became available. The performance measures related to three
strategic areas of the service namely customers and service delivery; finance, and
employees.
The data for measuring the performance in respect of customers and service delivery
were captured by annual sample surveys of users of the services. The survey asked
questions about the number of individuals within the household receiving the
service, the degree of customer satisfaction, and equality.
Financial performance measurement was by way of the budgetary system (staying
within budgeted cost limits); efficiency (cost per output) and leverage (resources
gained from other sources). Employee performance was measured upon equality,
absence, and training and development. The organization had not run an annual staff
appraisal system for some years.
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Figure 7: Linkages from government policy to individual objectives (Developed by the
PAR Team and reproduced for the purposes of this thesis)
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Upon reflection, the team realised there appeared to be at least a weak connection
between the strategic objectives and the action in the field. Personal objectives
tended to be more operational and expressed in aspirational terms rather than as
outcome measures. In discussion, one issue that surfaced was that staff opened the
doors each morning for business as usual but many either went no further or acted
how they felt best, not necessarily as the strategy document proposed.
The PAR team revealed top-down implementation in the form of increased statistical
reporting required by government policy. This reporting had the impact of changing
behaviour in order to deliver the performance indicators aspired by government
policy. There was evidence that although changing generic behaviour benefited the
majority, there were clients who would have been better served by the previous
policy but no local discretion was permitted by the performance targets.
For example:
“We have to fulfil standards set by the Welsh Assembly. There are Welsh library standards that we have to comply with or at least their recommendations that we have to comply with.”
“The biggest impact on us was the ruling that we should not keep a publication more than eight and a half years old from the reprint date. So that you provide the public with up to date good quality material all the time. Which some of us found a bit hard to do. From the leisure point of view, it is a shame, we get people coming in and asking for Howard Springs...and I mean he has gone. Unless there is a reprint and the thinking is that if it’s good enough and it’s wanted, it will be reprinted. That was hard at first, you know. We just do it now.” (Library Manager)
The library service had routinely to provide statistics to the government proving that
the stock of books was current and not old stock. This meant that after the
prescribed age all books were removed from the library service, irrespective of
condition or demand. Some of these books were in great demand by the community
but being out of print, the community were deprived of their chosen, preferred
reading. Interestingly, the enforced change in behaviour by these systems was seen
as peripheral and not core strategy to the professionals. The collection of
performance statistics was just another task that had to be completed by somebody.
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From the analysis of government policies, it was evident that there was a move away
from aspirations stated in terms of the government and its agencies’ functional
structure towards themes that traversed departments and agencies. An example was
the prevention of ill-health which aspired to a complete life-style change for the
population. This policy covered health, education, sport and physical activity as well
as food manufacturers, retailers and caterers, amongst others. It would have required
systems that went across entities; a different type of management, organizational
structure and culture and it may also have required different professionals with
different skills.
There was clear evidence of structural imbalance between government policy and
government structure to implement that policy. Professional service organizations in
the private sector had inverted their organizational pyramids to show the customer
along the base line which was now at the top. The chief executive officer was at the
apex, which was now shown at the bottom of the organization in support of the
client-serving front-line employees. This symbolic organization chart enforced the
culture that the organization was there to serve their chosen client segment in the
best possible way. This meant that the organization and its business model ought to
be completely focused upon the requirements of the client segment. A similar
approach had not been taken by this ‘authority’.
From the evidence gathered, it was not clear that this segmentation and focus had
been followed in the public sector. At least one of the PAR teams did collect
documentary evidence and maps of the move towards information access points for
clients such as web sites, promotion of telephone help lines, one-stop shops and one-
service points. Evidence was collected by this team showing separate buildings in
close proximity offering public services by different departments and agencies to the
same targeted client segment. These moves may make it easier for the client base to
contact the service deliverers, assuming they find the correct building or access
point, but it has not changed the nature of the service delivery.
The evidence gathered by the PAR team though indicated that each functional
department was operating to the best of their service capabilities irrespective of other
service providers or the holistic requirements of the recipient constituents:
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“Parks built a playground outside one of my play centres. They’ve done it twice now. Right? And at no point did they ever come to us, even to the staff of the play centre and say look ‘even if we’ve got this design, would you like to check it out with the kids’. The first thing we know about it is the JCBs have turned up. And that is literally ten, twelve, fifteen yards outside our gate.” (Play & Leisure Manager)
The numerous services may be better received by client segments if the delivery
were tailored specifically for each different community or ‘segment’. This greater
focus could cut out waste. Effectively, strategic business units could be established
for different client segments and the delivery of the different public services
allocated to the relevant ones.
By finely tuning the service more to the target client community, it could be both
more effective and efficient. Rural communities require different services or
services delivered differently to other urban communities. Equally, young families
require different service deliveries to those who are at the pre-retirement stage of
their life.
There was evidence of bottom-up implementation with the restating and rewriting of
routine operations in the language and topics of the current policy themes. This
approach may have reflected inward-looking bureaucracies resistant to change or
management promoting conformity, reliability and basic standards of service, but
indicated remarkable stability. There was no evidence of the adoption of a
contingency approach. The fourth cycle of the participatory action research is
summarised in Table 16, next.
Table 16: Participatory action research cycle to answer the question: What strategies
do they actually produce in action? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
Plan Link policies, strategies and targets with individuals
Act Collect audit trail from policies to targets and actions
Observe Map showing the linkages
Reflect Link not clear from functional areas (strategy/operations break in the
link). “we do what we think best”. Gap between strategy and
implemented strategy.
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Fifth PAR cycle: What were the actual outcomes of these
strategies?
The strategy team felt now that they needed to review critically the service area’s
approved strategy document. They felt that it required a framework or additional
structure to understand how it all interconnected. They decided to count the strategic
objectives they had to deliver and categorise them by nature of spend (capital,
revenue – split between maintenance and ‘new ventures’). The performance
measures for each were also analysed between the different types of targets: input,
process, output and outcome targets.
Below in Table 17 is a summary of the 200 strategic objectives set for the service
area. From the analysis, 136 of these related to existing services and nine were for
new services. Of the rest, 18 were to write more plans, 28 were capital spend and
nine were on staff development. Analysing the nature of the objectives, it was
discovered that 81 were on input, 82 on process, 2 only on output and none were on
outcomes. Of all the objectives, 166 were qualitative in nature and only 34 were
expressed as quantities, although several of these only expressed an unquantified
‘increase’ or set targets without reference to the current level of performance. The
200 strategic objectives for the service area were seen to contribute towards
delivering 17 corporate objectives plus 15 other departmental initiatives including
staff development. Some of the objectives were to start projects that if further
analysed would contain many more objectives. The objectives described above are
summarised below in Table 17: Summary of Strategic Objectives and have an
accompanying note drawn up by the PAR team upon reflection on the table contents.
Some of the items listed in these notes are picked up and addressed in the section
following the notes.
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Table 17: Summary of Strategic Objectives (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
All Type of Objective Nature of Objective
Type
of
Depts Capital Maintain New Staff more Measure
Services Services Develp plans Input Process Output Outcome Quant Qual
28 136 9 9 18 81 82 2 0 34 166
200
165
200
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Note to Summary of Strategic Objectives:
These initiatives go towards delivering 17 corporate objectives plus 15 other initiatives internal to departments
The strategy document structure reflects the main corporate political themes and does not summarise by department
The organization is not structured to deliver the political themes and policies. It is organized along traditional functional lines. The political
policies reflect the clients, or ‘market’ but the organization reflects the professions who deliver the services.
The question ‘why?’ needs to be asked, perhaps several times, to discover a credible reason for any of these initiatives and to drive the focus
from input and process towards the desired outcomes end of the process
Many initiatives focus upon stimulating attendance but who is measuring the outputs and more especially the outcomes? Do they join-up? Who
is monitoring both the efficiency & effectiveness of the outcomes?
Many of these initiatives are mixed bundles of plans & input focus. Therefore, the strategic objectives in the strategy document are more than
those counted here.
Source: Developed for the purposes of this thesis
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In order to gain a better understanding of why these services and initiatives were
being delivered, the question ‘why?’ had to be asked, frequently several times. This
line of questioning drove the focus from input processes towards outcome
aspirations. However, it was recognised that qualitative input and process goals
were far less risky than outcomes that often took longer and were often the result of
combined initiatives. This predominance of objectives upon process inputs raised
many generic questions. Many of the initiatives focused upon stimulating take-up of
the services but a question remained as to who was measuring their impact upon the
outputs and more especially the outcomes. Similarly, it was unclear to the members
of the PAR team whether or not the initiatives were interconnected. These initiatives
may have reflected the most efficient way of providing these professional services
but it was unclear to the PAR team members if the services were the most effective
for delivering the outcomes.
The strategy document structure reflected the main corporate political themes and
did not relate any objectives or activities to individual departments. The
organization was not structured to deliver the political themes and policies. It was
organized along traditional functional lines. The political policies reflected the
clients, or ‘market’; but the organization structure reflected the professions who
delivered the services. The political themes and corporate objectives spanned the
organization, across departments, service areas and even other agencies and service
providers. The objectives were not managed as separate projects but each
department reclassified on paper its on-going business under the latest political
themes that were imposed.
From the findings of the PAR cycle described above, there was clear evidence to the
PAR team of the traditional split of policy-making and policy administration
(implementation). There was no clear evidence of strategic management having
replaced public, bureaucratic administration.
From the evidence of the findings of the PAR cycle described above, the impact of
NPM was found in the increasing number of operational targets set by politicians.
Due to the application of NPM that tended to be skewed towards agency theory, and
top-down command and control, however, the huge benefits of strategy and strategic
management were not obtained. ‘Strategy’ and ‘strategic management’ were
implemented as a change of label for the same top-down leadership approach.
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The strategy documents clearly evidenced the traditional trait of shopping-lists with
no discrimination or elimination of alternatives. There was a clear lack of focus for
future direction and action. This lack of focus was emphasised by the lack of shared
vision by the field workers and the apparent dislocation and partial loss of
professional mission as the delivery was increasingly being demanded and measured
in terms of cross-cutting themes not specific to a single profession. There was
evidence of short-term horizons and acts of inward-looking where existing resources
(and services) were matched to the latest political themes or policies.
There was evidence of street-level bureaucrats. These professionals were likely to
face dilemmas during implementation of policy due to work autonomy,
responsibility to clients and a duty to implement policy as directed. A minority of
instances were found where field workers managed some of these dilemmas by
influencing policy and politicians’ decisions and others by politicising the
community to conduct the influencing. In a large number of instances, field workers
used their ultimate discretionary powers by rewriting their strategic objectives each
year to reflect the current political themes and then carried on their work as usual.
The calls for public sector strategy implementation to be more participatory to
deliver democratic public organizations were not found in the command and control
by the political elite. Below is a summary of the fifth PAR cycle in Table 18,
entitled Participatory Action Research Cycle to answer the question: What were the
actual outcomes of these strategies?
Table 18: Participatory Action Research Cycle to answer the question: What were the
actual outcomes of these strategies? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
Plan Review service area strategy document & performance measures
Act Analyse document
Observe Key strategic objectives and how they will be measured
Reflect Shopping list of ‘business-as-usual’, no focus or stretch
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Sixth PAR cycle: To the extent that these outcomes were
unintended (i.e. did not match the desired results), what might
account for this mismatch?
As a starting point for each departmental team, it was decided to surface their
department’s mission and vision. This exercise was intended to reveal the
departmental values, beliefs and assumptions underlying the mission statement and
to confirm the department’s vision for the future. At this stage, no specific reference
was made to the published service area strategy document that did contain statements
of the primary aims for each service department within the service area. It was
presumed that the articulated mission statements would reflect these published
aspirations, the primary aims.
One immediate reaction when launching the topic was ‘don’t ask me what they are’.
It was perceived that political themes were handed down and departments and
sections fed their objectives into each of these themes. Two questions team
members asked were ‘how can we interpret these objectives down at our level’ and
‘how can we support these initiatives through our existing services?’ Some team
members then stated ‘It is all a cross-cutting exercise really’, meaning the objectives
went across functions and departments. It was perceived that staff were continually
rewriting the same thing in different ways to fit in with the latest political theme.
Strategy seemed to be something going on elsewhere and staff were just left with the
tactics and did not have the luxury of thinking about the longer term. They had
government targets but not definitions of the service required. Other than the
government targets, the only corporate review of strategic performance at middle
management level was a report at the end of the year.
It was felt that politicians and the corporate board set the vision and mission but that
there was no input from the field or middle management. The only strategic
document they had sight of was strategic objectives and targets. As these were
expressed in terms of cross-cutting themes, there was no clear vision, mission or
strategy for the professional and functional departments. The majority of
participants did not know where their part of the organization was going to be in
three or five year’s time, other than in terms of buildings being refurbished or built.
The service vision and mission were unclear.
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When asked about the strategizing process, it was considered ‘very much’ to be a
top-down process. It was the individual’s perception that their planning had always
formed a ‘pincer movement’ because they had always known in the workplace the
things they needed to do, quite practical things, such as ‘maintenance, access, and
that sort of thing’. The themes from the politicians were ‘handed down’, and the
departments then allocated the field workers intentions under those headings.
Another manager was not comfortable to share his vision for the department because
people would sabotage that vision:
“I’m not comfortable in sharing visions with people within the organization because my interpretation is they will scupper them. So, in a sense, the way we work is to try and work and create an energy that drives itself that the blockers cannot get in the way.”
“What I’m very clear about is the vision for me is that the play centres continue to develop and continue to be a community resource. ...We’re eventually going to end up with more play centres. We’re running play schemes, we’re running particular ad hoc projects in various communities out of building containers, we’re doing out of community centres and all the rest of it. And what that’s all about, and why we are doing it that way is to establish habits, politicise the community population to say ‘actually your child has the right to play, and if you put enough pressure on various organizations, the chances are you can get money for it’. ” (Play and Leisure Manager)
He preferred to work on creating energy within the community that drove itself, and
that non-supporters of the vision could not get in the way. By manipulation within
the budget, they could change the nature or type of service. They created this energy
by providing temporary services and then worked to politicise the community. The
members of the community then lobbied the politicians and agencies to gain the
services permanently as their personal or human right. The professionals delivering
the service also identified government sources of finance and recommended that the
community apply for funding and they would then deliver the service.
