The Content of Strategy

The Content of StrategyPublic Management Strategies: Guidelines for Managerial Effectiveness by Barry Bozeman;Jeffrey D. StraussmanReview by: Barton WechslerPublic Administration Review, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1991), pp. 186-187Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/977119 .

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person) c. what the response rate was d. how the investigators han-

dled subjects who did not respond to the first contact, ie., the number of follow ups (p. 201).

Items c and d are excellent ques- tions-rarely asked by nonresearch- minded readers, but essential for judg- ing the validity of primary data collection.

Three relatively advanced topics, often given short shrift in other texts, are afforded chapter-length treatment: 1) how to handle ethical problems (even going beyond informed consent) in protecting the rights of human subjects-a chapter which contains an enlightening comparison of the infa- mous Tuskegee Syphilis Study with some current AIDS research; 2) how to create and validate indices for public administration-a chapter which has clever suggestions for selecting and weighting items to be included in an index; and 3) how to locate, and evalu- ate the quality of, secondary data-a chapter which identifies the limitations of the major public databases main- tained by statistical agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Remarkably current about the wicked technical and political problems in conducting the 1990 census, the lat- ter chapter also gives much hard- earned advice to unsuspecting first-time users of public databases. For example, O'Sullivan and Rassel warn researchers who buy machine-readable databases from statistical agencies not to rely on the accuracy of written documentation accompanying the database. Apparently drawing on painful person- al experience, they remark dryly that

if the documentation states that 49% of the sample was male, 50% female, and 1% unknown or missing, the printout [produced by the researcher from the pur- chased database should report the same percentages for each [of these categories. We have found that discrepancies occur because of errors in transferring

the data into the [database], or typographical errors in the documentation. Typographical errors may be especially serious since an analyst may be manipulating the wrong variable or assuming the wrong values for a variable (pp. 224-225).

All statistical agencies should print a similar warning in bold letters on the cover page of their public-use documentation! Like many other researchers, O'Sullivan and Rassel seem to have been burned too often to ever again place total confidence in the quality of public-use microdata or the reliability of documentation. Caveat emptor.

Although O'Sullivan and Rassel state that they did not intend "this to be a statistics text nor a substitute for one" (p. xiii), the book contains two compe- tent chapters on the fundamentals of univariate, contingency table and regression analyses. Unfortunately, it also contains one surprisingly shallow, uncritical chapter on hypothesis testing, or-as it is also called-"significance testing." Other than the usual warning against confusing statistical significance with practical significance, the authors fail to explore the implications of the growing doubts in academe about the value of classical significance testing. Future (and current) public administrators should know that significance testing is now widely seen by many scholars in sociology, education, economics, psychology, management, and the other social sciences as rarely produc- ing anything but trivial, irrelevant, and specious results-with some critics going so far as to charge that significance testing borders on a corruption of the scientific method.'

The debate on the merits of significance testing is not a debate initiated by scholars who arbitrarily prefer quali- tative research. It is the epistemological and, more importantly, human value of significance testing that is under attack today. Public administrators must begin to learn the terms of this debate, even if they do not feel comfortable enough to participate in the recondite statistical battles, for example, between the Bayesians and non-Bayesians.

Although O'Sullivan and Rassel do not help much here, they do at least refer in a footnote to an important collection of articles, pro and con, on the significance test controversy.2

In all other respects, they have produced a superior text, worthy of being adopted by instructors of research methods at the master's or advanced undergraduate levels.

Notes 1. Michael Oakes, Statistical Inference: A

Commentary for the Social and Behavioural Sciences (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1986). For readable, recent broadsides, see Joel Kupfersmid, "Improving What Is Published: A Model in Search of and Editor," American Psycbologist, vol. 43 (August 1988), pp. 635-642, and Kerry S. Sauley and Arthur G. Bedein, ?.05: A Case of the Tail Wagging the Distribution," Journal of Management, vol. 15, no. 2 (1989), pp. 335-344.

