Introduction
A worldwide fixation on the need to investigate the possibilities of introducing valuable reforms to the public sector began during the 1980s. It was crucial for the researchers to conduct the strategy implementation research in a manner that would increase the efficiency of the public sector while also developing new theories of showcasing accountability (Rothenberg et al., 1992; Wernham, 1985). It was the emergence of the framework of the new public management that popularized the ideas of strategy implementation research. Accordingly, an in-depth exploration of these reforms allowed public sector representatives from all over the world to engage in smarter decision-making due to a much more informed set of practices linked to the transformation of national concepts of the public sector (Roffey & Fuller, 1993). The importance of the public sector and its reverence for strategy implementation research can be explained by the increasing role of decision-making practices that take place after the implementation.
This means that some of the processes lead to the adoption of flawed reforms in the public sector that either go unnoticed or remain unaddressed unless drastically negative outcomes transpire (Barrick et al., 2015). An in-depth exploration of strategy implementation research is necessary because of the numerous socioeconomic and political variables affecting the public sector and mitigating quite a few institutional forces. Accordingly, nationwide contexts of strategy implementation research cannot be ignored because of the ever-changing standards of decision-making that force the public sector to reconsider existing approaches to strategic management and planning (Mitchell, 2019). The idea that the current research paper attempts to address is the need for a transformed strategy implementation research in the public sector where new standards are going to reduce the occurrence of policy failures while meeting public expectations and mediating economic performance. The current gap between the public sector and the government has to be reduced in order to avert public trust from declining even more.
The research questions that the author of the current research intends to answer at the end of the investigation are as follows:
- How does strategy implementation research impact the outcomes of organizational decision-making in the public sector?
- What is the role of strategic management and strategic planning in the field of strategy implementation research across the public sector?
- Is there a possibility for the public sector to benefit from strategy implementation research?
Literature Review
A crucial preconception about strategy implementation research in the public sector is that the majority of strategic initiatives are aimed at the improvement of services and organizational performance. Nevertheless, organizations rarely investigate the problem of not having the resources and knowledge intended to aid them in decision-making (Ahearne et al., 2014). It can be argued that strategic planning and implementation go hand in hand when proper management decisions are to be made. Consistent with Elbanna and Fadol (2016), the execution of strategy implementation research requires the team to remain vigilant and collect feedback from all stakeholders in order to protect the organization from unexpected outcomes. A reasonable integration of continuous learning and training efforts can be seen enhancing the public value held by the given organization, as improved sustainability is among the top expectations in the public sector (Elbanna et al., 2014; Elbanna et al., 2016). Therefore, strategic management plays a crucial role in the processes of planning and decision-making since the public sector depends on two important factors: resource allocation and strategy interpretation. Without these two in mind, organizational change in the public sector can be extremely hard to achieve.
From the strategic point of view, strategy implementation research is an organizational asset because it could help any given body from the public and private sector improve their practices over time. A focus on practices is going to shape organizational values and define the decision-making process among executives, strengthening the public sector in many ways (Pazienza & De Lucia, 2020). The existence of different perspectives on strategy implementation research makes it safe to say that a variety of constructs can be applied to the public sector in an attempt to alter the existing state of affairs. The public sector has to pay more attention to strategy implementation research to enhance policymaking strategies and co-construct a different reality where the expectations of the majority of stakeholders are met (Trullen et al., 2020). The core challenge with this decision-making chain is that many public organizations are prone to refraining from unconventional approaches. The inability to acknowledge the existence of alternatives makes strategy implementation research slightly less effective (Ateş et al., 2020). This is one of the main reasons why traditional perspectives on the public sector have to be supported by strategic management and planning to generate positive effects.
Methodology
The main reason for picking the systematic review method as the primary option for the current research project is that it has an extreme potential of contributing to international policymaking via evidence-based practices. In line with Prediger et al. (2021), systematic review principles are sensitive enough to allow for detailed research on the subject where traditional reviews would deem not as strong and comprehensive. The public sector and its association with strategy implementation research were investigated through the prism of a systematic literature review because it gave the researcher an opportunity to conduct a multidisciplinary investigation and make decisions that consider contextual factors. With improved transparency and an emphasis on empirical evidence, the current systematic literature review was expected to highlight the crucial knowledge gaps and help the researcher map future research opportunities. As a relatively cheap research method, a systematic literature review was utilized to avoid impact evaluations and adjust to the existing research questions. A detailed outlook on strategy implementation research in the public sector could only be achieved with a dataset including qualitative and quantitative data.