To illustrate his point, the manager told a story. Central to his personal objectives
was to deploy play pods across the community. These pods were self-contained
playrooms for very young children. They were a safe environment and the children
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were encouraged to do what they wanted – they could, and did ‘run wild’, acting like
children and not how adults think children should play.
Members of the department staffed each pod and they would only step in to defuse
any potentially violent situation or to have a friendly chat with somebody if they
were swearing. His story goes that on one occasion they had only a budget to run
this pod for three months. Understandably, the pod was a success among the
children and with the parents. When the lorry returned after three months to crane
out the pod and take it away, the operators found that they were prevented from
doing so. The children had stuck themselves together with Sellotape and stuck
themselves all over the pod. The operators discovered that the Sellotape could not
just be torn apart by hand and so withdrew. Also in attendance, allegedly purely by
coincidence, were members of the media. It took about a day for the politicians to
resource the pod and to cancel its removal.
Another issue raised was the developmental element of the work. It was critical to
develop the service provision but this conflicted with the central role of politicians
and the corporate management who saw it as their position to develop all policies or
approve all development decisions. This comment would appear to reflect the
traditional agency theory of politics/administration split. There was also the
perception that the functions or operations of service delivery were decreasing in
influence and persuasion whilst the corporate centre was expanding. To get round
this ‘isolation’ of the field workers, some had joined professional organizations to
lobby politicians and some had participated in drawing up government papers,
policies and strategies. They felt that they were telling the government what to tell
them. They had ‘captured’ the policy setting role as well as the service delivery.
The strategizing process was designed, and appeared in the LGA’s explanatory
diagrams, as a top-down only process. All strategy preparation arrows flowed in
one, downwards direction. Only after implementation did monthly monitoring
arrows flow round and back upwards. Internal dialogue was excluded from the
diagrams of the strategizing process. Communications and decision-making must
flow up, as well as down an organization, so that the whole process carries authority
and legitimacy. This LGA’s strategizing process followed a traditional prescriptive
approach, similar to the rational planning school of sequential strategic analysis,
strategy development and implementation. One of the basic assumptions underlying
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rational planning is the linear progression of events and time so that cause and effect
are clear and controllable. Many organizations have inhabited a more dynamic and
complex environment for some time, characterized by non-linearity, aperiodicity and
unpredictability.
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Figure 8: Schematic of the strategic policy framework (LGA document made anonymous for the purposes of this thesis)
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Figure 9: LGA Policy in to practice framework (LGA document made anonymous for the purposes of this thesis)
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The Community Strategy Action Plan outlined the strategic priorities from the
stakeholders and formed the basis for resource and budget allocations. An important
purpose of strategy was to establish consensus amongst the key stakeholders who
may have multiple viewpoints and realities. Once the Council’s budget had been
approved, it was the foundation upon which the corporate business plan was written.
Out of this document flowed the service area business plans.
The PAR team saw the resulting action plan had a generic, commoditizing
standardization of the services throughout the community. This meant that the same
service and standards were to be applied in all instances because professional
discretion in the field did not fit the top-down policy implementation processes. The
services were therefore McDonaldization. McDonaldization is the application of the
principles of the fast-food restaurant to other sectors of society (Ritzer 1993). The
socially structured form of the fast-food restaurant has extended the rational thinking
principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability in to the realm of everyday
interaction and individual identity. A hamburger is the same everywhere. The
LGA’s policies were implemented the same everywhere.
The strategy assumed the buy-in by all employees to a shared vision, mission,
values, beliefs, assumptions and strategy. All of these aspects were defined and
approved by the corporate board and were seen as intrinsic to the community action
plan and were subsequently implemented in the organization. To expect thousands
of employees to think and act similarly in a robotic fashion was considered to be a
form of extreme rationalization. Its achievement by the PAR team members, who
were charged with strategy implementation, would have involved social engineering
and inculcation on an extensive scale, in their considered opinion, upon reflection.
The PAR teams reflection was that a single worldview can not reflect the divergent
internal pluralistic nature of a large organization. The community strategy action
plan was shaped by the divergent goals and interests of different groups within the
local community external to the service area, leading to multiple strategic goals and
objectives. Strategic focus was fragmented by competing demands. The LGA was a
pluralistic domain involving divergent objectives, multiple actors and diffuse power.
Such pluralism was seen in the tension between professional and managerial cultures
and interests. This tension was caused by the wide set of internal and external
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stakeholders. Traditionally, the PAR team members (‘professionals’) worked to fit
local requirements not broad, community-wide initiatives.
The PAR Team identified that pluralistic tension was caused by the requirements for
commercially-oriented performance whilst maintaining their professional role in
society and ensuring quality public services. The LGA was required to pursue
multiple strategic objectives in the provision of statutory government services (such
as libraries), discretionary services (leisure and sport), to meet quality standards of
service and practice, to demonstrate Best Value and resource efficiency, as well as
complying with professional codes and guidelines, and pressures from users of the
services. The diverse professional cultures and interests that were typically
antithetical to those of senior management fuelled the tensions. The PAR Team
found that the tensions were further exacerbated by the struggle to meet multiple
demands for quality public services which demonstrated Best Value, resource
efficiencies and increasing commercial viability.
A conclusion by the Par team was that this extensive external and internal pluralism
resulted in a non-linear complex system. Complex Adaptive Systems (“CAS”)
theory is relevant to public administration. Complex is not just complicated.
Complicated can be defined as many elements within the system, whilst in complex
systems they are mutually interdependent and heavily influence the probabilities of
many kinds of later events (Axelrod and Cohen 2000). The large numbers of
external and internal actors, or agents, were mutually interdependent and influenced
future events through a network of feedback loops. Human complex systems were
comprised of many diverse components (pluralism) that were loosely linked, not
necessarily linearly, and produced emergent patterns of systemic behaviour.
The implementation of strategy can be classified as three different forms of change
(Stacey 1993). The PAR team concluded that the internal and external pluralism
experienced by this LGA, and the future uncertainties, reflected open-ended change.
The other two possible types of change were closed change and contained change.
Closed change featured unambiguous problems, clear connections between cause
and effect and reasonably accurately forecastable consequences of the change.
Contained change was more uncertain and featured probalistic forecasts of the
consequences of the change programme. In the open-ended change called by some
of the strategic objectives set for this LGA, the PAR team found future consequences
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were made difficult due to the ambiguous purposes and equivocal preferences of the
external and internal pluralism.
This ambiguity revealed paradoxes and dilemmas to the PAR team. All three types
of change were evidenced in this organization but whilst the organization was
configured to manage closed and even contained change, it was not organized to
manage in an environment of open-ended change. The themed strategic objectives
of the government, i.e. eradication of obesity, called for open-ended change. Such
change required the acceptance and absorption of complexity by the organization.
The traditional, rational strategizing approach of the LGA, in the experience of the
PAR team sought to reduce complexity (closed and contained change).
The reflections by the PAR team after the various discussions and feedback loops
was that a cause of the decline in the production of social capital (connections within
and between social networks), and the decline of public trust in government, was the
government’s increasing inability to solve complex social problems with the
traditional hierarchical, top-down, command and control institutions. The lack of
trust in government, due to lack of representation or relevance has led to the
formation of non-conventional solutions, associations and pressure groups. This was
evidenced by the PAR team through the behaviour of the frontline service providers
who used their discretion and initiatives to locally change the policy implemented
(street-level bureaucrats). The role of the community plan was to address the more
pressing needs of the wider community and provide a more representative solution.
The community plan limited the ability of the organization from being ‘hijacked’ by
left or right wing political extremists or dominant, autocratic chief executives.
However, the PAR team realised that the community plan was still a top-down
strategizing process not necessarily in touch with all of the numerous community
segments or the professionals working therein. Social problems have outpaced
conventional solutions. Bureaucratically organized government was less able to be
responsive to citizens’ needs. Figure 10 below summarizes the discussion above and
Table 19 summarizes the sixth PAR cycle.
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Figure 10: Causes of Unintended Outcomes (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
The above Figure 10 summarizes the preceding discussion and below in Table 19 is
a summary of the sixth PAR cycle.
Table 19: Participatory Action Research Cycle to answer the question: To the extent
that these outcomes were unintended (i.e. did not match the desired results), what
might account for this mismatch? (Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
Plan Confirm mission and vision
Act Surface mission and confirm vision held by each departmental SMT
Observe Articulated and scribed mission and vision statements
Reflect Unclear mission and no vision
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Summary
Table 20: Summary of research questions and findings (Developed for the purposes of
this thesis)
Question Finding
What do actors perceive as the problem? Lack of focus upon key issues
What results do they wish to achieve? Commitment to strategy implementation
What are intended strategies to achieve
this?
Policies are now social themes across
functions
What strategies are actually produced? Gap between strategy and implemented
strategy
What were actual strategy outcomes? Shopping list of ‘business as usual’
Why unintended outcomes? Unclear mission and no vision
The findings from the participatory action research cycle questions indicate that the
community strategy action plan may have made more transparent the influence of
external pressure groups but it still unquestionably imposed a top-down
implementation across the community. The gap, disclosed by the findings between
the policy/strategy documents and implementation in the field by the professionals,
demonstrates that professional discretion is missing from the documents. The
extensive external pluralism of the multitude of stakeholders, the diverse strategic
objectives, and the internal pluralism amongst the numerous different professions
and professionals, as well as middle and senior management, confirm that the LGA
is part of a complex system, specifically a complex adaptive system of autonomous
agents (humans) continuously adapting to interdependent events and their evolving
environment. The next chapter, entitled discussion on practice-theory gap, takes
forward these points based upon the findings and argues for the exploration of
alternative strategizing approaches and organizational models.
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5. DISCUSSION ON PRACTICE-THEORY GAP
Introduction
The research method followed deliberately reveals practice-theory gaps, that is gaps
between espoused theory and practice (theory in use), (Friedman, 2006; Kemmis and
McTaggart, 2000). This chapter draws together the issues and patterns surfaced in
the previous chapter that revealed a practice-theory gap, critically compares those
issues and patterns to the literature, and draws conclusions.
The action research, detailed in Chapter Four, summarised the participative action
research spirals in answering the six action research questions, which surfaced the
patterns and issues for discussion in this chapter. In the first discussion, the patterns
and issues surfaced in the action research process identified and confirmed the
literature on external strategizing pluralism and internal organizing pluralism. The
next discussion looks for confirming evidence of pluralistic organizing having
unintended strategizing implications. There were two significant findings here. The
first findings were of a formal, structured, top-down organization which did not
reflect the literature. The organizing pluralism conflicted with the attempted use of a
traditional, generic organization or business model to address a wide range of
different types of services. These services were delivered to, for and by pluralistic
stakeholders. The second significant finding under the topic of pluralistic organizing
having unintended strategizing implications confirms the literature from the USA on
street-level bureaucrats. Here, frontline service deliverers were found to be using
their own discretion in interpreting policy implementation. Additionally, they were
politicizing the citizens to demand the services they wanted. Lastly, they were re-
writing their strategy documents each year to incorporate the latest political phrases
to describe their own policy implementation.
Other issues around the research were also surfaced in the findings and these are
summarized in this chapter as the basis for further research. The topics include
pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity, and protracted tensions
between organizing and strategizing.
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Next, in Table 21 entitled key contributions made to knowledge of theory-practice
gap, are listed the contributions made by this research and which are discussed in
this chapter.
Table 21: Key Contributions to Knowledge of Theory-Practice Gap (developed for the
purposes of this thesis)
Key Finding
External strategizing pluralism & internal
organizing pluralism
Empirical gap between strategy and
Implementation
Addressed by Extant Literature
Findings confirm published
literature with empirical
evidence
Findings disconfirm published
literature
The previous chapter summarised the participative action research cycles as they
asked each of the six action research method questions. The answers surfaced the
patterns and issues for discussion in this chapter. The patterns and issues surfaced
identified both external and internal pluralism.
Nature of conclusions drawn from emergent research
The spiralling cycles and emergent nature of action research meant that new areas of
literature were continually identified whilst new data were generated constantly,
including during the reflexive process of writing up the thesis, and new meanings
and lines of inquiry were regularly suggested (Davis 2004). A continuous cyclical
process was generated as new interpretations were assembled from the examination
of new literature and the field experience. Equally, writing was also a ‘way of
knowing’ that was a method of discovery and analysis (Richardson 2000). Such
discovery and analysis continued throughout these last chapters. Action research
was seen to be emergent and therefore an unpredictable form of research where it
was not possible to specify where it would end up (Winter 1998). This emergent
construction was described as “bricoleur” or quilt-making (Denzin and Lincoln
2000), which added rigour, breadth, complexity, richness and depth to the inquiry.
The review of literature in action research cannot be confined to a single chapter.
Literature was seen to be closely aligned with data analysis and interpretation that
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was dominant in the previous chapter as well as the discussion chapter. Literature
was accessed continuously throughout this research programme; before, during and
after data collection and interpretation. Such continuity mirrors the reflexive nature
of action research in which understandings developed from literature and practice
generate ideas and actions, and vice versa in a cyclical spiral (Davis 2004).
This chapter, like the previous one is a mix of narrative, critical commentary,
literature review, data analysis and interpretation. Such a mix is the nature of action
research. Research conclusions are therefore the exploration of issues and dilemmas,
the raising of questions, and the presentation of possibilities (Davis 2004). These
tentative and emergent findings are compatible with the role of the author as
collaborator and participant (Winter 1996) rather than observer and judge.
Structure of this chapter
This chapter starts with summaries of the key findings with descriptions of the
patterns and issues surfaced during the participatory action research programme
discussed in the previous chapter. These summary descriptions will be followed by
critical discussions on each of the findings compared to the published literature that
are then drawn together in conclusion. The confirmation of the literature or
discovery of a practice-theory gap will be discussed in this chapter.
