Goal achievement in municipal strategic planning: The role of executives' background and political context

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• Author: Ricardo A. Bello‐Gomez,Claudia N. Avellaneda
• Date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13630

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Goal achievement in municipal strategic planning: The role of

executives’background and political context

Ricardo A. Bello-Gomez

1

| Claudia N. Avellaneda

2

1

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA

2

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

Correspondence

Ricardo A. Bello-Gomez, Texas Tech University,

Holden Hall, 118, Lubbock, TX 79407, USA.

Email: rbellogo@ttu.edu

Abstract

Strategic planning has been increasingly used by local governments worldwide to

boost performance. While this can be seen as a technical and political process, the

relationship between managerial qualifications, political context and achievement

of strategic goals in local governments has been scarcely studied. This study

explores these relationships using data from 137 Colombian municipalities at the

middle and end of the 2016–2019 mayoral term. Findings suggest that midterm

strategic goal achievement is associated with mayoral experience, particularly in

the national government where the tradition of strategic planning is better estab-

lished, and this relationship increases with higher levels of municipal council sup-

port. Certain traits of the chief planning officer, appointed by the mayor, also

correlate positively with midterm goal achievement. End-term goal achievement is

mainly associated with midterm paths. This research contributes to the perfor-

mance management literature by highlighting the political-managerial interplay in

strategic goal achievement.

Evidence for practice

•Even in contexts where strategic planning is mandated from the top-down,

there is a space for managerial action to shape the strategic plan and improve

goal achievement.

•Leaders’experiences at different levels of government allow developing of var-

ied skills or acquiring distinct types of knowledge that can affect successful

implementation of municipal strategic plans.

•Chief planning officers perceived as more academically competent or having

more experience in intergovernmental affairs are associated with higher levels

of strategic goal achievement.

•Mayors enjoying higher levels of political support in the city council can better

leverage their expertise to achieve successful strategic implementation.

INTRODUCTION

Since the 1980s, public organizations have increasingly

incorporated strategic planning and strategic manage-

ment in their governance toolkits (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015).

Scholars have extensively studied strategic planning as

an organizational outcome, explaining the drivers that

lead to its adoption and implementation by public

organizations (Bryson, 1995;George&Desmidt,2014;

Poister & Streib, 1999). However, strategic planning “is

useful only if it is carefully linked to implementation —

and this is often where the process breaks down”

(Poister & Streib, 2005, p. 46). Moreover, the popularity

of strategic planning, both in the public and private

sectors, relies on its expected contribution to organiza-

tional performance (Andrews, 1980,Dror,1983,Locke

and Latham 2002). Therefore, as strategic planning

became widely adopted, research has shifted toward

understanding the conditions for successful implementa-

tion of strategic plans (George, Walker, & Monster, 2019;

Poister & Streib, 2005). Research has also explored the link-

age between strategic planning and performance manage-

ment (Bianchi & Tomaselli, 2015; Moynihan, 2008;

Poister, 2010), as well as the performance effects of adopt-

ing and implementing strategic planning (see George

et al., 2019 for a review and meta-analysis).

Received: 21 February 2022 Revised: 7 February 2023 Accepted: 1 March 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13630

1088 © 2023 American Society for Public Administration. Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1088–1107.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar

Scholars have identified positive impacts of strategic

planning in public organizations’performance in different

contexts, such as Norwegian municipalities (Johnsen, 2018),

Canadian public organizations (Elbanna, Andrews, &

Pollanen, 2016) and U.S. county governments (Lee,

McGuire, & Kim, 2018), among others. However, these

effects seem to be contingent on the chosen approach

to performance assessment (George et al., 2019;

Jimenez, 2013). Moreover, research also has highlighted

the influence of stakeholders’perception (Elbanna

et al., 2016) and of several managerial practices (Jung &

Lee, 2013;Poister,Pasha,&Edwards,2013)insuccessful

strategic planning implementation. Nevertheless,

scarce attention has been given to the qualifications of

top executives, despite their key role in steering the

overall strategic planning process and in gathering

internal and external stakeholder support. Furthermore,

in the case of elected local governments, understand-

ing the role of both top executives and key stake-

holders requires using managerial and political lenses.

