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...impacts public management, which have now begun to receive substantial attention (Andrews et al. 2005; Brewer 2005; Chun and Rainey 2005; Donahue et al. 2004; Martin and Smith 2005; Meier and O'Toole 2001,2003; O'Toole and Meier 2003, 2004a, 2004b). Management appears to shape performance when conducted from multiple levels, directed internally at operations, targeted at various parts of the program's environment, and executed with particular skill or adroitness.
Although myriad managerial influences on performance have been identified and some have been estimated, existing research constitutes only the initial efforts of what must be broader and more ambitious analytical and empirical argosy. A considerable portion of the work completed thus far, for example, relies on reports of managerial behaviors in fairly specific, time-bound snapshots. These studies are useful but tend, of necessity, to tap tactical managerial moves rather than the broader and more elusive strategic elements of management (with certain exceptions, to be noted shortly). Management theory, however, offers a powerful rationale for considering the strategic dimension, suggesting that multiple elements of public management (including strategic stance) must be considered in any comprehensive examination of the management-and-performance question. This article adds to the earlier analyses of several aspects of managerial effort, particularly tactical moves and managerial quality, a systematic treatment of "strategy content" and its performance-related results.
The argument proceeds in five parts. First, we discuss the importance of organizational strategy for the study of public management. Second, based on our contention that strategy content is a discretionary managerial function, we introduce a general management model that has been used productively in a variety of studies of public management. Third, strategy content is incorporated into the general model to illustrate that this venerable idea is consistent with most contemporary approaches to public management. Fourth, strategy content is operationalized and tested using a data set of several hundred public organizations over a 6-year time period. Finally, we discuss the meaning of our findings for public management theory and its empirical study.
THE VENERABLE IDEA: STRATEGY CONTENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
The idea that strategy content influences organizational performance is a central element of generic management theory. Strategy content can be defined broadly as the way an organization seeks to align itself with the environment (Donaldson 1995; Miles and Snow 1978). Strategy can be characterized as senior managers' response to the constraints and opportunities that they face. The better the fit that an organization achieves with external circumstances, the more likely it is to win financial and political support and thereby improve its performance. In the 1960s and 1970s, the view that private organizations were prisoners of market forces and thereby "compelled" to adopt the single strategy that fit their economic circumstances began to erode. Major management theories such as those of Chandler (1962) and Child (1972) emphasized that private firms can exercise strategic choice, even in the face of external constraints. They can, for example, specialize in a single market or operate in a variety of markets, seek a competitive edge through low cost or high quality, and attempt to protect or enhance their share of the market.
This line of reasoning culminated in Miles and Snow (1978), one of the seminal works in the field of strategic management. They consolidated existing research by developing a typology of strategy content that contained four "ideal types." Prospectors" are organizations that "almost continually search for market opportunities, and ... regularly experiment with potential responses to emerging environmental trends" (29). These organizations often pioneer the development of new products and services. Defenders are organizations that take a conservative view of new products' development. They typically compete on price and quality rather than on new products or markets and "devote primary attention to improving the efficiency of their existing operations" (29); in short, they seek better performance on a limited number of core products and services. Analyzers represent an intermediate category, sharing elements of both prospector and defender. Analyzers are rarely "first movers" but, instead, "watch their competitors closely for new ideas, and ... rapidly adopt those which appear to be most promising" (29). Reactors are organizations in which top managers frequently perceive change and uncertainty in their organizational environments but typically lack an actual strategy. A reactor "seldom makes adjustment of any sort until forced to do so by environmental pressures" (29). Miles and Snow argue that these strategic orientations are enduring, likely to change only slowly and gradually, and distinct from short-term tactical moves.