The empirical evidence from this research programme confirmed the published
literature of external strategizing pluralism and internal organizing pluralism
(Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). These findings are discussed at the beginning of
this chapter. However, pluralism contributed to other issues and patterns surfaced
during this research programme. They are outlined below before being discussed in
detail with critical comparison to the known literature.
Pluralistic organizing has unintended strategizing implications
Structured for Regulation, Command and Control - the organization was a Local
‘Authority’ and was traditionally structured for regulation and control using a
command & control management approach.
Street Bureaucracy - plans were restated by middle managers each year using topical
language from the political leadership. Few output or outcome goals were set with
most targets being input or at most process objectives, and little justification of
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results or substantiation of actions taken were required as most targets were
achievable. An alternative model was revealed in practice wherein the service
recipients were politicized by coaching them on how to work the system and demand
the services they wanted.
Pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity – for further
research
Organizing capacity is strained by the paradox of top-down commitment, political
aspirations and pragmatic implementation, and the tension caused by the different
professional and public service ethos. These points are discussed under the
following three headings.
Paradox of Top-Down Commitment - managers required commitment & compliance
that was a paradox with top-down direction.
Political Aspirations and Pragmatic Implementation - the strategic targets set were
political aspirations that formed a gap from the pragmatic service delivery
implemented.
Top-Down Political Convenience and the Professional and Public Service Ethos -
top-down communication was evident. Evidence was not found of either dialogue
that sought contributions, or of systems to collect the specific requirements of
discrete communities as opposed to inflexible generic solutions. There appeared to
be no recognition of the fact that peer pressure and professional bodies influenced
staff behaviour and decisions as well as public service ethos.
Protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing – for further
research
The next research finding which is discussed in this chapter, under the heading
‘local government is a constrained complex adaptive system’, is that the nature of the
pluralism lead to a conclusion that the organization was a complex system but it was
not a complex adaptive system – it was not adapting. The organization was being
constrained. From the literature, possible reasons for constraint were found in the
concept of Institutional Theory. The expectations of the stakeholders were
constraining the organizations ability to flex and adapt to meet the new types of
challenges it faced.
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The Local Authority was structured to deliver regulation and control through
systems and processes based largely upon principles of regulation and control.
However, many of the services provided were not of the nature of regulation and
control. Many welfare and care or well-being services were provided which were
very different in nature from regulation and control. The delivery of these types of
services would be more effective with different structures, systems and leadership
styles. Equally, many current problems and issues facing government go across
functions, agencies and even sectors. These types of problems require a different
organization to that of regulation and control. The nature of these emerging
problems requires creativity and innovation, not standardised procedures and control.
The organization studied was seen to have a portfolio of different types of services.
It required, therefore, a portfolio of ‘businesses’ to deliver these different service
types. The organization required a portfolio of organizing models (organizing
pluralism) to match the external strategizing pluralism. These models are discussed
and conclusions drawn in light of the empirical evidence.
The next finding discussed in this chapter, under the heading ‘lack of democratic
voice’, is that due to the top-down approach to policy and strategy formulation,
sectors of the community may have been marginalised. A review of the literature
synthesised political policy with the discussion on organization structure (‘business
model’) discussed above. The alignment of policy-setting to the relevant business
model could alleviate many of the issues discussed.
The below Figure 11 entitled Contribution to Knowledge - the Effects caused by
Pluralism summarises the effects caused by external strategizing pluralism and
internal organizing pluralism.
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Figure 11: Contribution to Knowledge - the Effects caused by Pluralism
These summary descriptions will now be followed by critical discussions on each of
the findings compared to the published literature that are then drawn together in the
conclusion. It is then possible to draw conclusions about the research question: How
does Government Strategize Locally from a Middle Management Perspective? The
implications of these conclusions for theory, policy and practice are then discussed.
The limitations of this research programme are outlined and reflections are made
upon the methodology and its implications as well as implications for further
research.
Summary of Conclusions drawn from research issues and
patterns surfaced in the Previous Chapter
Towards the end of writing the previous chapter, the research findings’ patterns
became clearer, requiring further reflection and rewriting. The empirical findings
from this research confirmed the limited extant literature upon external strategizing
pluralism and internal organizing pluralism. These phenomena influenced and
contributed to the other findings and contributions to the body of knowledge as
summarised below.
The empirical evidence from this research programme confirmed the published
literature of external strategizing pluralism and internal organizing pluralism
(Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). The empirical findings from this research
programme were that the strategy formulation process was formed by the electorate
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through their elected local representatives, other service providers within the
community, national government, and the directors of the organization as well as
other influential stakeholders. Internally, the organizing was influenced by the
policy-setting of the local politicians, the Directorate, senior and middle
management, administrators, professional service providers, unions and professional
bodies. Confirmation of the literature is important because it leads to and explains
other findings discussed below.
Because of external and internal pluralism, the empirical research programme
discovered a gap in the cascading of government strategy. The literature stated that
the strategy, formulated at the top, was cascaded down the organization to the point
of delivery. The research herein reported identified a gap in that process in the
organization that formed the study site. The issues were complex, with many
contributing factors. A main cause was found to be that personal objectives of the
staff delivering the service were not aligned to the organization’s strategy or its
objectives. This cause and other contributing factors are discussed in comparison to
the published literature in the following section.
External Strategizing Pluralism and Internal Organizing Pluralism
The findings from the second cycle of the participatory action research programme
identified the pluralistic nature of the strategy documents that applied to the service
area. The third cycle looked at the internal organizing for the implementation of
these policy and strategy documents and discovered their pluralistic nature.
The UK national government, the Welsh government, and local government policy
formulated the external strategizing. The local government policy alone
incorporated the representations from the UK and National governments, the elected
local representatives, the ruling political party, representatives of local businesses,
other government agencies, public service providers and not-for-profit organizations.
The internal organizing pluralism included the elected leaders, the Directors, the
senior and middle management, administrative and professional staff, as well as the
influence of unions, professional bodies and the public service ethos.
A single worldview cannot reflect the divergent internal pluralistic nature of a large
organization. The community strategy action plan was shaped by the divergent goals
and interests of different groups within the local community external to the service
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area, leading to multiple strategic goals and objectives. The outputs and eventual
outcomes of the community plan extended across this ‘institutional field’ (Moore
2005).
Strategic focus was fragmented by competing demands (Glynn et al. 2000a). The
LGA was a pluralistic domain involving divergent objectives, multiple actors and
diffuse power (Feldman 2005; Rainey and Chun 2005). Within this pluralistic
organization, there were separate administrative, managerial and professional
cultures which in turn contained subcultures and identities (Blackler et al. 2000;
Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). Such pluralism was seen in the tension between
professional and managerial cultures and interests (Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006).
This tension was caused by the wide set of internal and external stakeholders.
Both strategy and leadership require an understanding of the roles of the public,
politicians, and the organization’s internal management processes (Hartley and
Skelcher 2008). Traditionally, professionals worked to fit local requirements not
broad community-wide standardized initiatives. In the research study reported
herein, the members have managed to define ‘the conditions and methods of their
work’ and have established ‘a cognitive base and legitimization for their
occupational autonomy’ (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). In other words, they are
‘professionals’.
Pluralistic tension was caused by the requirements for commercially-oriented
performance whilst maintaining their professional role in society and ensuring
quality public services (Satow 1975). The LGA was required to pursue multiple
strategic objectives in the provision of statutory government services (such as
libraries) and discretionary services (such as leisure and sport). They were also
required to meet quality standards of service and practice, to demonstrate a
government concept of ‘Best Value’, and evidence resource efficiency, as well as
complying with professional codes and guidelines, and pressures from users of the
services.
External Strategizing Pluralism and Internal Organizing Pluralism -
Conclusion
The world is pluralistic but organizational theorists tend to homogenize it (Glynn et
al. 2000b). Empirical evidence supporting the pluralism literature has been found
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during the participatory action research cycles of both external strategizing pluralism
and internal organizing pluralism. The evidence of pluralism may also lead to a
strategizing theory-practice gap which is discussed next.
Theory-Practice Gap
The evidence surfaced from the participative action research programme is discussed
next in this chapter. The theory-practice gap is revealed within the discussion of the
findings in comparison to the literature on pluralistic organizing has unintended
strategizing implications. However, there were additional findings made by the PAR
team that are offered as the bases for future research. These are discussed in relation
to the literature on pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity and
protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing.
Pluralistic organizing has unintended strategizing implications
In this opening discussion upon the findings, the evidence of unintended strategizing
implications as a result of the pluralistic organizing is drawn out. First, the fact that
the organization was structured for regulation, command and control but there were
many other types of service being delivered, and secondly, the role of the street
bureaucrats and the resultant emergent strategy are discussed.
Theory-Practice Gap: Structured for Regulation, Command and Control
Below in Figure 12 entitled Schematic of theory-practice gap: structured for
regulation, command and control is a map of the topics drawn from the PAR cycles
that reflected the organization was structured as an Authority for regulation and
control. It was not an organization structure designed for care and well-being.
Relatively few services delivered by the researched Service Area were regulation
and control. Most services delivered were for citizen care and well-being.
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Figure 12: Schematic of Theory-Practice Gap: structured for regulation, command
and control (developed for the purposes of this thesis)
The above figure shows the top-down behaviour control evidenced by the
strategizing process maps. From the bottom-left of the figure, the organization is
shown to be structured by function for the efficiency of that function and so not
organized for the convenience of the service recipients of the time.
From the initial findings, the external and internal strategy drivers seemed quite clear
and were confirmed by the Participative Action Research (“PAR”) team as well as
the management team. The map drawn as part of the first PAR cycle and shown in
Figure 5, entitled the context drivers & challenges, reflected a predominant concern
for the challenges faced by the strategizing process. The significant cluster of issues
revolved around strategy implementation. This included how to cascade it down the
organisation and how to gain commitment from all of the employees involved.
However, the main concern was how to impose the strategy and eliminate dissention
and rejection of the strategy and its strategic objectives through individual targets.
This topic is included in Figure 12 above as ‘How to Impose Strategy’, shown in a
box above the centre of the map. Figure 12 shows the linkages between many of the
topics and issues raised by the PAR team during the cycles and reported in the this
chapter.
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From the perspective of the middle manager, the LGA’s strategizing process was
designed as a top-down process that prescribed behaviour for the organization’s
staff. Below in Figures 13 and 14 are reproduced the schematics of the LGA’s
strategy development process and the strategy implementation process.
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Figure 13: LGA Schematic of the strategic policy framework
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Figure 14: LGA Policy in to practice framework
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The strategizing maps in Figures 13 and 14 illustrate that unlike other countries, the
public sector reform in the UK, New Public Management, was influenced by top-
down agency theory (Stewart 2004). The resulting bureaucratic strategy is
something to be constrained by top-down control and not encouraged at the lower
levels. This top-down, command and control structure, systems and culture were
reflected clearly in the two schematics above of policy development and policy
implementation. The New Public Management increase in policy centralisation
combined with quasi-markets and contracting out reinforced the separation of
politics (policy and strategy formulation) and administration (policy and strategy
implementation). The LGA was structured to more efficiently deliver a single,
dominant type of service only (Beinhocker 2006; Collins and Porras 1997; Foster
and Kaplan 2001; Larreche and Srinivasan 1982; March 1991; Peters and Waterman
2004).
From a review of the documentation, it was apparent that the policy and strategy
development process did not provide for dialogue, discussion and contribution from
the professionals in the field (DeLeon and DeLeon 2002). The implementation of
this strategy was also represented by top-down instruction (O’Toole 2004).
It would appear to the professionals and middle management that the senior
management approach was one of agency-based distrust (Angwin 2007). The
behaviour control methods associated with New Public Management, modernization
and managerialism was leading to the de-skilling of the professionals by removing
their discretionary decision powers. The middle management was dependent upon
the professionals in the field to deliver the strategy. In order to gain commitment,
they sought to involve them in the departmental strategizing process. However,
discretion was limited as the strategy was imposed, top-down. Therefore, the only
option for discretion was the re-writing of history to give the perception that
implementation did fit the strategy imposed. The professionals were then able to
describe their daily routines and any personal projects or initiatives using the
language of the imposed strategy. Each year they went through this re-writing
process to fit the current strategy themes handed down to them by senior
management and the politicians.
The strategy ‘imposed’ was mostly described in aspirational tones. The broad
themes, or overriding strategic objectives, mirrored those set by the Welsh
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government. The themes and targets set by the community strategy plan rarely
stated measurable outcome targets for the period of the strategy. This lack of
precision enabled the professionals to rewrite their own strategy each year coached
in the terms and phrases of one of that year’s strategic themes, such as inclusivity,
sustainability or obesity.
The result was a gap between the agency-based, top-down strategy prescription
(O’Toole 2004) and the bottom-up implementation in the field based upon
professional discretion. Neither party was getting what they felt best. Both were
forced to compromise and the middle managers were caught between the two
factions (one manager described it as being caught in a ‘pincer movement’). The
assumption that all services could be managed and developed in similar ways was
proving to be difficult. The fact that the external and internal stakeholders were
from many different backgrounds, with widely varying knowledge, experience and
skills, and were interdependently making decisions that influenced their future,
resulted in a far more complex organization. The linear, top-down strategizing
process in this environment did not deliver the decisive management control that this
strategizing process required for success. These issues are discussed in more detail
in a later discussion on Different Government Activities Require Different
Organizations, under the section on protracted tensions between organizing and
strategizing.
The LGA policy and strategic objectives were set by external stakeholders consisting
principally of politicians and pressure groups. Some 600 identified stakeholders
were invited to participate in the development of the community strategy plan
document. About 250 agreed to participate. Over 100 local public, private and
voluntary sector organizations have agreed the community plan. The community
planning implementation group co-ordinated and oversaw the community planning
partnership and supported partner organizations to implement the community
strategy. This group consisted of 20 individuals, drawn from the local
‘establishment’. Included in this number were the Leader and Deputy Leaders of the
Council and two members of the senior management team of the LGA. The rest
represented public and not-for-profit sector organizations. Residential communities
within the LGA were not directly represented, nor were the professionals that serve
those communities. There were representatives from the police, NHS, Health Board,
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Higher Education, Probation Service, Job Centre Plus, Environment Agency, Church
of Wales, Chamber of Commerce, Sports Council, Housing Association and other
charity and public sector organizations.
