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This study presents the first empirical test of the proposition that strategy content is a key determinant of organizational performance in the public sector. Strategy content comprises two dimensions: strategic stance (the extent to which an organization is a prospector, defender, or reactor) and strategic actions (the revive emphasis on changes in markets, services, revenues, external relationships, and internal characteristics). Data were drawn from a multiple-informant survey of 119 English local authorities. Measures of strategy content are included in a multivariate model of interauthority variations in performance. The statistical results show that strategy content matters. Organizational performance is positively associated with a prospector stance and negatively with a reactor stance. Furthermore, local authorities that seek new markets for their services are more likely to perform well. These results suggest that measures of strategy content must be included in valid theoretical and empirical models of organizational performance in the public sector.
Questions have always been posed about the performance of public organizations. These questions often emerge from crises in service provision (e.g., child-protection scandals) or celebrations of success (e.g., school-achievement rates, the response of emergency services to disasters). However, these examples, like much of the academic literature on public-service performance, are single-case-study illustrations. They do not provide the systematic evidence necessary to advance the science or practice of public administration. The absence of such evidence has arisen partly from a lack of attention to the issue of performance among public administration academics and from a lack of relevant data. In recent years, more systematic information on the performance of public organizations has become available, and a literature on this topic is now emerging (Boyne 2003; Kelly and Swindell 2002). The results of empirical studies suggest that although environmental constraints are important, managers in public organizations have ample power to influence performance (Meier and O'Toole 2001, 2002).
A core managerial function is to shape strategy content, which can be defined as the patterns of service provision that are selected and implemented. Some scholars have argued this is a central influence on public-service performance (Boschken 1988; Boyne, Martin, and Walker 2004; Nutt and Backoff 1995; Wechsler and Backoff 1987). However, no systematic empirical evidence exists on the validity of this proposition. By contrast, many studies of private...