Useful insights into strategy/policy implementation for Asia developing and small island managers

Citation

Dufour, Y. and Steane, P. (2012), "Useful insights into strategy/policy implementation for Asia developing and small island managers", Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, Vol. 4 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/apjba.2012.41504baa.001

Useful insights into strategy/policy implementation for Asia developing and small island managers

Article Type: Editorial From: Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, Volume 4, Issue 2

Editors’ reflections

It is no secret that political behaviour often features in situations where the existing pattern of resource sharing is threatened. One such example is major innovation when opportunities to seize new resources are opening up. Although global economic prospects have improved somewhat in recent months such opportunities are still few and far between. In this issue of the APJBA Ricardo Aguado and Jabier Martinez argue that the glooming economic prospects that rely on GDP forecasts might not be a proper indicator of sustainability for national economies. Another example is that where resources decrease, positions are threatened as it is the case for most Asian developing and small island economies in recent years. As good knowledge of the various perspectives of the political approach to strategy/policy implementation may reveal rather useful to the Asia pacific managers.

The political approach is primarily concerned with the impact of patterns of power and influence on the strategy/policy implementation processes and outcomes. In the political approach, conflict and bargaining are considered as endemic rather than exceptional or pathological features of organisations. In this issue of the APJBA Robin Kramar and Peter Steane forecast a greater shift in strategic importance for HRM in Australia and suggest that new competencies such as advocacy, conflict management should become increasingly important for both HR and line managers. The focus is not on the resolution of conflict but on the strategy and tactics used by individuals and groups to make the best of it. The political approach assumes that, as results of the division of labour, a plurality of at least partly conflicting interests exist within and among organisations. These interests would become manifested through the quest for control over the real and symbolic organisational resources, however scarce they may be.

The strategy/policy implementation process outcomes reflect the relative strengths of the interest groups at a particular moment of time. In the last resort, success would depend on the ability of a particular group or a coalition of various groups promoting specific interests to generate enough power and thereby to impose its will on the others. However, because outcomes are the result of bargaining and compromise between the various interest groups involved, they rarely represent perfectly the interests and original preferences of any single actor in particular. The basic argument is that the strategy/policy may have been carefully planned in terms of structure, systems and influence on behaviour, but if it takes insufficient account of the powerful internal and external interests then it is unlikely to succeed.

The first political perspective of implementation, namely the bureaucratic process perspective, traces the effect of lower-level discretion and routinised behaviour on the implementation. That perspective might be more accurately termed the bureaucratic-political explanations for non-implementation since it has mainly been used by the scholars to explain the failure rather than the success of policy implementation. Because of the frequency and immediacy of the interdependency that often arises between actors – such as the client and managers in direct contact with them – it is difficult for higher level administrators to monitor all aspects of action and performance. The clients’ control is also relatively limited because of their dependence on the bureaucrats to mediate their needs to the organisation. In this perspective, autonomy and discretion increase as one moves down the hierarchy, the strategy moves upward from the rank-and-file rather than downward; hence, a more participative managed approach is the preferred implementation approach. In this issue of the APJBA Luu Trong Tuan argues that upward influence behaviour, with its antecedents such as organisational culture and leadership, can cultivate organisational trust. The problem revolves around the top managers’ ability either to devise more sophisticated ways of defining and controlling discretion or how they define organisational purposes that are broad enough to encourage innovation with incentives that encourage decisions that advance the long-range interests of the organisation. The success or failure of any top-down implementation attempt would depend on whether the force of existing routine at the point of delivery operates with or against the proposal to be implemented.

The second perspective of the political approach, the inter-organisational perspective, suggests that implementation results not from the actions undertaken by a single organisation but rather from the joint actions undertaken by a set of organisations. These structures are comprised of individual implementers from different organisations who must coordinate their decisions and actions or must co-operate one with another in order to carry out a particular proposal. The number of organisations and the need for coordination across organisations make the situation much more complex, ceteris paribus, than in a single agency case. In the literature on inter-organisational implementation, the emphasis has been initially placed on the number of necessary linkages which have to be made in securing implementation. With a sharp pencil, a good eye for detail, and a pocket calculator, one can demonstrate without much trouble that any policy will fail, simply in counting the number of discrete clearances and decisions, assigning a probability to each, and multiplying them “seriatum”.

The inter-organisational perspective has been further developed within two other political perspectives:

1. 1.

   the conflict and bargaining perspective; and

2. 2.

   the resource dependence perspective.