The community strategy and the community strategy action plan were both drawn-up
by these establishment figures and presented to the LGA’s full council for approval.
It is worth noting at this point that these politicians were elected by votes based upon
trust and ethics only, not detailed policy (Potter 1988). The community plan
reflected the policies of the Welsh government as interpreted from the strategic
position of the Community Planning Implementation Group and those organizations
that contributed to the discussions. As such, it was a consensus borne of
compromise (Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). The strategic objectives were stated
more in terms of themes rather than specific quantified targets to be achieved within
the period of the annual LGA strategy.
When interpreted by each of the diverse interests that are internal to the organization
(politicians, senior management, administrators, professionals, middle management)
then the specific strategic objectives could have appeared ambiguous, uncertain and
complex (Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). This was especially the case given that
many strategic objectives could not be delivered by the LGA alone. The community
action plan was a ‘co-ordination’ of activities by numerous government agencies and
other not-for-profit organizations. Upon reflection, the PAR team realised that there
was a clear break in the cascading of top-down strategy below the middle
management level.
There was a gap between the top-down theoretical imposition of strategy by the
politicians and the pragmatic practice of bottom-up implementation by the
professionals. Although the Community Strategy recognised and involved the co-
ordination of other key service providers, the strategizing process lacked the specific
policy input from the various marginalised communities who required the services
most. It also specifically avoided any input from the front-line professional staff that
held the relevant knowledge, experience and skills. These professionals and their
clients were the ones that needed the service and delivered it. The impact of this top-
down strategizing approach upon the commitment to the strategy and its strategic
aims by the staff and professionals responsible for its front-line delivery is the
subject of the next section.
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Theory-Practice Gap: Street Bureaucracy and the Politicization of the
Citizen
Street-level bureaucrats are workers who interact with, and have wide discretion
over, the dispensation of benefits or the allocation of public sanctions (Lipsky 1980).
Street-level bureaucrats are not just working in an organization, they are working
and located at its boundaries (Hill 2005). A profession is an occupation whose
members have managed to define the conditions and methods of their work and
established a cognitive base and legitimization for their occupational autonomy
(DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Many professionals are street-level bureaucrats and
all street-level bureaucrats are professionals in their own perception (Hupe and Hill
2007). Street-level bureaucrats operate in a network or web of relationships, both
vertical and horizontal (Hupe and Hill 2007). As such, they have pluralistic
accountability.
From the above strategizing and commitment gaps discussed in this chapter, it was
apparent that strategic objectives and targets were handed down. The top-down
approach to strategy implementation followed the bureaucratic separation of policy
from implementation, co-ordination and control through hierarchy and authority
(Barrett 2004). In order to handle context, human judgement cannot be replaced by
standardization (Lipsky 1980). The street-level bureaucrat uses their discretion
within the pluralistic context of their workplace. The reactions of the participants in
this action research programme were that it was perceived that the staff were
continually rewriting the same professional activities in different ways to fit in with
the latest political theme.
As discussed later in this chapter under Different Government Activities, this
organization was structured and organized to manage and deliver the ‘routine’
services through a regulation and control business model. However, the strategic
objectives often called for additional or different services. The strategy did not
recognise that exploration of new ventures required a completely different approach
to that of exploiting existing resources to deliver existing services. Different service
provision required a different approach to strategy, structure, systems and
organizational culture, leadership and management styles, and staff with different
demographics and skills (Bryan 2008). The frontline staff were employed fulltime
on delivering the existing services. If asked, they found convenient slots within the
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latest strategy document to list their routine services by changing their vocabulary to
fit the tone of the latest handed-down strategy.
The above empirical evidence supports Lipsky’s street-level coping mechanisms of
self-defence, minimizing negative aspects and job frustration(Lipsky 1980). These
street-level bureaucrats used coping mechanisms because they experienced a gap
between the demands for their services and the resources available. It was a lose-
lose situation with neither the client nor frontline service provider satisfied. Next we
look at empirical evidence of a different coping mechanism – one that is positively
motivated, a way to gain job satisfaction, a win-win (Nielsen 2006).
Distrust was a two-way phenomena and not just a mistrust of direct reports from
within the organization. A manager was not comfortable to share his vision for the
department because people would challenge or attack them. He preferred to work on
creating ‘an energy’ within the community that drove itself, and that objectors could
not stop. To illustrate his point, the manager told a story, surfaced in response to the
sixth research question of the action research cycle, about the play pods and reported
in the previous chapter.
Much of the literature on the activities and discretionary interpretation of policy and
strategy by frontline implementers is not relatively recent and from North America.
However, the topic has been revived in the U.K., not as the original title of street-
level bureaucracy but as ‘principled infidelity’ (Wallace and Fertig 2008). As the
preceding section revealed, top-down strategy failed to deliver frontline
commitment. Equally, as illustrated in the story of the children’s’ play pod, the top-
down approach does not take in to account the principled infidelity of the street-level
bureaucrat (Hjern 1982; Hjern and Hull 1982; Lipsky 1971, 1980; Prottas 1979) and
the street-level bureaucrats role of interpreters of central policy (Thompson 1982).
The play pod story is evidence of the wide discretion and range of interpretation the
frontline implementers had or could achieve in how policy affected the citizens they
contacted (Schofield 2001). Reflecting the external pluralism discussed at the
beginning of this chapter, the frontline professionals implementing the strategy faced
dilemmas of work autonomy, responsibility to the clients, as well as the duty to
implement the policies and strategies as directed (Hill 1993). The accountability of
the frontline service provider is therefore multiple and not just vertical (Day and
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Klein 1987; Pollitt 2003). This local interpretation of policy implementation could
be conceived as adaptive implementation. Adaptive implementation was beneficial
where social policy was ambiguous or experimental (Maynard-Moody et al. 1990).
The strategy and the strategic objectives in this authority were often confusing as
discussed in the sections above. They were a result of external strategizing pluralism
and internal organizing pluralism. They were complex, uncertain and ambiguous.
Top-down models did not cater for the messiness of policy-making, behavioural
complexity, goal ambiguity and contradiction (Schofield 2001). The bottom-up
approach recognised that policy formulation and implementation were not separate,
independent functions (Milwood 1980). The role of street-level bureaucracy will
always be important, probably more so for final policy outcome than central policy-
making (Sabatier 1991).
This empirical research programme found a gap between the standardized, generic
policy to be applied across the board by the strategy and the interpretation of these
objectives by the frontline strategy implementers. These frontline, street bureaucrats
not only interpreted the strategy to fit the specific, unique context of each
neighbourhood but also educated the citizens to appreciate their own power through
their politicization. The staff also restated their plans to fit the format of the current
top-down strategy by rephrasing them using the current political language, such as
inclusion or sustainability or reduction of obesity – whatever programme was the
‘flavour of the day’.
Pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity – for
further research
This section looks at the findings of strain upon the organizing capacity of the
organization caused by pluralistic strategizing pressures and offers the findings as a
basis for further research. This section looks at three findings. First is the paradox
of top-down commitment, next are political aspirations and pragmatic
implementation, and lastly public sector ethos and its antithesis to that of senior
management. These topics were surfaced in the research findings and are discussed
as the basis for future research.
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Theory-Practice Gap: Paradox of Top-Down Commitment
The first action research cycle identified that the key challenge was to gain staff
commitment to the implementation of the top-down strategy. This was the
conclusion from the reflection process after the map of drivers and challenges had
been drawn.
In the final participatory action research cycle in answer to the action research
question of what were the unintended outcomes, the members of the PAR teams did
not feel involved or committed to the LGA’s strategy because they had not
participated in the formulation of the strategy (Deacon and Mann 1999). The LGA
vision, mission and strategy were perceived by the PAR teams as being set by the
politicians and the corporate board. The PAR team members, all middle managers,
were responsible for professional functions but the LGA’s strategy documents were
couched in expressions of aspirational themes, such as obesity reduction or
inclusivity, not specific departmental functions or by professional body. The long-
term political themes crossed professions, functions, departments and organizations.
The PAR team members, responsible for professional departments and services,
were measured and rewarded upon their annual performance against budget. This
was behaviour control based upon agency theory (Eisenhardt 1989a; Harris and
Raviv 1979; Jensen and Meckling 1976; Ross 1973). The strategy documents were
understood by the PAR team members as a temporal and functional mismatch.
As the middle managers in the PAR team had not participated in the strategy
formulation, they were not committed to its success. They found it difficult to
understand or reconcile their own professional strategic intentions with the cross-
cutting themes of the LGA’s strategy documents.
A command and control organizational approach failed to capture the hearts and
minds of these middle level managers who actually deliver the service (McKevitt
and Lawton 1996). The strategizing process failed to involve the frontline service
providers or their clients. Rather than embracing the pluralistic nature of the
stakeholders, the strategizing process was tightly held at the top of the organization.
The apparent lack of involvement and commitment by the frontline service providers
to the top-down strategy contributed to the practice-theory gap revealed in this
empirical study.
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Theory-Practice Gap: Political Aspirations and Pragmatic Implementation
As per the empirical evidence from this research programme, public policy is not
that which is promulgated in high-powered boardrooms but that which is actually
implemented by the frontline service providers. It is the coping routines and devices
of the frontline service provider (Lipsky 1980), as outlined above.
The strategizing by this LGA was a top-down process, as detailed above in the
section: Theory-Practice Gap: Structured for Regulation, Command and Control.
Central UK Government and the Welsh government set service targets. The
community strategy, as required by law, was the prime strategy document. This
document was drawn up in collaboration with other government agencies and not-
for-profit organizations (such as Police, Fire, NHS trust, and the Church of Wales).
There was a very specific split of responsibility and authority between the
politicians’ role of devising policy (embodied in the community strategy document)
and the employees’ role of implementing what they were told (the community
strategy action plan document). The employees repeatedly stated that it was only the
politicians who had the authority to develop revised or new services. The
expectations of this research programme to find empirical evidence of the published
literature on localisation were disconfirmed. There was no empirical evidence of
area committees or representatives of neighbourhoods and communities contributing
to policy (Kathi and Cooper 2005). The maps above of the policy development
process and the strategy implementation process corroborate this fact. As outlined
above, under street-level bureaucrats, standardised, generic national targets do not
specifically address marginalised communities and their service requirements. The
LGA was structured, as for regulation and control, around service delivery functions
and not by client segmentation (elderly and infirm, young families, ethnic minorities,
businesses, etc.), all of which require slightly, or very different types of service and
service deliveries.
This LGA set out its political aspirations as longer-term goals in its community
strategy. The goals were expressed as not just function-crossing but also across
agencies and sectors. These long-term, cross-cutting goals were set in aspirational
terms, not as specific outcome goals. The employees were measured upon their
performance against the annual budget. As such, the cross-cutting, longer-term goals
were ambiguous, complex and uncertain. Within the constraints of their functional
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organization structure, they implemented policy as per their interpretation as outlined
in the previous section on street-level bureaucrats. There was a clear gap between
political aspirations and implementation. The impact upon employee performance
through attempted changes to the public service ethos by the modernization of local
government as a result of top-down political convenience is discussed next.
Theory-Practice Gap: Top-Down Political Convenience and the Professional
and Public Service Ethos
Top-down communication was evident but evidence was not found of dialogue with
contributions sought, or systems to collect, the specific requirements of discrete
communities as opposed to inflexible generic solutions; there appeared to be no
recognition of the fact that peer pressure and professional bodies influenced staff
behaviour and decisions as well as public service ethos. There were many factors
that contributed to the perception of the participatory action research team that their
behaviour was being increasingly constrained, their services de-skilled and
standardized for mass-production. They were being McDonaldized (Ritzer 1993).
These performance and behaviour constraints, imposed based upon the mistrust of
Agency Theory or ‘Agency Problem’, rejected the notion of trust that is a foundation
of public ethos. The elected politician replaced the ‘public good’. Commitment has
traditionally relied upon the public sector ethos. This local government ethos had a
set of core values that informed behaviour (Pratchett and Wingfield 1994):
accountability; honesty and impartiality; serving the community, altruistic
motivation and a sense of loyalty to community, profession and organization. The
increasingly centralized, top-down government continually chipped away at public
ethos and professional influence.
From this empirical research, the PAR team identified whole departments that were
frozen in time. Significant uncertainty surrounded the nature of their services due to
technology and lifestyle changes, such a service affected was library services.
However, they waited for the elected councillor with responsibility for that and other
services to develop new policies. Until new direction, confirmed by the cabinet, was
forthcoming, they awaited their fate.
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Protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing – for further
research
This last section looks at evidence of the continual friction and tension between
organizing and strategizing as the basis for further research. First, evidence is found
of the local government authority as a complex adaptive system although its ability
to adapt is constrained. Next evidence of different services requiring different forms
of organizing is explored, and finally the tensions between public sector ethos and
more managerialist strategy are discussed.
Local government is a constrained complex adaptive system
In this part of the research discussion, the findings that the Local Government
Authority (“LGA”) was a Complex Adaptive System (“CAS”) with both internal and
external pluralism are confirmed. The discussion then moves to the thematic nature
of the strategic objectives that crossed organizational barriers and the public/private
sectors triggering the requirement for more governance and less command and
control government. Lastly, this complex adaptive system is constrained by actors in
ways that can be explained by reference to the characteristics of Institutional and
Structuration Theories which reveal the inability of the organization to adapt to its
new context. Below, in Figure 14, is a map of the discussion in this section.
Figure 15: Structure of Discussion: Local Government is a Constrained CAS
(Developed for the purposes of this thesis)
The external community was a geographical collection of enormously wide
worldviews. That is, neighbourhood inhabitants (one school alone had a reported
cohort with some 26 different mother tongues); commercial and industrial
organizations; as well as the public sector organizations; and the third sector (not-
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for-profit). Each of the members of the community were taking decisions and
actions daily that impacted upon each other and influencing their future environment.
