Strategy in the Public and Private Sectors: Similarities, Differences and Changes

John Alford and Carsten Greve
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John Alford: The Australia and New Zealand School of Government PO Box 230 Carlton South VIC 3053, Australia
Carsten Greve: Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg DK-2000, Denmark

Administrative Sciences, 2017, vol. 7, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Strategic concepts and practices first evolved in the private sector, so they evoked much controversy when they migrated to the public sector from the late 1970s onwards. Partly this was about their (in)applicability to the distinctive features of government organizations, in particular their focus on public as well as private value, their situation in a political rather than a market environment, their almost exclusive capacity to use legal authority to achieve purposes, and the extent to which they often need to share power over personnel and resources with other public sector agencies. These and other factors complicated efforts to apply New Public Management and similar frameworks in strategy concepts in a governmental context. Partly also the traditional private-sector focus on single organizations did not resonate with the growth of network governance from the 1990s. The authors argue for an alternative model based primarily on the public value framework as a means of incorporating and going beyond traditional strategy thinking.

Keywords: strategy; public sector strategy; public value; authorizing environment; network governance; comparing public and private sectors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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