Literature Analysis
General Considerations
Within the framework of the current systematic literature review, 21 scientific journals and one book chapter were explored to find 26 articles (see Table 1) on the topic of strategy implementation research and its benefits for the public sector. The data were collected from trusted sources in order to attain relevant results and generate estimations regarding the future of this field of research. Each of the entries was carefully investigated to gain insight into specific findings that could affect the strategy implementation research over the course of the past four decades. A decade-by-decade layout of the number of obtained articles can be seen in Figure 1.
Table 1. Systematic literature review entries sorted by the journal.
As it can be seen from the visual evidence, the majority of articles come from the 2010s and the 2020s (20 of 26 articles, almost 77% from the total number of entries). The researcher did not categorize the articles in terms of their geographical fitting in order not to create additional complexity. The systematic review was condensed to evidence on the topic of strategy implementation research, as the core objective for the author of the current research was to investigate the notion of strategic management and then link it back to strategy implementation. A total of 26 articles from five different decades were utilized for a comprehensive analysis of evidence and a detailed outline of the future research opportunities in the given field of investigation.
Theoretical Perspectives
The core objective of the current research paper was the focus on the decision-making initiatives instilled in the field of strategy implementation research. It has to remain an essential element of the research framework due to the need to maintain exceptionally high standards of service provision and remain in line with the public needs. Therefore, the public sector has to be scrutinized with the help of a systematic literature review because of a prolonged history of undermined political and economic performance paired with multiple policy failures and scandals (Al-Dhaafri & Alosani, 2020; Hage et al., 2013; Roffey & Fuller, 1993). Public expectations cannot be overlooked when engaging in strategy implementation research because even the slightest decline in public trust could avert organizations from establishing effective partnerships and achieving preset objectives. Therefore, all 26 articles were reviewed with an eye on accountability and the importance of it to the public sector and reforms run by the government.
Content of the Research
Studies included in the current systematic literature review proved that the public sector could be affected by the lack of strategy implementation research aimed at formal intraorganizational operations. This means that action plans are often developed with a long-term outlook on the issue, averting the management from considering short-term conundrums (Hage et al., 2013; Osorio‐Londoño et al., 2020; Wheat, 2010). Accordingly, the public sector has to remain careful when creating workarounds for strategic planning because of the fluctuations affecting its organizational performance. Consistent with Elbanna and Fadol (2016), formal strategic planning is one of the approaches to enhance employees’ output and bring the concept of organizational flexibility to the forefront. Many public organizations tend to remain rigid because of their inability to make decisions on the fly and incrementally adapt to the given scenarios (Ovseiko et al., 2014; Prediger et al., 2021). Based on these findings, it may be safe to say that planning and implementation depend on strategy implementation research due to the public sector being rather slow when responding to environmental and planning changes.
In line with the evidence provided by Kraft and Hage (1990), Sial et al. (2013), and Mitchell (2019), it can be stated that planning processes have been lacking across the public sector throughout the past three decades. Thus, strategic management has to be deemed as having an exceptionally positive influence on the public sector. The increasing number of responsible organizations with sustainable, long-term plans reinforces the idea that strategy implementation research should be an inextricable element of public sector operations (Barrick et al., 2015). Numerous organizations nowadays still tend to resort to the ad-hoc decision-making approach when resolving issues dynamically, but recent research projects prove that this strategy is not as effective as its strategic planning counterpart (Aladag et al., 2020; Beer & Eisenstat, 2000; Rothenberg et al., 1992). Eventual obstacles on the way to proper strategy implementation research have to be treated as a complex challenge that can be overpowered through the interface of timely policies and adjustments made to cover all existing dimensions of performance. It was noted by Brorström (2021) that strategy implementation research is much more efficient than incremental decision-making from the past because the public sector is becoming a much more predictable environment.
