Do Politicians See Eye to Eye? The Relationship between Political Group Characteristics, Perceived Strategic Plan Quality, and Strategic Consensus in Local Governing Majorities

• Published date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13058
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Author: Stijn Goeminne,Kenn Meyfroodt,Sebastian Desmidt

Do Politicians See Eye to Eye? The Relationship between Political Group Characteristics 749

Stijn Goeminne is associate professor

of general economics in the Department of

Economics of Ghent University, Belgium.

His research focuses on the impact of

political and institutional features of

governments (e.g., ideology, fragmentation,

electoral cycle, fiscal illusion) on fiscal

policy, performance measurement, and

public service performance at the local

government level. His research has been

published in

Public Administration, Local

Government Studies, Public Money &

Management,

and

International Tax and

Public Finance

.

E-mail: stijn.goeminne@ugent.be

Sebastian Desmidt is associate

professor of strategic management in

the Faculty of Economics and Business

Administration, Ghent University, Belgium.

His research focuses on the effectiveness

of strategic management instruments

and strategic planning processes, the

determinants of strategic consensus, and

the motivational power of mission valence

in public and nonprofit organizations. His

work has appeared in

Public Management

Review, International Public Management

Journal,

and

Management Decision

.

E-mail: sebastian.desmidt@ugent.be

Abstract: Although strategic consensus is a core concept in strategic management research, empirical evidence is

lacking on (1) the degree of strategic consensus in public organizations, (2) how strategic consensus is impacted by

group characteristics specific to public strategic decision-making groups, and (3) how strategic plans impact these

relationships. An analysis of multisource data from 1,075 governing majority members nested in 256 Flemish

municipalities (Belgium) indicates that within-group strategic consensus varies among governing majorities and

is negatively impacted by political diversity and political power, but these relationships are mediated by perceived

strategic plan quality. The results indicate that the idiosyncrasies of public decision-making groups can impede high

levels of strategic consensus, but strategic plans can attenuate this effect by fulfilling a boundary-spanning role.

Evidence for Practice

• The degree of within-group strategic consensus in governing coalitions varies, which suggests that formal

ratification of a strategic plan does not always equate with shared plan support.

• Political diversity and political power are significant predictors of within-group strategic consensus; this

points to the relevance of including variables tailored to the idiosyncrasies of public strategic decision-

making groups when analyzing public strategic planning processes.

• The positive relationship between perceived strategic plan quality and strategic consensus suggests that

strategic plans could function as boundary-spanning objects.

Strategic planning has become a central process

in the majority of public organizations (Bryson,

Edwards, and Van Slyke 2018; George et al.

2018). One of the primary reasons for the proliferation

of public strategic planning is the assumption that

a deliberative and disciplined effort to produce

fundamental decisions about the organization’s

strategic priorities and how to address them can

instigate organizational success (Bryson 2010; Elbanna,

Andrews, and Pollanen 2016; Poister et al. 2013). In

this regard, Bryson, Berry, and Yang (2010, 508) argue

that an important benefit of strategic planning is the

integrative function of the planning process and the

resulting strategic plan, since both have the potential

to facilitate “the transformation of diverse views into

shared knowledge and understanding that can affect

action.” The process of developing a strategic plan

is expected to act as a bridging experience, helping

planning team members develop a shared perspective

(Bryson 2010), while the resulting strategic plan

is believed to function as a self-authorizing artifact

that facilitates subsequent decision-making processes

by providing organizational decision makers with a

common frame of reference regarding the organization’s

strategic priorities (Vaara, Sorsa, and Palli 2010).

In reality, however, the mere existance of a strategic

plan does not mean that all organizational decision

makers fully support the strategic priorities expressed

in the organization’s strategic plan (Spee and

Jarzabkowski 2009). Consequently, the cognitive

perspective in strategy stresses the importance

of focusing on within-group strategic consensus

(Narayanan, Zane, and Kemmerer 2011). Strategic

consensus is a measure of variance indicating the

degree of similarity of assessments of strategy-related

content within a group of decision makers (Holt,

Madison, and Kellermanns 2017); it denotes the

degree to which members of a decision-making group

have a shared understanding of the organization’s

strategic priorities (Kellermanns et al. 2011; Walter

et al. 2013). Strategic consensus is deemed an

important construct because a high level of strategic

consensus is said to facilitate strategy monitoring

and adjustment, which, in turn, is believed to foster

organizational success (Gonzalez-Benito et al. 2012).

However, despite four decades of research on strategic

consensus in private sector settings (Walter et al.

2013), knowledge on strategic consensus and its

antecedents within public sector decision-making

Kenn Meyfroodt

Sebastian Desmidt

Stijn Goeminne

Ghent University

Kenn Meyfroodt is a doctoral

researcher in strategic management in

the Faculty of Economics and Business

Administration, Ghent University, Belgium.

His research focuses on strategic planning

processes, decision making, and the role

of strategic consensus in public strategic

decision-making teams. Parts of his doctoral

research have been published in

Public

Management Review

and

Public Money &

Management

.

E-mail: kenn.meyfroodt@ugent.be

Do Politicians See Eye to Eye? The Relationship between

Political Group Characteristics, Perceived Strategic

Plan Quality, and Strategic Consensus in Local

Governing Majorities

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 5, pp. 749–759. © 2019 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13058.

Research Article

Kenn Meyfroodt (corresponding author)

and Sebastian Desmidt contributed equally

to this work.