They were all interdependent upon each other. No single worldview was dominant.
This was the pluralistic nature of the LGA’s external environment. Internally, there
were equally widely divergent worldviews held by different professionals,
administrators, and levels of management, as well as the politicians. In general, the
higher the numbers, the higher the complexity (Morcol 2002). The consensus
strategic objectives were ambiguous, uncertain and complex. This LGA was a
complex adaptive system.
The research findings were that a consensus of strategic aspirations, drawn up by
members of the local establishment (within the policy intentions of the National
Assembly), were imposed down the hierarchical levels of the LGA. An alternative
would have been more governance and less government. The research study herein
reported explored the difference between government and governance. From the
research findings, traditional government had institutional command and control of
the distinctive and separate roles of the local government, the citizens and private
institutions. Governance, though, was seen to be a facilitating institution.
Governance facilitates communities of citizens and social organizations to produce
social goods and services (Meek et al. 2007). This facilitating governance approach
was not found in the research reported herein.
The research findings confirmed the provision of local services was a paradox as
outlined next. Local government was unable to solve all, or even many, of the
communities’ problems. Social problems had outpaced conventional institutional
solutions. Typically, in this case study, the government-set strategic objectives have
been inclusivity, sustainability, and the reduction of obesity. These objectives did
not fall within the jurisdiction of a single government department. These issues
crossed departments, functions and professions. They crossed sector and industry
boundaries. The solutions explored by the participatory action research teams were
local government partnering with communities and contributing to the solution-
making. This reflected a change in the fundamental nature of the relationships and
associations among the citizens, policy makers and local government (Meek et al.
2007). These changes were necessary in an increasingly complex environment.
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From the research findings, governance instead of government will be required to
solve these strategic objectives. Governance works by the stakeholders of an issue
drawing around and defining the problem from each of their differing perspectives so
that a broader understanding and definition may be reached (Meek et al. 2007).
These collaborative networks work across functional, professional and sector,
vertical hierarchies. Each party brings their own unique knowledge, experience and
skills to bear upon their common problem. Then, possible solutions may be
generated based upon the individual and then collaborative competences of all the
key stakeholders. Solutions will emerge that an individual could not have achieved
on their own. This emergent behaviour is a characteristic of complex adaptive
systems.
Typical characteristics of complex adaptive systems are variety, co-adaptation and
co-evolution (Boulton and Allen 2007). The cross-functional, cross-sector nature of
the government’s strategic objectives calls for co-adaptation and co-evolution across
the community and the organizations that are attempting to deliver these types of
broad social changes. The institutionalised, bureaucratic hierarchies that have been
used to deliver standardized commodity services on a routine basis will need to be
complemented by networks populated by the stakeholders of each social change,
across organizations and sectors. In this way not only are resources shared but so too
is power. Network and organizational goals are compatible (Meek et al. 2007).
This research found extensive external and internal pluralism resulted in a non-linear
complex system. Complex Adaptive Systems (“CAS”) theory is relevant to public
administration (Blackman 2001; Chapman 2002; Pierce 2000). From the research
findings, large numbers of external and internal actors, or agents, were found to be
mutually interdependent (Baumol and Benhabib 1989; Dyke 1990; Freedman 1992;
Gould 1987; Prigogine and Stengers 1984) and influenced future events through a
network of feedback loops (Anderson 1999). Human complex systems were
comprised of many diverse components (pluralism) that were loosely linked, not
necessarily linearly, and produced emergent patterns of systemic behaviour (Meek et
al. 2007).
As discussed earlier, the implementation of strategy can be classified as three
different forms of change (Stacey 1993). The internal and external pluralism
experienced by this LGA and the future uncertainties reflected open-ended change.
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The other two possible types of change were closed change and contained change.
Closed change featured unambiguous problems, clear connections between cause
and effect and reasonably accurately forecastable consequences of the change.
Contained change was more uncertain and featured probalistic forecasts of the
consequences of the change programme. In the open-ended change called by some
of the strategic objectives set for this LGA, the future consequences were made
difficult due to the ambiguous purposes and equivocal preferences of the external
and internal pluralism.
This understanding revealed paradoxes and dilemmas. All three types of change
were evidenced in this LGA but whilst the organization was configured to manage
closed and even contained change, it was not organized to manage in an environment
of open-ended change. The themed strategic objectives of the government, such as
eradication of obesity, called for open-ended change. Achievement of such
objectives was seen to require the acceptance and absorption of complexity by the
organization. The traditional, rational strategizing approach of the LGA sought to
reduce complexity (closed and contained change).
The organization was a linear, hierarchical bureaucracy struggling to serve a
pluralism of stakeholders, agendas and expectations in a more turbulent environment
than when ‘the authority’ was originally formed. There was external strategizing
plurality and internal organizing plurality (Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). It was
wrestling with complex problems that crossed functional, authority and sector
boundaries. The organization exhibited many of the attributes of a complex adaptive
system but it was constrained by politicians & administrators in line with generally
accepted, traditional beliefs in the purpose, structure and behaviour of local
authorities.
To put these findings into context, this discussion will now turn to Institutional
theory and then Structuration Theory for explanations. Institutional theory states that
organizations are not autonomous and free to follow their own economic activity but
are constrained by social prescriptions as they conform to the social norms of
society’s web within which they operate. This social web within which they operate
influences, constrains and shapes the organization’s strategy, structure, practices and
managerial decisions (Johnson and Greenwood 2007; Meyer and Rowan 1977;
Tolbert and Zucker 1983, 1996). The prescribed ideas and beliefs on management
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conduct are conveyed to organizations from the government, professional institutions
and other bodies (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). These are the findings in this case
study. The LGA was unable to flex and adapt to its changing context because of
these constraints.
In return for conforming to these social prescriptions, the organization earned
support and approval, thereby increasing their legitimacy (Baum and Oliver 1991).
The social prescriptions over time became ingrained within the organization as part
of the unquestioned or even unrealised (‘that’s the way we do things around here’)
values, beliefs and assumptions that form the organization’s culture (Meyer and
Rowan 1977). Even if surfaced, these deeply embedded prescriptions can be
difficult to refute or change (DiMaggio and Powell 1983).
Conforming to social prescriptions may have resulted in decisions that were less
efficient than those taken in a free market environment but the social web’s support
and approval ensured longer-term survival (Oliver 1997). The result of this social
web is that similar LGA organizations will conform to the same prescriptions which
results in all the organizations adopting similar decisions and strategies (DiMaggio
and Powell 1983; Johnson and Greenwood 2007; Meyer and Rowan 1977).
The hierarchical structure found within this organization and its inability to flex and
adapt to a changing context also was explained by comparison to structuration
theory. The LGA’s structure shaped action and behaviour which in turn enforced
and reproduced the structure by those very actions and behaviours. The existing
structures and relationships in the LGA’s organizational field acted to shape the
behaviour of organizations within that field. Conforming amplified the structures.
The LGA was constrained from adapting its structure to the network concepts
demanded by a complex adaptive system in order to solve the cross-sector problems
(DiMaggio and Powell 1983).
In this discussion, it was argued that the external and internal pluralistic nature of the
organization resulted in a complex adaptive system that required less government
and more governance. The organization was constrained from adapting due to the
constraints identified by comparison to institutional theory and structuration theory.
In the next part of this chapter, the implications of all the points covered in these
discussions will be shown to contribute to the lack of democratic voice.
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Different government activities require different organizations
At the culmination of the second phase of the action research spiral, as reported in
Chapter Four, the members of the PAR team noted that it was social themes rather
than functional activities that linked the various strategy documents. These themes
appeared to be cross-functional and in many instances cross-entity, some even
bridging the public and private sectors. The service area was predominantly
structured by functions that reflected the different professionals that staffed and ran
the organization.
From the evidence gathered by the PAR team, the organization was still structured
along functional lines. The service delivery of this LGA was not structured to focus
upon individual community or client segments. It was not structured in-line with its
clients’ needs. Individual functions independently established geographical
presence. The numerous services may have been received better by client segments
if the delivery were tailored specifically for each different community or ‘segment’.
This greater focus may help eliminate waste. Effectively, strategic business units
could be established for different client segments and the delivery of the different
public services allocated to the relevant segments. By tuning the service more finely
to the target client community, it could be both more effective and efficient. This is
an area for future research.
Another finding raised by the PAR team for future research was the developmental
element of the work. It was critical to develop the service provision or even add new
services but this finding conflicted with the central role of politicians and the
corporate management who saw it as their position to develop all policies or approve
all development decisions. This clearly reflected the traditional agency theory of
splitting policy formulation by the politicians from implementation by the
professional staff.
It is argued here that the nature of the services must be defined. The generic,
commodity services, or regulation and control, may be delivered more efficiently
with a process-centric organization of top-down strategizing, exploiting existing
resources, including the knowledge, experience and skills of the workforce. New
ventures, projects and existing services that are not amenable to standardized
production line solutions may be delivered more effectively with a people-centric
organization. A people-centric organization blends top-down and bottom-up
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strategizing, acquiring and developing new resources, including knowledge,
experiences and skills. It is an organization that is continuously learning, adapting
and emerging. An example would be the Visa credit card company which was
designed on the principles of a complex adaptive system with devolved
responsibilities and authority, able to deliver the learning and creativity described
above (Hamel 2006).
A similar split can also be used to describe the nature of the organization depending
upon whether it seeks exploration or exploitation (March 1991), or similarly
expressed as build or harvest (Larreche and Srinivasan 1982). A process-centric
organization may be more efficient at exploiting the existing organizational
resources and competences. Its emphasis upon standardization, efficiency and low-
cost make it more relevant for managing the routine business of an organization. A
people-centric organization with its emphasis upon learning and experimentation
may be more effective at exploring and developing new resources and competences
for the future.
Normally, an organization will need both approaches. Exploitation of the existing
resources to deliver the routine services may provide cash to fund the new
product/service development. In most organizations, there is often the need to
provide the routine services for the best value. Equally, many organizations should
prepare for the future, the next new idea, technology wave or social change, if they
are to avoid strategic drift. Both approaches are required within the LGA.
Many organizations face the two demands of executing current activities in order to
survive today, and the necessity to adapt those activities to survive tomorrow
(Beinhocker 2006). Other authors have referred to this need to perform in the short
term and invest in the long-term. Peters and Waterman referred to the necessity of
an organization to be both ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ (Peters and Waterman 2004). Others
have described it as control and creativity (Collins and Porras 1997), operating
versus innovating (Foster and Kaplan 2001), or ambidextrous organizations that can
operate as well as innovate (Tushman and O'Reilly 2002).
There will be elements of routine within both statutory and discretionary LGA
services. These commodity services may be served best by organizing along the
lines of process-centric exploitation with a top-down drive towards efficiency. Other
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non-routine, non-generic services may be delivered better through the approach of
person-centric exploration with a combination of top-down outcome goals and
bottom-up delivery strategy focused upon effectiveness. Rather than a single,
agency-based, top-down approach towards the organization’s structure, strategy and
systems, a more pluralistic approach may be better, incorporating both the process-
centric and people-centric models. The organization needs to match the pluralistic,
complex nature of its environment with matching structure, strategy and systems to
reflect the exploitation and exploration nature of the environment (Jarzabkowski and
Fenton 2006).
The above arguments developed from the findings are proffered from this research
study as the possible basis for future research. It is explained and argued next in this
chapter that a different type of strategizing process is more effective for this
organization that is required to explore, be creative and innovative. This strategizing
process is based upon a few, top-down, simple rules, and continuous learning and
experimentation in a constantly flexing fitness landscape. For the routine
standardized services, a more hierarchical structure reflecting a command and
control approach may be more relevant to deliver a cost-effective and efficient
service. In the stable and relatively simple environment of these commodity
services, the traditional top-down approach to strategizing may be more efficient.
This is similar to the traditional LGA structure.
However, at some point in time, most services will become out of touch with the
changing and emerging requirements of society. For developing new or more
effective services and those that cross functions, an alternative, more effective
strategizing process is required. That is the topic of this discussion. A schematic of
the discussion is shown below in Figure 16 and is adapted from the model by Stacey
(1993) on the three different types of change, discussed in the review of literature.
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Figure 16: Schematic of Strategizing (adapted from Stacey 1993)
For this discussion, focus will be upon three points along a Certainty-Chaos
continuum. The contained change environment of uncertainty (Stacey 1993) that can
be modelled reliably with probalistic forecasts may be more relevant to some of the
more traditional, longer-standing services of the LGA and the internal administrative
services of the Authority. Outside the private sector, the structuralist use of diverse,
populous advisory boards and structures are used because majority power bases are
hard to form amongst the invited participants and they are more easily guided to
agreeing to the objectives of the organization’s leadership. It could be that the
community plan accidentally fell in to a similar category. This reflects the political,
structuralist environment of the LGA.
Even in a more turbulent segment of the service provision, it is still beneficial to
complete an industry analysis to understand better how we arrived at where we are
today, even if it cannot be projected forward to predict the future. As well as flexing
and adapting the strategizing approach, all other aspects of the organization must be
synchronized, or patched (Brown and Eisenhardt 1998a). The organizational
structure, the systems, organizational culture, leadership and management style, staff
demographics and skills all need to be dynamically aligned (Bryan 2008).
In summary, this organization was structured along traditional lines for regulation
and control; after all, it was an LGA – local government authority. However, other
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services were for citizen well-being that required 'help and assistance' and not
command and control. Equally, the community strategy was identifying many of
today’s problems that were complex and required innovation and experimentation
across department, agency and sector boundaries. Whilst the regulation and control
services of the local government might be run more efficiently with the highly
structured, formal business model in place, the other types of service provision may
be more effectively run with differing, looser business models, including a less
formal strategizing system instead of a formal planning system with more inclusive
processes. More so, for these non-regulatory services, strategy content must be
personal and more in line with public service ethos. Generic policies and strategies
are too inflexible or irrelevant to many sectors of community. Many of today’s
problems which are reflected in government policies are themes, such as obesity
which cross functions, departments, services, agencies and sectors. Nevertheless,
government is still predominantly organised and structured by function.
