Why do we need strategy in public management? Institutional logics as strategic resources in public management

Abstract

Strategy has become an essential of public management. Research shows that there are many different approaches to this; however, research has not explored the strategic resources that different approaches provide. This paper contributes to this field of research by applying neo-institutional theory and paradox theory to strategy in public management.

Institutional logics form socially constructed patterns of cultural and material practices by which managers define interests and asks and provide meaning to their daily activity. Institutional logics thus accommodate strategic behaviour when managers – and other strategic actors – respond to institutional pressures and expectations.

We show that Public administration, Professional Leadership, New Public Management and New Public Governance offer different configurations of strategy in the public sector, i.e. different reasons and resources for doing strategy, which provide public management with different strategic foci, goals and practices. To explore strategy in public management, the institutional logics should be analysed together with an emphasis on the dynamic interaction between them in order to understand how the strategic resources of a particular institutional logic are applied and legitimized as responses to the flaws of other institutional logics.