Planning for Change

• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X18785695
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Subject Matter: General Interests

General Interest

Planning for Change:

Incorporating Contextual

Implementation Design into

Strategic Planning

David Mitchell

1

, Sarah E. Larson

1

, Claudia Colantonio

1

and Christina Nguyen

1

Abstract

Many governments have adopted strategic plans to improve outcomes, but these efforts often fail

because they do not take implementation into consideration as they plan. Past research indicates

that the situational context of a strategic initiative influences implementation success. This study

explores how context influences the relationship between implementation best practices and

success by examining 155 strategic initiatives from 36 U.S. municipalities through a series of multiple

regression analyses. The evidence indicates that context does alter the success rate of implemen-

tation best practices and should be taken into consideration during strategic planning in order to

improve government effectiveness.

Keywords

strategic planning, strategic management, implementation, contingency, public management

The essence of strategic planning is purposeful

change. Strategic organizations differ from

their peers; they anticipate external and internal

influences and defend against and/or take

advantage of these influences. In a time when

faith in the public sector is at historic lows

(Page 2013; Saad 2016) and public resources

grow ever more scarce (Kemp 2012), govern-

ments face an immense imperative to achieve

strategic goals. Consequently, the use of strate-

gic planning is widespread throughout all levels

of the public sector (Bryson 2003; Poister an d

Streib 2005).

Unfortunately, governments that use strate-

gic planning may see little return if plan imple-

mentation goes awry. Strategic failures are

primarily attributed to poor implementation

practices (Walker 2013). Why is this the case?

Changes in economic and political conditions

(Pressman and Wildavsky 1973), a lack of

dedicated implementation resources (Mitchell

2018a), poor project management (Grundy

1998), and organizational resistance (Bryson,

Berry, and Yang 2010) all can derail an

otherwise exemplary strategic plans during

1

School of Public Administration, University of Central

Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

David Mitchell, School of Public Administration,

University of Central Florida, PO Box 161395, Orlando,

FL 32816, USA.

Email: david.mitc hell@ucf.edu

State and Local GovernmentReview

2018, Vol. 50(2) 110-118

ªThe Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0160323X18785695

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