In this sense, strategic planning and management

become technical and political processes.

Colombia presents interesting cases for studying the

interaction between managerial and political factors in

achieving strategic goals. Latin America’s long-standing

tradition of development planning dates back to the late

1950s and originally embraced a top-down approach to

boost economic development (Mejia Guinand, 2016).

Since the 1980s, however, the structures and capacity for

planning have shifted toward a strategic planning

approach, in line with New Public Management (NPM)

reforms across the region (Leiva Lavalle, 2012). As a result

of these combined traditions, Colombian local govern-

ments are mandated to conduct a strategic planning pro-

cess every 4 years. “Holding constant”strategic plan

formulation, this setting allows for studying whether the

qualifications and roles of the key municipal executive

actors, the mayor and the chief planning officer, influence

strategic goal achievement. In addition, because the

implementation of planning strategies and actions

requires municipal council’s support, mayoral ability to

mount a strong support base also should contribute to

achieving strategic goals.

This study explores these relationships using cross-

sectional data from 137 Colombian municipalities. The

analysis combines administrative data for midterm (2017)

and end-term (2019) achievement of strategic goals, and

information derived from a 2019 survey with incumbent

Colombian mayors. Findings suggest that midterm goal

achievement is associated with mayoral experience in the

national and local public sectors. Results also suggest the

relationship with national public experience, where

the tradition of strategic planning is better established,

increases as city council’s support for the mayor grows.

Moreover, some characteristics of the chief planning offi-

cers, such as their academic background and intergovern-

mental experience, also seem to boost midterm goal

achievement. While these factors are well rooted in public

administration literature, they remain scarcely explored in

the process of strategic planning and management. This

research contributes to the field of public administration

by assessing the role of executives’qualifications and

political support in achieving strategic goals, thus

expanding the set of managerial and environmental

explanations of the link between strategic planning and

performance. In addition, this article also highlights the

need to expand and test public administration theories in

the context of emerging and developing countries with

diverse institutional trajectories.

MANAGEMENT AND POLITICS IN MUNICIPAL

ACHIEVEMENT OF STRATEGIC GOALS

Bryson (2011, 7) defines strategic planning as a “delibera-

tive, disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions

and actions that shape and guide what an organization

(or other entity) is, what it does, and why.”By providing a

thorough analytical framework for strategy development

(Dior 1983, George et al., 2019), strategic planning may

contribute to organizational performance. Yet, strategic

planning requires concrete strategies (Locke and Latham

2002) and their translation into specific and even individ-

ual goals (Jung & Lee, 2013) to make that contribution.

Moreover, strategic planning boosting performance

implies a successful strategy implementation, that is, the

actual achievement of strategic goals.

The transition from adoption to implementation of

strategic planning requires a proper performance mea-

surement system to keep track of goal achievement, as

well as effective managerial efforts to realize it. As pro-

posed by Poister (2010, p. S251), “strategic management

can be viewed as performance management at a strategic

level”. Indeed, public managers may treat strategic plan-

ning and performance management as integrated sys-

tems (Moynihan, 2008), which are part of an overarching

rational approach to public management (Jimenez, 2013).

Furthermore, some scholars consider performance and

strategic management as dynamic intertwined processes

where the identification of key stakeholders becomes

vital for success (Bianchi & Tomaselli, 2015; Noto &

Noto, 2019). Therefore, to fully understand the setting,

tracking, and achievement of strategic goals, it is neces-

sary to focus on key actors who oversee the implementa-

tion of strategic planning, given the key role of

management during the strategic performance process.

Scholars have identified several characteristics among

the people driving the strategic effort that are conse-

quential to its implementation. For instance, managerial

involvement (Elbanna et al., 2016) becomes a key factor

for a strategic plan’s implementation. Other research has

shown combining strategic planning with performance

management practices also yields positive results in terms

of implementation and performance (Poister et al., 2013).

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW 1089