Strategic management has become an important tool in attaining higher levels of performance. Especially the new public management (NPM) has changed the conditions more relevant to the strategic management in public organizations. It also seems that public organizations have taken this strategic management task seriously. The application of strategic management tools has increased and organizations have been interested in analyzing their environments and stakeholders. However, some studies show that strategic management in public organizations resonate with the formal, mechanistic processes and routines. Some organizations do the strategic work because it is required by legislation, without further commitment on strategic thinking. Also the traditions of the old planning school seem yet to have widespread effects in organizations’ strategic work (Johnsen 2014). That is, strategic management is a highly rational activity with hierarchical, mechanistic routines and it seems to be dependent on the chief executive’s experience and strategic competence.
In our study, we focus on the strategic work on the promotion of the health and wellbeing. The promotion is under the responsibility of local governments, and this responsibility is written in legislation and supported by the national health and welfare program. The promotion work should have strong strategic emphasis: strategic plans and the main promotion objectives based on systematic analysis of the local needs. Work should be strongly co-operative and local governments should have actions and measures for meeting the set objectives (Health Care Act 2010).
The purpose of this study is to understand the strategic work in the context of the promotion of health and wellbeing; the practitioners, practices and dimensions. How is this strategic work actually done: who are doing the strategy, how people do the strategy and how they are engaged in strategic work? The theoretical basis of our study lies in the strategy-as practice approach, which is a growing field of research concentrating on studying the strategy through the lenses of praxis (flow of activities), practitioners (actors) and practices (tools which strategy work is done) and to give insights into the “messy realities" of these practices. (see Jarzabkovski & Whittington 2008.) While the mainstream research has investigated the applications and tools of strategic management, processes and strategy contents, there is a need for practice research in regard to strategic management in public organizations. Furthermore, there is a need for research concentrating on what happens in strategy formulation and implementation and what people actually do when they are doing strategy.
The empirical material consists of 25 in-depth interviews gathered from Finnish local government managers responsible in health and wellbeing promotion. According to our results, practices in strategy work are weak, centralized and too often locked into operative problem solving. The strategic orientation is vague and the status of the strategic work in the health and wellbeing promotion is not fully understood nor mutually shared. To strengthen the orientation and the mutual strategic understanding, there is a need for new practices and forums in which the strategy work is done.
Strategic management and public service performance in the New Public Governance era