The model of implementation as conflict and bargaining focuses on the nature of interactions taking place among multiple participating actors and agencies as well as on their interests, relative autonomy and tactical use of power to retain or obtain control over resources. The proponents of this perspective stress the complexity and ambiguity of both the proposals to be implemented and the negatiative processes involved in implementation. The proposals themselves are simply a point of departure for bargaining among implementing agencies. Implementation often takes place in absence of clearly defined goals and without clear focus of power to resolve the issues. The various parties involved have only an imperfect understanding and knowledge of the other motives and resources. Success or failure of implementation is a relative notion determined by the actor’s position in the process itself. The outcome is simply a convenient temporary agreement which reflects no overall agreement on purpose but which brings expectations into momentary convergence and takes negotiation to closure.

The resource dependence perspective argues that the organisational behaviour becomes externally constrained because the organisation must attend to the demands of those in its environment that provide essential resources to attain its self-interest objectives. It is assumed that dependence of organisations increases with the degree to which resources are scarce or irreplaceable, and with the extent to which transactions are institutionalised or controlled by only a few groups. Like all other organisational activities and outcomes, is accounted for by the specific context in which the focal organisation is embedded. The compelling empirical evidence has been consistent with the theory presumption concerning compliance to external constraints.

The fifth political perspective, the symbolic implementation perspective, is the least developed and least mapped organisational perspective and could be subdivided into:

• •

  the symbolic decision perspective; and

• •

  the symbolic action perspective.

The symbolic decision perspective suggests that decision-makers and policy-makers in particular do not intend that all decisions be implemented. Some decisions would be enacted only as a ceremonial reflecting the electorate’s mood of the day regarding the particular issues. Others would be empty promises designed to cool down strong opposition from various interest groups. The persistence in attempting to implement change at what transpires as the wrong level could also be interpreted as essentially symbolic. It may be attributed to a reluctance to attack the real interests which would be more appropriate targets. When the results are not forthcoming while external pressure increases or if crisis occurs, unavoidable bureaucratic dysfunctions will usually be diagnosed and the management blamed. The symbolic decision perspective offers a somewhat Machiavellian account of the strategy/policy implementation processes which, nevertheless, could sharply strike the policy observer’s imagination. In this issue of the APJBA Kym Thorne and Alexander Kouzmin argue that what is desperately needed so to “give peace a chance” is a political and policy discourse based on what is visible on the surface and the “buried history” of what is invisible.

The symbolic action perspective extends the symbolic decision perspective and thereby provides a perspective which is of much use to managers. This perspective emphasises the role of political language and symbols in implementing decisions. This perspective combines ideas about sources, uses, and outcomes of power together with ideas concerning the role of symbolism, language, beliefs, and myths. The argument is that considerations of power and influence are relevant for predicting resource allocations and strategic choices, while consideration of language and symbolism are critical to understanding the process designed to create legitimacy for these outcomes of power. In short, it is suggested that organisations are systems of patterned activity in which the various actors attempt to develop and convince others of the dominating legitimacy of their actions, ideas, and demands. These actions and decisions become legitimate when the various actors accept them because they believe that they are sufficiently just and right for willing compliance. The key element to successful implementation is the use of language, symbols, beliefs, myths, rituals, ceremonies and settings in presenting the decisions so that a social consensus around them emerges. Yet, political language and symbolic activity take place in a competitive environment. Both sides of the political contest seek to manage the process by which actions and events are given meaning. The task of those who resist implementation is to discredit the symbols and language used by those who promote the implementation, to make people aware of grievances, to politicise issues, and to delegitimise the actions, ideas and demands of their opponents. This would be achieved most often in an incremental rather than a rational-linear fashion. Success of implementation could be expressed, not solely in terms of achievement of objective or in terms of variation from original intentions, but also in terms of feeling of appropriateness, justice and legitimacy of four main elements:

1. 1.

   the proposal itself;

2. 2.

   the mechanisms and the procedures used to meet general assent – or to avoid provoking public dissent;

3. 3.

   the speed of implementation; and

4. 4.

   the anticipated side-effects of implementation.

Political actors may also define success as the ability to establish areas of influence where dominating legitimacy is established and thus unchallenged.

The main strength of the political approach is that it points to the central importance of conflict and political processes in organisation and decision. Furthermore, it presents a useful realistic portrayal of implementation which captures a number of significant organisational dynamics such as legitimating and coalition building processes that more often than not feature when resources decrease and positions are threatened as forecasted for most Asia low-income and small island economies.

Yvon Dufour, Peter Steane