The link between strategy implementation research and the public sector has to be established in order to provide public sector agents with an opportunity to acknowledge the importance of successes based on strategic thinking. In the words of Ahearne et al. (2014) and Elbanna et al. (2016), public organizations nowadays do not resort to formal planning too often, so there have to be efforts aimed at popularizing this intervention. Managerial involvement could mediate the majority of issues that the public sector had to endure in the past due to largely inflexible policymaking initiatives (Ateş et al., 2020; Wernham, 1985). Consequently, the lack of prioritization of strategy implementation research on both social and political levels can be seen as a negative factor that yet has to be removed from the equation of formal planning. The implementation process is going to be transformed with the help of better-quality strategic planning as well, giving the public sector plenty of uncharted learning opportunities (Elbanna et al., 2014; Trullen et al., 2020). The only crucial element for the public sector would be to maintain a strong strategic alignment to preserve the relationship between implementation and planning.
One more crucial idea that has to be mentioned to strengthen the link between strategy implementation research and strategic planning in public organizations is the need for a stable environment. The latter is fundamental because it is going to reduce the occurrence of uncertainties in planning and allow public sector representatives to moderate external negative influence (Al-Dhaafri & Alosani, 2020; Krishnan, 2021). The evidence presented by Bonesrønning (2013), Clarke and Fuller (2010), and Roffey and Fuller (1993) showcases the diversity of outcomes that can be generated with the help of strategy implementation research, meaning that the public sector most likely has not investigated all the available opportunities that can be associated with strategic planning. The number of miscellaneous stakeholders linked to the public and private sectors keeps increasing on a daily basis, so the interdependency between strategy implementation research and public organizations becomes as tangible as ever (Blakely et al., 2002; Pazienza & De Lucia, 2020). Irrespective of whether it comes down to a centralized or a decentralized public sector, the role of strategy implementation research cannot be underestimated due to every stakeholder looking for economic, political, organizational, and environmental certainty.
Future Research Opportunities
The crucial element of future research on the subject of strategy implementation is the possibility of generalizing the existing findings and overcoming the past shortages in theory development and resource availability. The current systematic review of literature proved that the public sector could benefit from addressing strategic management and planning conundrums through the interface of a justified analysis of the biggest public concerns. Improved specifications will have to be supported with larger sample size, as an extended knowledge base would help organizations discover more opportunities related to performance improvements and measurements. The field of strategy implementation in the public sector should be extended by additional research in terms of the impact that the form and the size of the government and the tenure of the chief administrative officer could have on a public organization. This eventually reinforces the findings from the current systematic literature review, as contextual factors cannot be ignored if generalizability is expected to be achieved in the nearest future.
Conclusions
The public sector is extremely unlikely to avoid the impact of strategy implementation research because of the growing level of recognition and understanding among government executives. The current systematic review proved that the role of strategy implementation research is irreplaceable due to the fact that it goes beyond mere policymaking and organizational management. Thus, the key requirement that has to be preserved when dealing with strategy implementation research is that recommendations have to be as precise as possible in order to improve the future outcomes in that particular direction. The evidence that was obtained throughout this research project showed that there are numerous challenges affecting the implementation of new strategies in the public sector. The focus has to be moved toward strategy implementation research that is contingent on strategic management and detailed research and practice on the subject of strategic planning. Therefore, an improved outlook on situational contexts could give the public sector the upper hand in terms of pushing custom strategic initiatives and promoting a situational approach that might be utilized to preserve the flexibility of implementation efficiency.
The core focus of further strategy implementation research in the public sector should be aimed at the proper identification of contextual relationships between the inherent efficiency of proposed solutions and the actual tactics utilized to implement the strategy. Hence, background information cannot be ignored when engaging in consistent planning reforms that are intended to alter the whole public sector. The increasing complexity of private and public environments can be seen affecting custom implementation tactics since performance management seems to be driven by individual input. In today’s public sector environment, these findings bear a crucial connotation to the need to engage in follow-through activities that are going to enhance strategy implementation research via dedicated funding and closer communication with staff members. In a sense, managers from the public sector will measure the outcomes of their activities while ensuring that the existing workload is going to remain unchanged, as additional burdens would decrease organizational performance. The evidence attained within the framework of the current paper shows that the correlation between strategy implementation research and organizational performance is real and has to be addressed with the help of proper strategic planning.
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