Lack of democratic voice
In this discussion, the findings do not confirm the literature on localism or the public
service attribute of equitability, whilst the public service delivery method evidences
performance management and the lack of voice. A map of the discussion in this
section is shown below in Figure 17.
Figure 17: Structure of Discussion: Lack of Democratic Voice
Source: Developed for the purposes of this thesis
The participants and the processes to engage them in the strategizing process were
summarized in the diagrams that were part of the findings by the participative action
research cycles and were discussed in Chapter Four. The findings clearly illustrated
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top-down, command and control with no consultation with either the front-line
service deliverers or the service recipients upon policy and strategy. This finding
differs from the literature on modernisation, ‘the third way’ (Blair 1998),
engagement and delegation to neighbourhoods and local communities.
Evidence of the New Labour driver of citizen participation (Coaffee and Johnston
2005) was not found in this research programme. Local government was required to
develop a more flexible, enabling approach reflecting pragmatism, accountability
and transparency, with wider consultation with citizens (Coaffee and Johnston 2005).
This meant a bottom-up approach instead of a top-down approach. However, some
have pointed out that local authorities were left on their own to work out how to
implement this complex task (Merchant 2003). The research findings were that
other service providers were consulted as part of the community strategy action plan
(predominantly government and third-sector not for profit organizations) but not
neighbourhoods, communities and citizens. Elected councillors acted as agents for
the citizens but political elections are only votes on trust and ethics, not detailed
policies (Rhodes 1987).
The New Localism approach was dependent upon the local authority trusting
localities not to misuse the opportunities (Raysford 2004). The diagrams of the
strategizing process do not evidence delegation to localities. The research evidence
would confirm the previous government tendency to prescribe policy to localities
(Johnston and Coaffee 2004). Contrary to the literature, strategy was not devolved;
community voice was not enhanced and empowered with decision-making
processes. Service delivery was not decentralised to the sub-local level nor were
local communities given a voice in decisions through area committees (Coaffee and
Johnston 2005).
The Local Government Act (2000) enabled and empowered area committees with
limited power and responsibility from the local authority executive to refine local
service delivery. This was part of the government’s campaign publicised as ‘joined-
up’ thinking, and transformation to community-led governance (Coaffee and Healey
2003; Taylor and Gaster 2001). Neighbourhoods enable individuals and
communities to exercise greater choice, voice, and control over public services
(ODPM 2006). The inability to bridge the pluralistic context identified by this
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research may confirm the huge professional and cultural gulfs between stakeholders,
especially between public services staff and policy makers (Maddock 2002).
Stakeholder theory may also provide evidence as to why citizens were not widely
consulted upon strategy development. The normative approach to stakeholder theory
emphasises that all stakeholder interests are of intrinsic value (Donaldson and
Preston 1995). Alternatively, there has been an argument for not including
stakeholders who were too insignificant to worry about to others (Freeman 1984).
A systemic approach, such as complexity theory, embraces all stakeholders. In
addition, it identifies those that are indirect through second and third order of
magnitude (‘knock-on effects’) (Pascale et al. 2000). The lack of stakeholder
participation disconfirms the literature and evidences another constraint upon the
flexibility of the local authority as a complex adaptive system.
Le Grand established that a well provided public service had five attributes: quality,
efficiency, responsiveness, accountability and equitability (Le Grand 2007). The
service provision must be responsive to the individual needs and requirements of the
recipients of the service whilst being delivered equitably. As the citizens were not
widely consulted about the strategy, it was not responsive to their individual needs
and requirements.
The provision of high quality public service applies to the whole value chain (input,
process, output and outcomes). However, it is interesting and very relevant to this
research to note that the users of the service particularly require high quality at their
points of contact, the process and outcome. As also evidenced by this study, the
public service providers predominantly monitor and measure the easier, less
accountable parts of the chain, input and process. Therefore, whilst both the
recipient and the provider focus upon the process, the provider rarely monitors or
measures the service outcomes.
There are four public service delivery methods (Le Grand 2007). They are trust,
performance management, voice, and choice. Trust requires that professionals,
managers and others are trusted to deliver a high-quality public service based upon
the public sector ethos. This research found lack of trust.
Performance management is the command-and-control approach that uses targets as
a means to control the behaviour of service deliverers to comply with the
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expectations of a higher authority. This research found extensive evidence of this
delivery method and was reflected in the diagrams of the strategizing process within
this local authority.
Voice enables users and recipients of public services to communicate directly their
views, expectations and aspirations for the services. No evidence was found to
support the existence of this delivery method.
Finally, choice requires that service users choose from amongst competing service
providers for the provision of their services. The local authority does provide some
services such as leisure and sport which are available in the private sector. Equity is
social justice and fairness (Le Grand 2007) and one main reason why the services are
in both the public and private domains. The publicly provided services are
specifically targeted at citizens and groups of communities that are unable to
purchase the private sector services. One part of society should not be disadvantaged
when it comes to their well-being through fitness and health. The specific delivery
model used should be related to the nature of the service. For example, a regulation
and control function may be more suited to a command-and-control delivery system
whilst regenerating an inner city may benefit from consultation with the inhabitants.
Prior to New Labour, the concept of public participation was found to be secondary
to that of service delivery (Batley and Stoker 1991; Goldsmith 1996; Wolman 1995,
1996). The findings from this research confirm the earlier literature.
The structure, systems and processes, whilst reflecting ‘regulation and control’, in
the main, excluded service recipients or professional service providers from the
strategizing process. The systems were designed to communicate downwards but
not engage in dialogue or communicate directly from the street-level to the
directorship or leadership. The strategizing process appeared to be structured by and
for the 'Establishment' – the senior managers of public service organizations. The
findings of this research disconfirm the literature upon localisation, equitability and
community voice.
Theory-Practice Gap: Conclusion
The research findings confirmed that the LGA was operating within a context of
pluralistic external strategizing and internal organizing pluralism (Jarzabkowski and
Fenton 2006). In addition, the research findings identified that within this LGA,
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pluralistic organizing has unintended strategizing implications. The two findings
under this heading are the fact that first, ‘The Authority’ was structured to more
efficiently deliver services for regulation and control of constituents’ behaviour, and
secondly, street-level bureaucrats used their discretion in interpreting the
implementation of policies, and also politicized citizens. These two findings are
summarized next followed by summaries of other issues surfaced around the
research that require further research.
From the findings, this LGA was not designed for the external strategizing pluralism
or the internal organizing pluralism. The first gap discovered was that this LGA was
designed for routine regulation and control. It was not originally designed to deliver
other types of service. This was reflected in the strategizing process; the fact that it
was organizationally structured by service delivery function; controlled by systems
and processes; with top-down leadership style; an evolving organizational culture of
compliance and obedience, and the active de-skilling and de-professionalising of
staff. The strategizing process lacked the specific policy input from the various
marginalised communities who required the services most. It also specifically
avoided any input from the front-line professional staff that held the relevant
knowledge, experience and skills. This single organizing approach and structure is
in contrast to the literature (Beinhocker 2006; Collins and Porras 1997; Foster and
Kaplan 2001; Larreche and Srinivasan 1982; March 1991; Peters and Waterman
2004).
The second finding was that the pluralistic nature of the society served and the lack
of commitment on the frontline led to another phenomenon – street-level bureaucrats
and the politicization of the community. This empirical research programme found a
gap between the standardized, generic policy to be applied across the board by the
strategy and the interpretation of these objectives by the frontline strategy
implementers. These frontline, street bureaucrats not only interpreted the strategy to
fit the specific, unique context of each neighbourhood but also educated the citizens
to appreciate their own power through their politicization. The staff also restated
their plans to fit the format of the current top-down strategy by rephrasing them
using the current political language of the day. This confirms findings reported in
the USA of street-level bureaucrats (Thompson 1982).
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Other issues around the research, and summarized next, were identified and these
warrant further research. These additional issues were uncovered when looking at
pluralistic strategizing pressures straining organizing capacity, and protracted
tensions between organizing and strategizing.
The command and control organizational approach failed to capture the hearts and
minds of the middle-level managers who actually delivered the service (McKevitt
and Lawton 1996). As stated above, the strategizing process failed to involve the
frontline service providers or their clients. This lack of involvement and
commitment by the frontline service providers to the top-down strategy contributed
to the practice-theory gap revealed in this empirical study.
This LGA set out its political aspirations as longer-term themes in its community
strategy, described as topics that traversed agencies and sectors. The middle
managers were measured upon their performance against the annual budget. As
such, the cross-cutting, longer-term goals were ambiguous, complex and uncertain.
Within the constraints of their functional organization structure, the middle managers
implemented policy as per their interpretation as outlined in the previous section on
street-level bureaucrats. There was a clear gap between political aspirations and
implementation.
The impact upon employee performance by the modernization of local government
was another theory-practice gap. In the past, the performance and behaviour of local
government employees were governed by the strong public ethos, the influence of
professional bodies and unions. In the efforts to standardize services and their
delivery, staff were de-skilled and their discretionary authority curtailed. They were
being McDonaldized (Ritzer 1993) or institutionalised. At a time of increasing
turbulence, ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity, staff were made increasingly less
flexible and adaptable.
These theory-practice gaps, caused largely by external strategizing pluralism and
internal organizing pluralism require different organizations, or business models,
from that of regulation and control.
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Conclusions about the research problem
This research set out to gain a better understanding of the strategizing process in a
local government authority, specifically from the perspective of middle management.
The research question was: How does Government Strategize Locally from a Middle
Management Perspective?
The action research method used specifically surfaced theory-practice gaps.
However, the first important conclusion from the findings confirmed the literature
upon pluralism (Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006). This LGA was strategizing in a
context of pluralism with pluralistic external strategizing and internal organizing
pluralism. Next, the findings confirmed the literature that the pluralistic organizing
of this LGA had unintended strategizing implications (Jarzabkowski and Fenton
2006). There were two major findings that support this claim. First, the
organization and structure were designed and evolved from a time when the role of
‘The Authority’ was regulation and control of its citizens’ behaviour. This single
organizational approach of top-down management did not confirm the literature on
the requirement of organizations operating in a context of pluralism (Beinhocker
2006; Collins and Porras 1997; Foster and Kaplan 2001; Larreche and Srinivasan
1982; March 1991; Peters and Waterman 2004). Secondly, the research findings
surfaced evidence of street-level bureaucrats. This confirms research reported in the
USA (Thompson 1982). Effectively, because the organization attempted to impose a
single organizing top-down structure and systems, the pluralistic nature of the
internal organization reacted by the service deliverers using their own discretion
when interpreting the policy implementation. This pluralistic organizing had
unintended strategizing implications. The strategy implemented locally was not
necessarily that stated in the policy document. Additionally, the practices used by
the street-level bureaucrats and their deliberate empowerment of community citizens
led to unintended policy changes to reflect the service aspirations of the service
providers and their recipients as they were delivered. There was a gap in the strategy
implementation at the level of the middle managers. The gap found was between the
policy and that implemented.
This chapter’s discussion on the strategizing practice-theory gap makes a significant
contribution to the enhancement of professional practice in the business and
management area of this local government authority. Such a contribution helps fulfil
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one of the aims of the doctoral programme undertaken. The research herein reported
has applied and developed frameworks across different fields that reflect the varied
professional backgrounds of the local government’s management team and a new
framework is developed in this chapter. The research, fulfilled in the action learning
steps of the action research cycle, has contributed to the advancement and
development of professional practice and quality of thinking in the local government
management team. The contribution was reflected in the changed operations
resulting from the action research project and confirmed by subsequent government
audit which recommended the changes should be applied across the LGA (LGA
2006).
A summary of the key contributions to knowledge follows in Table 22.
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Table 22: Key Contributions to Knowledge
Strategizing Theory-Practice Gap Key Findings Addressed by Extant Literature
A. External strategizing and internal organizing pluralism
1. External strategizing pluralism and
internal organizing pluralism
Strategy set by numerous external
stakeholders
Findings confirm published literature
(Jarzabkowski and Fenton 2006)
Implementation organized by numerous
internal stakeholders
This study empirically confirms the theory
B. Pluralistic organizing has unintended strategizing implications
2. Structured for Regulation, Command and
Control
Structure, Culture & Purpose of Organization
was Regulation, Command & Control
Findings disconfirm published literature as the
LGA was structured to deliver a single service
typology (Beinhocker 2006; Collins and
Porras 1997; Foster and Kaplan 2001;
Larreche and Srinivasan 1982; March 1991;
Peters and Waterman 2004)
Many services were for care and well-being
and not regulation & control
3. Street Bureaucracy & Politicization of the
Citizen
Strategy Implementation by Staff:
Street Bureaucracy & Citizen Politicization
Empirical findings here in the UK confirm the
published literature on findings in the USA
(Thompson 1982)
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C. Pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing capacity – areas for further research
Issues around the research Key Findings Addressed by Extant Literature
4. Paradox of top-down commitment Paradox: top-down agency theory &
Staff Commitment through participation
Findings confirm published literature in that
top-down strategy did not gain the
commitment of the implementers (Deacon and
Mann 1999)
5. Political Aspirations & Pragmatic
Implementation
Politicians’ High-level social themes, Vs. Findings disconfirm published literature on
Localisation (Kathi and Cooper 2005), there
was no evidence of area committees &
representation of neighbourhoods &
communities. As a result, the National
generic targets did not specifically address
marginalised communities (Meek et al. 2007).
Findings disconfirm published literature as the
LGA was organized & structured by function
not client segment (Coaffee and Johnston
2005). Confirms literature on lack of
democratic voice (Le Grand 2007).
Annual budgets & objectives
Continued on next page...
