SWOT-analysis as a basis for regional strategies - EUROlocal

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If public strategies are so profoundly constrained by elements not included in the basics of strategic thinking and working methods, it remains to be asked what public strategies, made despite these limitations, actually represent. It could be claimed that they are first of all political artefacts. As was suggested above, they are made with the deliberate purpose of affecting the behaviour of other actors, to make them work according to the strategy’s prescriptions. As such, the strategy does not need to correspond with reality as it is but as it ideally should be. Whilst strategies designed by public bodies are easily available to wider publics, these audiences should not take them as mirrors of reality. They must be read with utmost caution, by relating them to the institutional context in which they have been written. This institutional context must include at least the following aspects: • The formal task of the organisation. • The formal position of the organisation in administration. • The normative framework regulating the organisation as a strategy-making actor. • The informal position of the organisation among its stakeholders. Further context information needed by the reader of public strategy documents has to do with the environment for the strategy’s planned implementation. This information is related to the socio-economic aspects of the community for which the strategy has been made. As the administration typically has a territorial dimension, strategies are typically made to encompass some territorial entity. Thus the reader should be familiar with the major features of the latter, in order to assess the accuracy of the analysis in its proper spatial context. A standard formula adopted in the designing of public strategies is to include a description – or an interpretation – of all these aspects in the strategy document itself. However, there is a problem typical to most strategies made by pubic organisations, the root cause of which lies in their “inverse use” (cf. Fig 1) of their organisation/environment analysis as compared to the underlying assumptions of mainstream strategic management thinking and models derived thereof. The designers of a strategy for a public organisation can afford to be much more selective in their description of the state of the environment as compared to their strategy-designing colleagues in an enterprise. They can highlight aspects that are deemed vital with regard to the organisation’s mission and downplay those that are not – irrespective of their “absolute” importance – or even their relative importance to each other for that matter. All this is fully understandable. If an organisation seeks to change the environment, and needs the involvement and commitment of others (or material resources and political will as the two elements needed to implement the strategy) to do so, its interpretation of “what really is at stake” must compete with those of other actors. It has to show that what it wants from the future is what the others should want as well. The game of convincing the other actors within one’s environment is ready to start, as quite a few other public actors involved in developmental tasks within the same territorial settings also seek support for their particular vision of the territorial unit’s future and the paths leading to it. 26
Therefore, in analysing public developmental programmes and the strategic instruments they encompass, all these limitations should be taken into account. The outcomes of the public programming processes are strategies, at least in a broad sense of the word, and are used de facto as such. However, they tend to be strategies that may have few things in common with what is referred to as a strategy in strategic management literature. This is valid also with regard to technical but still highly important parts of strategy documents, such as the SWOT analysis. The table below compares and contrasts the key characteristics of public and private sphere SWOT analyses. It should however be emphasised that these are simplifications or ideal types of strategy formation. As was argued earlier, traditionally distinctive borderlines between public and private organisations have gradually become more blurred. Public organisations are now expected to aim at traditional private sector goals such as economic efficiency and growth, whilst private sector organisations are increasingly being faced by some of the traditional public sector politico-normative concerns (openness, accountability, ethical standards). Table 5. Strategic planning in the public and private spheres: the central features PUBLIC Culturally determined, environmentsecuring (à la Ansoff) Constrained by regulatory and fiscal resource bases High dependence on political and administrative relations Predominance of politically determined goals Internal adaptation of secondary importance Strategies mainly for external use Strategies viewed as a tool for normative and political goal-setting Parts of strategy used as a tool of imagebuilding Open access to strategies Strategy formation in wide partnership Stakeholders difficult to discern Political construction of a strategy Formulation and implementation structures not necessarily convergent PRIVATE Culturally determined, environmentsecuring (à la Ansoff) Adaptable Low dependence on political and administrative relations Predominance of economic profitabilityoriented goals Strategic management aiming at adapting to external changes through internal adaptation Strategies mainly for internal use Strategies viewed as a tool for economic goal-setting Parts of strategy used as a tool of imagebuilding Limited access to strategies Strategy formation in a limited partnership Stakeholders easily discernible Technical construction of a strategy Formulation and implementation structures convergent 27
Page 1 and 2: SWOT-analysis as a basis for region
Page 3 and 4: Contents 1 Introduction............
Page 5: Preface This working paper on the u
Page 8 and 9: Objective programmes in the EU Memb
Page 10 and 11: The following table lists the prior
Page 12 and 13: programme, thereby formally committ
Page 14 and 15: material is the so-called MEANS-col
Page 16 and 17: Table 3. Elements of a SWOT analysi
Page 18 and 19: Instead, programming should be seen
Page 20 and 21: potential (i.e. threats and opportu
Page 22 and 23: For the sake of necessity, private
Page 24 and 25: The problem obviously is that in st
Page 28 and 29: 3 The basic model: SWOT as an inter
Page 30 and 31: the environment in question quite d
Page 32 and 33: whether or not to co-operate in iso
Page 34 and 35: Figure 5. Vertical domains and flow
Page 36 and 37: proclamation of the (2) development
Page 38 and 39: Another set of quality criteria can
Page 40 and 41: 4 Evaluation of the learning potent
Page 42 and 43: time. One feels inclined to draw pa
Page 44 and 45: Table 6 continued… PROGRAMME NORR
Page 46 and 47: KVARKEN- MITTSKANDIA INTERRERG III
Page 48 and 49: Table 7 continued… NORRA NORRLAND
Page 50 and 51: Table 8 continued… PROGRAMME VARS
Page 52 and 53: • In some national regional devel
Page 54 and 55: However, it seems justified to argu
Page 56 and 57: process in its entirety should be m
Page 58 and 59: Sotarauta, M. 1996a. “Ohjelmallin
Page 60 and 61: Appendix 2: Summary of the SWOT ana
Page 62 and 63: VÄSTERBOTTEN GROWTH AGREEMENT SWOT
Page 64 and 65: THE SURROUNDING WORLD AND MARKET ST
Page 66 and 67: • New extractable ore deposits
Page 68 and 69: NORTHERN FINLAND OBJECTIVE 1 PROGRA
Page 70 and 71: SOUTHERN FINLAND OBJECTIVE 2 Streng
Page 72 and 73: DENMARK OBJECTIVE 2 PROGRAMME STREN
Page 74 and 75: REGIONAL SWOT FOR LOLLAND, FALSTER
Page 76 and 77:
BALTIC INTERREG SWOT STRENGTHS 1. T
Page 78 and 79:
KVARKEN-MITTSKANDIA SWOT Infrastruc
Page 80 and 81:
Shared values Strengths: • Cross-
Page 82 and 83:
NORDREGIO PUBLICATIONS REPORTS Eval
Page 84:
Hallin, G. & Larsson, S. Företagsu
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SWOT-analysis as a basis for regional strategies - EUROlocal

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