Strategic Management and Performance in Public Organizations: Findings from the Miles and Snow Framework

• Date: 01 September 2013
• Author: Richard M. Walker
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12073

Theory to Practice

Richard M. Walker is chair professor of

public management at the City University of

Hong Kong and associate dean for research

and postgraduate studies in the College of

Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. His research

interests include public management, per-

formance, and sustainable development.

E-mail: rmwalker@cityu.edu.hk

Strategic Management and Performance in Public Organizations: Findings from the Miles and Snow Framework 675

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 73, Iss. 5, pp. 675–685. © 2013 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12073.

Donald P. Moynihan, Editor

Richard M. Walker

City University of Hong Kong, China

 is article integrates the research evidence that applies

Miles and Snow’s strategic management framework to

the performance of public agencies. Miles and Snow

developed several strategy types, arguing that prospectors

(searching for new approaches) and defenders (sticking

with the existing pattern of services) are aligned with

processes, structures, and the environment in ways that

lead them to outperform reactors (awaiting for instruc-

tions from the environment), which have no consistent

strategy or alignment. Six key lessons for the practice of

strategic management in public organizations are pro-

vided based on a critical review. Findings point toward

the importance of employing a mix of strategies in public

organizations, contrary to Miles and Snow—a strong

evidence base for the association between prospecting and

defending and performance and for relationships between

strategy types and processes and structures. However,

no empirical evidence is provided for alignment across

strategy, structure, process, and the environment.  e

f‌i ndings, largely derived from the United Kingdom and

United States, suggest that the most successful strategy rec-

ipe depends on the ingredients, and thus managers must

pay attention to the connections

between the outlined contingencies

to generate the best results using

the adopted strategy.

Strategic management is an

area of academic inquiry

and organizational prac-

tice that examines the relation-

ships between strategic aims,

processes, and content, typically

using a contingency framework,

which posits that successful

organizations adapt to their

environment in the pursuit of higher performance

(Donaldson 2001;  ompson 1967). A body of theo-

retical and empirical work has now been undertaken

on strategic management in public organizations to

examine questions of aims (Moore 1995; Poister and

Streib 1999), strategic processes (Berry 1994; Bryson

1995; Moore 1995), strategy content (Boyne and

Walker 2004; Joldersma and Winter 2002), and rela-

tionships with internal management practices and the

external environment (Boschken 1988; Greenwood

1987; Lane and Wallis 2009). However, studies exam-

ining the consequences of strategy for performance are

more recent (Johansen 2007; Naranjo-Gil 2009).

Strategic management has become more important

in public organizations because increased emphasis

has been placed on attaining higher levels of perform-

ance (Poister, Pitts, and Edwards 2010). A focus

on goals, planning processes, and innovation sits at

the heart of the reforms associated with the New

Public Management, while citizen expectations of

public services continue to grow, requiring more

strategic responses to meet those needs (Pollitt and

Bouckaert 2012; Walker, Boyne and Brewer 2010).

 e literature of‌f ers a number of theoretical strate-

gic management frameworks (see, e.g., Mintzberg,

Ahlstrand, and Lampel 2005).  is review integrates

the quantitative research evidence that applies Miles

and Snow’s (1978) strategic management typologies

to public agencies.1 Miles and

Snow’s framework is examined

because it is both comprehen-

sive—examining aims, strategy

content, processes, structure,

context, and their relationship

to organizational perform-

ance—and generic.  is article

identif‌i es six key lessons gath-

ered from the research on the

practice of strategic manage-

ment in public organizations,

based on the ef‌f ectiveness of

strategy choices and the align-

ment of strategy with environmental conditions and

internal processes and structures.

Strategic Management and Public

Organizations

A number of strategic management frameworks have

been developed for public organizations (e.g., Stevens

Strategic Management and Performance in Public

Organizations: Findings from the Miles

and Snow Framework

 is article identif‌i es six key

lessons gathered from the

research on the practice of

strategic management in pub-

lic organizations, based on the

ef‌f ectiveness of strategy choices

and the alignment of strategy

with environmental condi-

tions and internal processes and

structures.