Issues around the research Key Findings Addressed by Extant Literature
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6. Top-down political convenience and the
professional public ethos
Organizational Culture Clash:
Agency Theory Vs. Public Ethos
Findings show that the implementation of a
revised management style (New Public
Management) has been ineffective as the
culture (Public Sector Ethos) has not been
addressed (Pratchett and Wingfield 1994).
D. Protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing – areas for further research
7. The LGA is a complex system but
constrained from adapting
The internal & external pluralism confirm the
organization is a complex system but
Is constrained from adapting
Disconfirms published literature on complex
adaptive systems as constrained by
institutional and structuration theory (Johnson
and Greenwood 2007)
8. Different government activities require
different organizations
Local government was delivering pluralistic
types of services but structured only for
regulation & control services
Empirically confirms literature upon
organizing pluralism (Jarzabkowski and
Fenton 2006)
9. Lack of democratic voice Critical stakeholders without power were
unable to participate in the strategy decision-
making process
Disconfirms the literature upon localisation,
equitability and community voice (Campbell
and Marshall 2000).
Source: Developed for the purposes of this thesis
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Implications for theory
The literature identified a high priority for research in to agency problems that arise
due to middle management gaining strategic influence without formal authority
(Wooldridge et al. 2008). The research reported in this thesis addressed this
important issue and identified the phenomenon of ‘street-level bureaucrats’ at the
research site (Thompson 1982). The findings reported herein have identified
practice-theory gaps in strategizing within the LGA. The strategy-as-practice turn
has turned the emphasis on researching what people actually do as opposed to what
they theoretically do (Hendry 2000; Whittington 1996), which was one of the
reasons for choosing the six question research method framework. Whilst adding
empirical research to this new practice-turn, the findings of practice-theory gaps
enforce the need for more research focused upon strategists and how they strategize.
The research findings reported herein confirm the importance and requirement of the
practice-turn.
The philosophical objective/subjective dichotomy has proven to be an over
simplification in this case study. The numerous descriptions of this dichotomy in
strategizing have proven to refer not to a world of dualism but a spectrum. There
were plural perspectives along a continuum. So, the answer to strategizing was
found not to be either top-down or bottom-up but both and every other possible way,
including networks. The choice of the best option was dependent upon the context.
This was exhibited by building upon Stacey’s approach of selecting three points
along the continuum (Stacey 1993). This warrants further research in this area. It
may be that whilst many theorists approach the subject of strategizing from their
own philosophical stance, practitioners seek the best solution to their problem
irrespective of philosophical stance. Practitioners pick and mix solutions as best fit
the context of the problem.
Implications for policy and practice
This participatory action research programme traced and aligned the policies and
strategies from the UK government, the Welsh government, the local authority and
down through the service delivery chain to independent departments and individuals.
A subsequent WAG audit of the LGA service area endorsed this procedure by
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
coining the phrase ‘line-of-sight’ for individuals taking responsibility for the
delivery of specific points of national policy/strategy. This procedure of line-of-
sight was incorporated with an annual review and appraisal system for all employees
whose objectives were ‘line-of-sight’ of the corporate strategy. This resulting
change was applied across the whole of the LGA, in line with the changes made
from the research reported herein (LGA 2006). The research reported herein made a
significant contribution to the enhancement of professional practice at the LGA.
The national discontent with the political system was evidenced in this case study
with citizens excluded from participating in the decision-making processes that
affected their own lives. The failure of the implementation of both the theoretical
concepts of localism and citizen participation and similar political concepts
contained in the Third Way appeared to reflect institutional and structuration
theories. If local government is not satisfying the social requirements of society then
a new bottom-up strategy and structure is required. If the economic recession of the
2010s results in dramatic curtailing of local public services then that may provide a
trigger for a new ‘business’ model for local governance demanded by the citizens.
Limitations
The strength of this research is that it is from the perspective of the middle
management as this unit of analysis is under represented in the literature
(Wooldridge et al. 2008). However, this focus upon middle management could also
be seen as a limitation. A much larger future research programme could look at the
strategizing processes from the perspective of all participants so that the
interpretations and understandings from all of the stakeholders could be compared
and contrasted.
The other key limitation is the fact that this study is of a single case study. However,
institutional and structuration theory guide us to believe that other local authorities
will have similar approaches. Members of the participatory action research team
have subsequently moved to other local authorities in the furtherance of their careers
and have reported back that they have encountered similar findings.
The limitations are acknowledged but they do not detract from the significance of the
findings. The limitations provide platforms for future research. The implications for
further research are discussed below.
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Reflections upon Methodology and Implications
The research method was very difficult when it came to writing-up because,
operationally, it was two separate research programmes – one for the client and one
that is reported herein. The client organization specified a participatory action
research method as they wished both a form of evaluative research to define the
problems, and action research to find possible solutions. The research programme,
herein reported, sought to identify the strategizing processes from the middle
management perspective and so the action research provided the data for this
programme. It was in effect two separate research programmes, one contributing
data to this programme. It became very difficult to keep them separate in the
researcher’s mind during the write-up.
In addition, as the participatory action research approach meant going through
successive inductive – deductive cycles, collecting data on the processes and then
identifying relationships and patterns compared to the literature, it proved impossible
to follow a traditional approach of writing the literature review chapter before
collecting data.
The research herein reported addressed the lack of empirical research identified in
the review of strategy literature (Mellahi and Sminia 2009). The research
specifically addresses the call for theories from sociology (Jarzabkowski and Spee
2009). The research also adds to the empirical findings of the new strategy-as-
practice turn (Jarzabkowski 2005). The literature expressed the importance of future
research developing practice-based links between micro and macro-phenomena. The
research programme undertaken for the purposes of this thesis deliberately identified
links between the micro, individual middle managers, and macro phenomena, senior
management, directors, politicians and government policy documents (Jarzabkowski
and Spee 2009).
In addition, the research herein reported, identified extra-organizational actors who
influenced the community strategy (Community strategy plan) and looked at the
classes of practitioners within the LGA (middle managers and street-level
bureaucrats), (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009). This is best illustrated by the pyramid
shown in the figure 7: the linkages from government policy to individual objectives,
in the fourth Participative Action Research Cycle.
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
The LGA was identified as having an institutionalised strategy practice, as exhibited
by the two policy and procedure maps: schematic of the strategy policy framework
and the LGA policy in to practice framework. In answer to the literature call for
further research, the benefits and limitations of this institutionalised strategy practice
were drawn out from the research reported herein (Jarzabkowski and Spee 2009).
Methodological frontiers were identified from the literature. Methodological
frontiers in the study of strategizing were summarized as interactive discussion
groups, self-reports and practitioner-led research (Balogun et al. 2003). These
authors acknowledged that participatory action research was a possible answer but
offered their breakdown as less time-consuming. The research herein reported did
address interactive discussion groups and practitioner participation. The research
also confirmed the time-consuming nature of participative action research.
Implications for further research
Following the discovery of the practice-theory gaps discussed in this chapter,
supporting findings or differences can be sought from researching other LGAs.
These could be comparisons with other LGAs within Wales and also the other
separate nations that make up the United Kingdom. The opportunity for
international research comparisons are also evident.
The additional findings on pluralistic strategizing pressures strain organizing
capacity, and protracted tensions between organizing and strategizing, discussed in
this chapter can be the focussed subjects of research, operationalised to develop
greater understanding. These additional findings in this chapter were the paradox of
top-down commitment; political aspirations and pragmatic implementation; public
sector ethos; different government activities require different organizations; local
government is a constrained complex adaptive system, and lack of democratic voice.
Each of these additional key issues and patterns surfaced during the participatory
action research process could be the subject of focused research programmes.
The participatory action research teams found evidence to indicate that local (‘old
Labour’) politics led to many gaps in strategy implementation. It is possible that the
implementation of decentralised power and decision-making and The Third Way was
more successful in English local government authorities than those in Wales.
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Researchers could take different methodological approaches to all of the findings
and add to understanding or even establish universal laws. A survey research
approach could be commissioned now to generalise the findings from this case
study.
Since the completion of the research reported herein, there have been political and
policy changes in the UK government, Welsh government, and the Local
Government Authority, as well as changes in management at all levels. It would be
very interesting to repeat this research programme with the current middle managers,
in their current context and identify the changes and any differences in the findings
from the six questions used in the method.
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7. GLOSSARY
Complex Adaptive System
The whole system is more than the sum of its parts, whilst developments of the
whole system result from the interaction of the parts; systems develop non-linearly
and are influenced by various feedback mechanisms; the systems are dominated by
self-organization and co-evolve with other systems (Klijn 2008).
Governance and Government
Government has institutional command and control of the distinctive and separate
roles of the local government, the citizens and private institutions. Governance,
though, is seen to be a facilitating institution. Governance facilitates communities of
citizens and social organizations to produce social goods and services (Meek et al.
2007).
Managerialism
Managerialism was defined (Gramberg and Teicher 2000) as the predominance of
the management role where values of leadership, entrepreneurialism, strategy
development and focus upon outputs “are practiced within a framework of explicit
goals and constraints set by government which form the contractual obligations of
the new public management” (p. 478). The managers were free to develop corporate
plans which identified specific objectives, targets, incentives and constraints in the
pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness (Painter 1998).
Middle Management
Middle management is seen to comprise managers below top managers and above
first-level supervision (Dutton and Ashford 1993; Uyterhoven 1972). Middle
management’s uniqueness is not their location in the hierarchy but their function as
mediators between the organization’s strategy and day-to-day operations (Nonaka
1994).
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Organizing
‘...organizing can be defined as the creation and use of structural practices and coordination processes by internal stakeholders to enact the organization’s identity, culture and interests’ (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 632)
Policy
Politics was deciding what to do and getting it done, policy was the decision about
what to do, and administration was getting it done (Baker 1972).
Practice-theory gap
The practice-theory gap is between theory (espoused theory) and practice (theories in
use). The gap may be disconfirmation between the published literature, as reported
in the literature review chapter of the research herein reported and the research
findings from the participative action research cycles or the absence of literature to
match the findings. The research study focuses upon the gaps between formal
professional knowledge and that of interpretation and enactment, espoused theories
and theories in use. A key focus of the research was to analyse the gaps between
theory and practice and help the professionals to unmask the cover-ups in place
(Kemmis and McTaggart 2000).
Professional
Workers who possessed professional qualifications - they were “professionals”
(Lipsky 1980). The professional training required by many professional bodies
instils a competence of autonomy and independence (Le Grand 2007).
Stakeholders
Those groups and individuals who can affect, or are affected by the achievement of
an organization's purpose (Freeman 1984, p. 246).
Strategizing
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Strategizing is concerned with the myriad, micro activities that make up strategy and
strategizing in practice (Johnson et al. 2003). Most strategy has been about ‘know
what’ but strategizing research is about ‘know how, when and where’ (Garud 1997;
Nicholls-Nixon 1997). The strategizing agenda also considers whose know-how
(when and where) we should try to collect and understand (Balogun et al. 2003),
they state:
“We need to understand not just how senior management plans and actions are created, but also how these plans are consumed and influenced by those lower down in the organizations, and translated into the day-to-day practices that create strategy and change.” (p. 199).
The definition used throughout this research study is:
‘Strategizing refers to those planning, resource allocation, monitoring and control practices and processes through which strategy is enacted’ (Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006: 632)
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8. APPENDICES
Appendix One: Study protocol
Appendix Two: Analysis of government policy documents
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Appendix One: Study Protocol
Collaborative Field Research Purpose: Introduction for the benefit of
participants
The Welsh National Assembly approved the strategy document entitled "Winning
Wales". However, the strategic objectives must be cascaded down the organisations
that form part of the implementation. So, typically this will include central
government departments, agencies, local governments and front-line service
organisations. How is strategic intent cascaded during the implementation process?
This research will look at how one local government authority has implemented its
strategic intent. This study will identify how the national strategic objectives have
been interpreted and the influence this has upon implementation. It will trace the
implementation of strategic objectives from the national strategy documents to the
strategy implemented at the front-line customer service point.
The research's contribution to knowledge associated with strategic intent derives
from its focus upon the interpretation of cascaded strategic objectives by the
recipients and how the objectives are achieved by them, and to what extent.
RQ: How does government cascade strategy from a middle management
perspective in a local government authority?
Procedures
Initial scheduling of field visit
Access to interviewees will be gained via the Operations Manager who is the
designated contact within the local government authority. A room will be provided
by the local government authority to afford privacy for the interview process. Any
assistance or guidance will be agreed as necessary between the researcher and the
Operations Manager. The schedule for data collection will be agreed by these two
individuals and take into account the workload and location of the interviewees.
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Determination of persons to be interviewed
Management and staff from the libraries service function and the leisure function
will be selected from different locations and at middle management levels in the
organisation.
Informed consent by interviewees & participants
Informed consent will be obtained from all interviewees and participants before data
is collected from them. The following topics will be covered with the participants
before starting data collection.
1. Purpose: This study has three separate phases: 1) understanding how we got
to where we are today; 2) identify a frame work for setting outcome goals,
and 3) evaluate their success.
2. Who is conducting the study? This research is being conducted by Martin
Whitehill from Glamorgan University Business School. This research is an
independent project.
3. What is required? Martin will collect information relevant to one of the
research phases. Besides providing verbal information, copies of any
relevant documents would be ideal 'academic rigour'.
4. Participation. Each participant volunteers to participate and may withdraw
at any time.
5. Confidentiality? All information will be kept confidential. No specific
comments during this interview will be attributed to the interviewee. They
will be anonymous.
6. Recording? The researcher wants to record the interview because they can
not write down word-for-word that which is said fast enough or accurately
enough. Academic rigour maintains that the researcher must accurately
capture the interviewee’s responses and not the researcher’s interpretation of
what they think the interviewee said or meant. The recordings will remain
confidential and will only be heard by the research transcriber.
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7. Does the participant have any questions?
8. May we continue with the interview?
Below is an example set of questions used during the interviews of each senior
manager. This list also illustrates the search for independent collaborative evidence
from other data sources for each answer.
Questions for Level One
1 How were the City’s strategic objectives for the new service area in the year
2000 communicated?
