All Minds on Deck? Assessing Distributed Strategic Capacity in Public-Sector Organizations

• Author: Jorrit de Jong,Maurits Waardenburg,Bertine Steenbergen,Nicholas Vachon
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211032389
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211032389

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2023, Vol. 43(1) 33 –55

© The Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0734371X211032389

journals.sagepub.com/home/rop

Article

All Minds on Deck?

Assessing Distributed

Strategic Capacity in

Public-Sector Organizations

Jorrit de Jong1, Maurits Waardenburg2,

Bertine Steenbergen3, and Nicholas Vachon1

Abstract

Networked governance requires public managers to think and act strategically across

organizational boundaries. Taking the literature on the transition from government

to governance and its implications for Human Resource Management (HRM) as a

starting point, we argue that not only top management, but also lower-level employees

are likely to be involved in this work. In order to invest effectively in the strategic

and collaborative competencies required for networked governance at all levels

of the organization, one needs to be able to assess strategic capacity. This article

develops an assessment framework based on an in-depth case study conducted in

a government department in the Netherlands over a 6-month period. We evaluate

an initial framework to assess strategic capacity derived from existing literature and

propose an augmented framework that acknowledges the tension between different

accountability relationships and the need for continuous, structured, reflective

interaction between managers, employees, and key stakeholders.

Keywords

distributed strategic capacity, collaborative competency, networked governance,

strategic public management, strategic human resource management, strategic capacity

1Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

2Tilburg University, The Netherlands

3Dutch National Government, Den Haag, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Maurits Waardenburg, Tilburg Center for Regional Law and Governance (TiREG), Tilburg School of Law

& Tilburg School of Politics and Public Administration, Tilburg University, PO Box 90153, Tilburg 5000

LE, The Netherlands.

Email: M.J.S.Waardenburg@uvt.nl

1032389ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X211032389Review of Public Personnel AdministrationDe Jong et al.

research-article2021

34 Review of Public Personnel Administration 43(1)

Introduction

The world today is grappling with existential challenges, including economic auster-

ity, the mass migration of refugees, and the global climate crisis. These challenges

have multiple and complicated root causes, and their solutions require the public sec-

tor to work together with organizations across sectors (Sørensen & Torfing 2017).

Working across silos and sectors requires a shift from bureaucratic government to

collaborative governance (Mayne et al., 2020). Traditional models of public manage-

ment assumed relative stability, but effective public-sector organizations today need to

adapt frequently to changing environments while staying within their mandate and

remaining accountable to their political leadership (Moore, 1995; Mulgan, 2009). The

new paradigm of networked governance suggests that government must continually

reorient itself to accomplish social goals (Alford, 2009; Behn, 2014; Hartley, 2005;

Moore, 2013; Stoker, 2006; ‘t Hart, 2014). The shift in focus from organizational out-

puts to social outcomes and from unilateral government intervention to cross-sector

collaboration requires deep and persistent sensitivity to social and institutional

environments.

This trend has implications not only for public-sector organizations as a whole and

their top management, but also for individual public service employees in their day-to-

day practice (Donahue & Moore, 2012; Goldsmith & Eggers, 2004; Mulgan, 2009;

O’Leary et al., 2012). In the traditional set-up, “being a good civil servant is a legalis-

tic, procedural, neutral, and supportive task” (Van der Steen et al., 2018, p. 391).

Human resource management’s (HRM) role was primarily to guide civil servants to

execute policies created through the political process. HRM practices therefore had a

much more administrative focus—primarily on ensuring employees’ activities and

outputs were aligned with the required execution—rather than a strategic outcome

orientation focused on enabling employees to co-shape policies and ensure the success

of an organization’s goals and mission as is more common in Strategic Human

Resource Management (SHRM) (Kaufman, 2001).

In a networked governance setting, the political process and its top-down policy

directives are complemented by the efforts of middle and lower-level public sector

employees (henceforth “employees”) who communicate, coordinate, and collaborate

with external stakeholders. They may not make policy decisions per se, but through

their value-seeking and problem-solving efforts, they do shape the creation and execu-

tion of policy. Where lines of authority are relatively clear in the context of a tradi-

tional bureaucracy, the context of cross-boundary work in a networked governance

setting presents strategic dilemmas for employees (De Jong et al., 2021; Waardenburg,

Groeneer, de Jong, Keijser, 2019). Employees may find that their managers do not

adequately support or recognize competencies necessary for effective cross-boundary

work, including interpersonal understanding, teamwork, and team leadership (Getha-

Taylor, 2008). Employees therefore need to balance an outward orientation to their

environment and an upward orientation to the chain of command (Donahue & Moore,

2012; Pedersen & Hartley, 2008). A challenge for human resource (HR) departments

is that traditional bureaucratic skills and attributes (relied upon for hiring and