The central contention of Miles and Snow (1978) is that prospectors, defenders, and analyzers perform better than reactors, a finding supported in a number of private sector studies (e.g., Conant et al. 1990; Hawes and Crittenden 1984; Shortell and Zajac 1990). Some empirical evaluations of the Miles and Snow framework distinguish between the performance of prospectors and defenders. The study by Evans and Green (2000) of Chapter 11 bankruptcy notes that prospectors are more likely than defenders to achieve business turnaround. Hambrick (1983) concludes that prospectors outperform defenders on market share changes but that this pattern is reversed for return on investment. The analysis of US hospitals by Zajac and Shortell (1989) found that the performance of defenders fell behind other generic strategy types when the environment called for a more proactive approach. Woodside et al. (1999) conclude that prospectors outperform defenders, who in turn outperform reactors. The evidence on the private sector, thus, provides some clues that the relative effectiveness of different strategies may be contingent on the environmental context, the current level of performance, and the dimensions of performance that are analyzed.
Boyne and Walker (2004) recently evaluated the relevance of the Miles and Snow (1978) framework to public organizations. They criticize most prior research on strategy content for placing organizations in mutually exclusive boxes and assuming that each organization has only a single strategic stance, that is, for example, just a prospector or a defender. Boyne and Walker (2004) argue that organizations' strategies are messy and complex rather than neat and simple. A mix of strategies is likely to be pursued at the same time, so it is inappropriate to categorize organizations as belonging solely to a single type (e.g., reactor or prospector). This logic also implies that the "analyzer" category is redundant because all organizations are both prospectors and defenders to some extent (although the balance will vary with the priority attached to these stances and that attached to a reactor strategy).
This modified version of the Miles and Snow (1978) model of strategy content has subsequently been tested on English local authorities. Andrews et al. (2006) examine the relationship between strategy and organizational performance in a multivariate model that also controls for external constraints (the prosperity of the local population and the diversity of their service needs). Their measures of prospecting, defending, and reacting are based on Likert scale survey responses from senior and middle managers in a sample of 120 organizations. The empirical results reveal a hierarchy of strategy types: the impact of prospecting is positive, defending neutral, and reacting negative. Thus, controlling for the presence of other strategic stances in an organization, prospecting is the best option and reacting is the worst.
This evidence is consistent with the view that strategy matters not only in the private sector but also in the public sector. Whether the prospectors-beat-defenders-beat-reactors result can be generalized to other public organizations is less clear. Local authorities in England have been strongly encouraged by their primary stakeholder (UK central government) to pursue innovation in recent years. Perhaps, this policy context makes a difference to the success of different strategic stances. Also, Andrews et al. (2006) examine only one aggregate measure of performance. Perhaps, as the private sector evidence suggests, the relative effectiveness of prospecting and defending varies across dimensions of performance. Finally, strategy is the only aspect of public management that is included in the Andrews et al. (2005) study. Does the "hierarchy of strategies" persist when other management variables, such as leadership quality, stability and networking, are held constant? This article presents new empirical evidence that illuminates these issues.
THE MODEL
Miles and Snow (1978, 29) contend that managers adopt one of four strategic stances on the basis of which any number of specific organizational (tactical) decisions are to be approached. As such, strategy is essentially a choice by management to establish a consistent response to problems or environmental challenges. Because they represent consistent management decisions, the various strategy content patterns can be incorporated into more general models of management, including the O'Toole-Meier management model.
In their research agenda focusing on understanding the relationship among public management, institutional arrangements, and public program performance, O'Toole and Meier (1999) begin with the following:
[O.sub.t] = [[beta].sub.1](S + [M.sub.1])[O.sub.t-1] + [[beta].sub.2]([X.sub.t]/S)([M.sub.3]/[M.sub.4]) + [[epsilon].sub.t], (1)
where O is some measure of outcome; S is a measure of stability; M denotes management, which can be divided into three parts; [M.sub.1] is management's contribution to organizational stability through additions to hierarchy/structure as well as regular operations; [M.sub.3] is management's efforts to exploit the environment of the organization; [M.sub.4] is management's effort to buffer the unit from environmental shocks; X is a vector of environmental forces; [epsilon] is an error term; the other subscripts denote time periods; and [[beta].sub.1] and [[beta].sub.2] are estimable parameters.
The model incorporates three basic principles in regard to public management and organizations. First, organizations are autoregressive systems. Because organizations create processes and operating procedures that are designed to reproduce the same outputs over time, the best predictor of what an organization will do tomorrow...
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