2. What strategic objectives were established in the year 2000?
3. How were the strategic objectives set?
4. How was subsequent performance measured?
5. How was feedback given to staff upon their performance towards achieving
the strategic objectives?
6. How were staff motivated at the time?
7. How were the challenges set inspirational or aspirational?
8. How were staff encouraged or rewarded for innovative new solutions?
9. How easy was it to change strategic objectives to flex with events?
10. Who were the new service area stakeholders in 2000?
11. How were each of the new service area stakeholders viewed or treated in
2000?
To support answers received to each of the above questions, also seek alternative,
collaborative sources of data such as:
Newsletters
Emails
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Memoranda
Presentation materials
Training programmes
Stories or events
Chief Officer of the new service area
Chief Officer's immediate superior
The new service area’s Operations Managers
Local government authority publications
Sample Strategies:
Establish chain of evidence
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Appendix Two: Analysis of government policy documents
Table 23: National Policies
Document Key themes Performance Measures
Wales: A Better
country
Overarching strategic agenda of the Welsh Assembly Government. Key policy drivers
for LLL: Education and Learning: Provision of Individual Learning Accounts; reform
14-19 learning agenda; schools as community resources; integrated early years
centres; eliminate the basic skills gap; pilot free skills training for adults up to NVQ
level 3
Culture and Sport: Develop library services and provide modern community services
which support lifelong learning and are accessible to everyone; free access to local
authority swimming pools for children in school holidays and older people.
Communities: Tough action on anti-social behaviour to improve quality of life -
£100m crime fighting fund to reduce fear of crime and address drug related crime;
roll-out communities first
Health and Social Care: Expand the health inequalities fund.
Key themes from Wales: A Better Country are developed further in the thematic
No specific measures
Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
strategies below.
Plan for Wales,
October 2001,
WAG
The Learning
Country,
September 2001,
WAG
A Paving Document for Lifelong Learning to 2010. Key outcomes are identified – key
drivers for LLL: Reducing the number of boys underachieving at school by
comparison to girls
Every child to receive the benefit of a full prospectus of out of school activities
combining volunteering, entrepreneurship, cultural, sporting and outdoor activities by
2010
Reduction in number of 16-18 year olds without qualifications
Reduction in number of 19 year olds without NVQ level 2
Reduction in the number of adults of working age without qualifications
Reduction in the number of adults of working age with NVQ level 2 or equivalent
(also targets for NVQ Levels 3-4)
Reduction in proportion of adults of working age with functional basic literacy skills
Baseline 1996; 60%
reduction by 2010
1in25 (2007); 1in50
(2010)
1in2 (2007) and
sustain
1in 9 (2007) 1 in 10
(2010)
8 in 10 (2007) and
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Reduction in proportion of adults of working age with functional basic numeracy skills
Increase number of parents and children on family literacy and numeracy
programmes
Employer Participation: IIP accreditationIncrease participation in post 16 education and training
Number of individual learning accounts
Increasing providers with grade 1 and 2 Estyn inspections.
Number of working age adults in training on Modern Apprenticeships or Modern Skills
Diploma for Adults at NVQ level 3 +
sustain
Above 9 in 10 from
2004
8 in 10 (2007) 9 in 10 (2010)
Learning Country:
Learning
Pathways 14-19
year olds, October
2002, WAG
(Consultation
Document)
The Learning agenda for 14-19 year olds in Wales. Series of programmes and
proposals to achieve 1 key aim: 95% of young people (25 yrs) are ready for high skill
employment or qualified for higher education (i.e level 2 or level 3 qualification). 80%
at 19.
The strategy defines ‘essential skills for young people: Hard skills – application of
numbers, communication, ICT, Soft Skills – working with others, problem solving,
95% of young people (25 yrs) are ready for high skill employment or qualified for higher education (i.e level 2 or level 3 qualification). 80% at 19.
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improving one’s own learning together with wider skills in Future Skills Wales
(understanding customer needs, willingness to learn, initiative, team working). There
is a recognition that the soft skills and future skills need to be experienced, practiced
and developed within and outside schools and colleges. The Prospectus of Out of
Schools Hours Activities developed by the YPP should address these skills. Other key
themes – work experience, enterprise, breaking down the divide between academic
and voctional, work based learning, personal and social education, involvement in
voluntary and community activities; participation and involvement; learning coaches;
progress files; supporting parents in supporting their children. Implementation via 14-
19 Networks to include CCET, Young People’s partnership and local authority.
Reaching Higher,
March 2002
Widening access to and increasing participation in Higher Education
Children and
Young People: A
framework for
Partnership,
November 2000
(WAG)
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Children and
Young People:
Rights to Action,
January 2004
(WAG)
WAG has adopted the UN convention on the Rights of the Child as the basis of all its
work for children and young people in Wales. The strategy identifies Seven Core
Aims around the themes of A Flying Start in Life (Before Birth, Twf – bilingualism,
SureStart 0-3 yrs – focus on health, social services and early education (Cymorth
areas only), Parenting, Early years education, developing language and literacy
skills); A comprehensive range of Education, Training and Learning (including from
the Learning Country – Foundation phase; Narrowing the Gap; Class sizes in primary
schools, 14-19, Welsh Baccalaureate, Iaith Pawb); the Best possible Health, Free
from Abuse, Victimisation and Exploitation; Play, Leisure, Sporting and Cultural
Activities; Treated with respect and have their race and cultural identity recognised; a
safe home and community; Poverty.
Specific initiatives of relevance to LLL: A flying start: Ante-natal health promotion for
mothers; Bookstart to develop language and literacy skills: Education, Training and
Learning – 14-19 (as above); information and advice – Canllaw online; Community –
focused schools (see below); Promoting exercise – links to Climbing Higher the
Sports and Active Recreation Strategy; nutrition – linked to Food and Well-Being
strategy; physical development of children equal to the development of literacy and
numeracy skills of C&YP – link to Climbing Higher; free swimming initiative; NOF
Young People’s Fund c £13m; adventure play facilities including outdoor play
Statistics collected
and set out in A
statistical Focus on
Children in Wales.
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equipment, skateboard and bike parks and youth shelters; WAG funding for Kids
Clubs; prevention of youth offending – Splash Cymru school holiday activities; safe
routes to schools; Cymorth – Children and Youth Support fund – 6 themes: family
support such as teaching parenting skills; health improvement; play and leisure
including playgroups and holiday and mobile play schemes; empowering participation
and active citizenship; training, personal support and information eg drop-in youth
information services or support for young people not attending eduction/training;
developing childcare provision (funding targeted at disadvantaged communities, focus
on partnerships, user involvement, adding value to mainstream services, early
preventative intervention; delivery from integrated centres and networks, inclusion
and evidence-based practice.
Linked to each aim are key outcomes; indicators and means of verification.
Extending
Entitlement
Strategy for young people
Health and Well
Being for Children
and Young People
Action Plan
Number of initiatives including extending the Network of Healthy schools scheme,
smoking prevention, PE and school sport development centres; water coolers in
Community First schools; Free breakfasts for all primary school children.
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National Service
Framework for
Children
Sets out standards to improve the quality of services that children and young people
receive from the National Health Service and social services. Areas covered: Acute
and chronic illness or injury; improving health and well-being for all; Disabled C&YP;
Maternity; C&YP with special circumstances; mental health and psychological well-
being; medecines.
Children First Programme aimed to deliver better outcomes for children and young people in
greatest need, making sure in particular that looked after children, care leavers and
disabled children are able to benfit fully from education, health and social care and
are safeguarded.
Play Policy,
October 2002,
WAG
Childcare Action
plan, 2002, WAG
Wales Youth
Offending Strategy
– Draft
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
A Winning Wales,
WAG
10 year economic development strategy with accompanying plans for skills,
innovation, entrepreneurship, Business and the environment. Key policy drivers for
LLL:
Reduction in the number of adults of working age without qualifications (as Learning
Country)
Increase proportion of adults of working age with NVQ level 4 or equivalent (as
Learning Country)
As Learning Country
Future Skills
Wales, March
1999
Climbing Higher,
WAG - DRAFT
Draft Sport and Active Recreation in Wales strategy. Develops a vision for sport and
active recreation in Wales by 2023. 19 key aims identified. Key policy drivers for LLL:
increasing participation levels; reducing the participation gap amongs
underrepresented groups particularly BME communities.
70% of adults up to the
age of 65 and 50% over
65 will participate in at
least moderate-intensity
physical activity for 30
minutes, five times a
week
Interim milestone 45%
of adults up to 65 by
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
2012.
All children of primary
school age and 90% of
secondary school
children will participate
in at least moderate-
intensity physical
activity for 60 minutes
five times a week
40% of all adults and
80% of children will be
members of sports
clubs or centres.
By 2011, the
participation rate for
BME will be in line with
the national average
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A Walking and
Cycling Strategy
for Wales, WAG
Iaith Pawb Welsh Language Strategy
Creative Future Culture strategy for 2010. Key policy drivers: Sport and Recreation chapter: Links to
Health and Active Lifestyles plan; upgrading facilities; participation of young people in
sport (these are developed further in Climbing Higher). Diversity chapter: Address
imbalance between participation levels in sport between boys and girls; participation
for people with disabilities
No long term targets
Cymru ArLein
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The Strategy for
Older People,
January 2003
Based on consultation undertaken through ‘When I’m 64 and more ..’, May 2002.
Strategic objectives identifies under the themes of valuing older people; chanign
society; Living Longer and Healthier Lives; Coping with Increasing Dependence –
Housing, Social Care and Health. 21 point action plan documented within the
strategy. Policy drivers for LLL: Participation and involvement of older people in
communities and policy making; access to information and services; promoting
learning opportunities; network of community learning centres; IT facilities; health
promotion; programmes to promote intergenerational links;
Well-Being in
Wales, September
2002 (WAG)
Primary Care
Strategy, WAG
Pharmacy
Strategy, WAG
N/A N/A
Strategy on
Optometry, WAG
N/A N/A
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Food and Well-
Being - Nutrition
Strategy, February
2003, WAG
Strategy and Action Plan to tackle the problems of dietary inadequacies in the Welsh
population but particularly in disadvantaged groups.
Arthritis Strategy,
WAG
Standards for treatment and rehabilitation
Everybody’s
Business, WAG
10 year strategy for mental health.
Welsh Substance
Misue Strategy,
May 2000, WAG
Includes priorities relating to children and young people. Substance misuse circular
17/02 issued in June 2002 to youth services as best practice guide on developing
policies and programmes for substance misuse education. Responsibility for
substance misuse transferred to Community Safety partnerships in April 2003. Local
strategy and action plan being developed.
Better Homes for
People in Wales –
A National
Housing Strategy,
WAG
Vision for housing in Wales – strategy and action plan, cascaded through Local
Housing Strategy guidance.
N/a
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
National
Homelessness
Strategy
Aims to improve joint working between housing and social services in local authorities
who must keep in touch with and support care leavers.
Carers Strategy,
WAG
ELWA Corporate
Strategy
ELWa’s vision for learning to 2010 and beyond. Targets reflect the Learning Country.
Key elements of the Strategy – Essential skills including the ‘new essential skills’ as
defined by the European Commission – IT; foreign language; technological culture;
entrepreneurship and social skills; creating lifelong learners; applying knowledge;
skills for business; learning communities.
Key targets reflect the
Learning Country.
Source: Developed for the purposes of this thesis
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Table 24: Local Government Authority Documents
Community
Strategy
The Community Strategy is a partnership plan between the Council and key
stakeholders. Together with the Building for the Future paper below it forms the
Strategic Policy core for the Council.
The Local Government Act 2000 gave a duty to local authorities to work in partnership
to promote the economic, social and environmental well being of their areas. In the
LGA this is being delivered through its Community Strategy Partnership that consists
of over two hundred local public, private and voluntary sector organisations who
together have agreed priorities to ensure that Cardiff continues to succeed as the
driver of Welsh prosperity and sustain local communities which are healthy, safe and
prosperous.
The Community Strategy has now been produced as a result of extensive
consultation with stakeholders. The Strategy seeks to provide a wide ranging long-
term vision for the LGA and complements other strategies and plans, of which the
Economic Development Plan is key. The Plan provides the economic component of
the Community Strategy and sets out the actions for the Council that will contribute to
improving the economic well being of the community.
Relevant objectives
and measures in LLL
Business Plan
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
White Paper –
Building for our
Future
The White Paper is a City Government (ie Cabinet) strategy. It replaces the previous
Ambitions for The City strategies and prior to that the Lord Mayor’s Address.
In September 2003, the City Government launched a Green Paper entitled
“Maintaining the Momentum – Revisiting Cardiff’s Agenda for 2020”. Maintaining the
Momentum sought to act as a spark for debate by asking the views of local people,
businesses and organisations on key challenges facing the City. The result of the
Green Paper has been the publication of a White Paper ‘Building For Our Future’
which outlines the Council’s strategic policy framework and aspirations.
In 1993 the former South Glamorgan County Council launched its “2020 Vision” which
mapped out an ambitious thirty-year agenda to transform Cardiff into a superlative
European capital city. ‘Building for our Future’ is the first step to developing an
updated 2020 Vision for Cardiff, building on the foundations that have been laid over
the last decade. It outlines a challenging and innovative programme to continue the
development of Cardiff as one of the best places to live, work and visit in Europe and
the World.
Relevant objectives
and measures in LLL
Business Plan
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Local Government Authority Strategizing: A Middle Management Perspective
Corporate
Business Plan
(Policy Action
Plan)
The Annual Corporate Business Plan is developed from the core strategic policy
documents above. It identifies key improvements for the year and brings together key
Action (the Policy Action Plan) that need to be implemented during the year from the
strategic documents above.
Service Area
Business Plan
The Leisure and Lifelong Learning Business plan identifies the key objectives and
actions for the service for the year. The objectives and actions relate to the key
strategic themes of the Community Strategy and Building for our Future as defined in
the Corporate Business Plan (Policy Action Plan)
Documented in the
Business plan and
appendices.
Source: Developed for the purposes of this thesis
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