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Introduction
Strategic Planning is a means to an end, a method used to position an organization, through prioritizing its use of resources according to identified goals, in an effort to guide its direction and development over a period of time. Although the notion of strategy has its origins in the military arena, strategic planning in recent years has been primarily focused on private sector organizations and much of the theory assumes that those in executive control of an organization have the freedom to determine its direction Current theories also appear to assume that the operating environment is predominantly competitive and, implicitly, that a profit motive will be the driving force behind the planning requirement.
In public sector organizations, however, those in executive positions often have their powers constrained by statute and regulation which predetermine, to various degrees, not only the very purpose of the organization but also their levels of freedom to diversify or to reduce, for example, a loss-making service. The primary financial driver in these organizations is not profit, but to maximize output within a given budget (some organizations currently having to try to do both) and, while elements of competition do exist, it is much more common to think of comparators rather than competitors.
In their efforts to provide increased value for money and to genuinely improve their outputs, public sector organizations have been increasingly turning to strategic planning systems and models. While it is acknowledged that models rarely actually fit organizations without some adaptation, many in the public sector have found that certain key dimensions of the existing strategic models have not existed within their organizations. However, instead of seeking to develop new models that better fit the public sector situation, there has been a tendency to try to fit the organizations to the models by redefining end users as customers, discovering competitors and other similar methods.
In their excellent book, Exploring Corporate Strategy, Scholes and Johnson[1] lay great stress on the need to temper strategic logic according to the cultural constitution of an organization (their notion of cultural fit). In championing the process approach to strategic management emphasis is laid on the real situation by focusing on how strategies actually happen and the managing of the processes involved in...