Reference no: EM132366748 , Length: word count:750

Assignment -

Textbook - Personnel Management in Government Politics and Process, Seventh Edition by Katherine C. Naff, Norma M. Riccucci and Siegrun Fox Freyss.

1. Answer one of 3 questions below -

Week 2 Reading "Strategic Planning and the Fiscal Performance of City Governments during the Great Recession"

This summary is based on the article by Benedict S. Jimenez. The focus of this study was to determine whether strategic planning influenced city governments' fiscal performance during the Great Recession in terms of minimizing their budget deficits and if this strategy is effective for current deficits within city government. Though "no research that has empirically examined the contributions of strategic planning to how governments adjust to fiscal crises", this study uses models to suggest how city governments can best respond to or plan for economic downturn.

"Comprehensive strategic planning is defined here as a process that involves internal and external scanning, using performance information in updating plans, and linking plans to budgets and operations." The study looks into whether enabling comprehensive strategic planning to overhaul systems is successful over the placebo effect of simply announcing comprehensive change. "The development of a shared vision through a strategic planning process can help structure employee behavior, and facilitate communication, coordination and purposive action among actors at different levels."

The study ultimately finds that strategic planning is the most successful tool in actualizing change. Of the cities who had the ability to successfully plan for the Great Recession, however, it is unknown whether or not this was accomplished through strategic planning (as they were not likely to have been able to plan for such a recession). The study also found a link from simple ceremonial implementation of strategic planning, or just announcing that change is being implemented. This can give a confidence boost to city managers and chief administrative officers as reflected in their positive assessment of the near term fiscal performance of their city governments.

Reference - Jimenez, Benedict S. (2012). Strategic Planning and the Fiscal Performance of City Governments during the Great Recession. The American Review of Public Administration, 43(5) 581-601.

1. Please give an anecdote of a city government in your area that had ceremonial implementation of strategic planning and how it worked.

2. If you were to implement the strategic planning model in your city, what types of internal and external pressures leading to increased costs or depleting capital would you look at to help negate deficits?

3. What types of things could city governments have implemented to help reduce the potential impact of The Great Recession.

2. Answer one of 3 questions below -

Benedict S. Jimenez looks at all the United States cities and counties strategic planning efforts and asks what type of strategic plans they have in place, to better understand how municipalities are strengthening themselves after the great recession of 2007. First, he looks at assessing the internal environment focusing on their strengths and weaknesses and what is working for that community. He investigates the options that municipalities have in regard saving money within the budget such as pursuing service contracts, forms of privatization, and joint ventures with other governments. Lastly, what the effectiveness of these budgetary avenues has on the deficit within the municipality.

If a municipality has no strategic planning how is that municipality managing their deficits? Do they take an inaction? Meaning they do nothing; they take no increase in the cost of living each year, and they do no cuts to their budget. Maybe the municipality is taking an action called share-the-pain, which is a preferred policy throughout many municipalities, where they do an increase or decrease on everything throughout the operational budget. However, share-the-pain has limited influences on the budget and of course in turn creating consequences on the deficits.

In the United States there is an Association called the International City/County Management Association known as the ICMA. Jimenez conducts a survey through the ICMA asking city/county managers how their municipality came back from the Great Recession in 2007. His survey participation consisted of a final sample of 1100 city governments. When completing the survey, they were also asked to include their 2009/2010 comprehensive annual financial reports CAFR.

The 1100 municipalities were asked questions regarding their strategic planning practice - main variables and controlled variable, yearly deficits, and estimation issues - endogeneity and selection bias. It is funny to note that most of the estimation issues from the municipalities was because of intentionally omitting CAFR'S.

The results of this survey, 63% of municipalities had strategic plans/long range plans in effect during the recession of 2007. 74% of those plans were linked to the budget, 72% of those plans guided their operational budgets, 47% reported revising their strategic plans in response to the 2007 recession, 48% allowed internal stakeholders to participate in their strategic plans, and 23% involved external stakeholder's participation.

With all the data lined up together it is safe to say that strategic planning and strategic documentation is a living and working document forever evolving and changing every year. Strategic planning is never failing it's learning.

Questions:

1. As stated in the article:

a) Internal stakeholders consist of elected officials, chief appointed official/managers, or Local government staff

b) External stakeholders include private economic development foundations, citizen advisory boards, representatives from public schools, Colleges universities, citizens and residents, Chamber of Commerce, and other private business representatives

As a CAO or manager of a municipality, who, in your opinion, should be utilized in strategic planning a, b, or both?

2. Seeing the great recession as the worst in history since WWII is it possible to predict for such a recession beforehand? How might a CAO or manager go about preparing other internal stakeholders for such an event?

3. Do you think that Jimemez should have collected his survey information from these municipalities another way? If yes, what type of methods might have better served him for his survey purposes?

3. Answer one of 3 questions below -

In reviewing the article: Strategic management research in the public sector: A Review, synthesis, and future directions, American Review of Public Administration, Poister, T., Pitts, D., & Edwards, L. (2010), the purpose for the article according to the authors, was to comprise and consolidate research that had been conducted on strategic planning and management in the public sector. They outlined what has been learned and what gaps remained. Using a limited amount of research articles and journals within the scope of the keyword's strategy, strategic planning and strategic management they summarized each.

Using a conceptual framework diagram that included Determinants (Environmental and Institutional/Organizational) and Outcomes (Organizational Capacity and Performance Improvement) the authors highlighted findings from the case studies. The authors found mixed results concerning how the strategic planning process should be conducted. Whether a top-down or centralized approach produced better results or a bottom-up or decentralized approach was more effective. A wide range of outcomes including limitations dependent on factors such as the authority structure or particular goals chosen to represent performance. Consistency seemed to be in the way an organization implements strategy has consequences and an organization's performance. Linking the strategic plan to the budget, drives the organizations' overall performance management system and using performance measures to monitor the progress of strategic initiatives lead to better outcomes.

Bottom-line there are challenges in linking all segments of strategic management under one umbrella of findings, because how strategic planning is defined and implemented is different with each of the organizations. More research is required to produce a comprehensive understanding of strategic management in the public sector.

Questions:

1) Why does Human Capital need to be seen/viewed as a strategic resource, or does it?

2) Why is strategic planning defined and implemented differently within in the public sector?

3) Can you effectively decide how much standardization is desired/required in the Human Capital System?

References: Poister, T., Pitts, D., & Edwards, L. (2010). Strategic management research in the public sector: A Review, synthesis, and future directions, American Review of Public Administration.

Llorens, J., Klingner, D. E., & Nalbandian, J. (2018). Public personnel management contexts and strategies. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 7th edition.

Note - Answer 1 out of 3 questions on the 3 assignments for a total of 3 questions answered at 1 page each using chapter 3 of the text which is also attached or the articles mentioned in the question or both.