2. D.E. Morrison and R.E. Henkel, eds., The Significance Test Controversy (Chicago: Aldine, 1970).

The Content of Strategy by Barton Wecbsler, Florida State University

Barry Bozeman and Jeffrey D. Straussman, Public Management Strategies: Guidelines for Managerial Effectiveness. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing, 1990), 293 pp.; $24.95 hardcover.

WATT riting on strategy, strategic planning, and strategic management in the public sector

has exploded in the past decade. Much of this literature has emphasized the processes of strategic planning, without giving much attention to the content of strategies that public managers might employ. In their book, Public Management Strategies: Guidelines for Managerial Effectiveness, Barry Bozeman and Jeffrey D. Straussman focus on the content of strategy, remedying what has been a

186 Public Adminitation Review * March/April 1991, Vol. 51, No. 2



serious gap in the literature. Their work will be of interest to scholars, but its most important audience is the prac- titioner community. Public managers seeking to build viable strategies for their organizations will find this book especially valuable.

The book begins with an insightful discussion of the importance of politics in setting the strategic context for pubic managers and their organizations. Bozeman and Straussman effectively summarize what is now a fairly exten- sive body of knowledge about public- private differences and the implications for public strategic management. Their claim that political authority and influ- ence is the critical dimension for under- standing and effectively practicing public management is well supported and convincing. Chapter One, as do all the others, ends with a series of prescrip- tive guidelines. Here the focus, however, is on developing a distinctive mindset for public management, sug- gesting ways for managers to live and cope with political authority.

In chapter Two, the authors review the foundations of strategic public management. Although much of the literature referenced in this chapter will be familiar to scholars and informed practitioners, Bozeman and Straussman make some valuable points. Perhaps most useful are their descriptions of key activities in strategic public management, steps for putting strategic management to work, and guidelines for strategic public management.

Chapters Three through Six are concerned with the internal side of strate-

gic public management. In chapter three, the authors describe the public manager's multiple objectives in resource management (growth, stabili- ty, autonomy, and control) and strategies for achieving these objectives. Their discussions of strategies for maxi- mizing an agency's resource mix and of contracting is a resource management strategy are especially insightful. Chapter Four is concerned with marketing strategies for public organizations; while much of this chapter may seem foreign to public managers, Bozeman and Straussman do a creditable job of translating and applying marketing con- cepts to the public sector. Chapter Five deals with managing information resources strategically. The authors again have an unusually good grasp of developments in the field and their implications for public management. The discussion of public management information systems (PMIS) and the differences between public and private sector strategies is particularly interesting and insightful. Guidelines offered at the end of the chapter should prove quite valuable to practitioners. Chapter Six takes up organization design and reorganization as strategic tools. Much of the discussion covers ground familiar to most students of public administration and organization theory. The guidelines that conclude the chapter are, however, quite interesting; these emphasize the use of organization redesign as an integral part of the strategic solution to bureaucratic rigidi- ty, resource scarcity, and lack of cre- ativity.

Chapter Seven focuses on the critical need for interorganizational strate-

gies in public management. Once again, sectoral differences require public managers to emphasize interorganizational interdependence and coopera- tion rather than competition. Barriers to effective interorganizational relations and strategies for overcoming them are the central elements of this chapter. Chapter Eight is concerned with the challenge of innovation in public organizations. Unfortunately, much of the discussion (and the prescriptions) offered in this chapter would prove to be of little help in fostering innovation. The chapter simply reviews the innovation literature; the guidelines at the end of the chapter seem as least as likely to constrain as to foster innovation.

The final chapter provides a strong conclusion to this useful book: Bozeman and Straussman begin with a review of the individual characteristics of effective strategic public managers. These characteristics, according to the authors, are qualities found in effective managers, but also serve as prescriptions for managerial action and person- al development. This is a relatively timeless list; the qualities suggested here have worked in the past as well as the present and they are likely to prove effective in the future.

There have been several recent books on the topic of public strategic management that will prove to be important; Public Management Strategies: Guidelines for Managerial Effectiveness should join this small, but growing list.

Book Reviews 187



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The Content of Strategy