Stephen Affleck Reid

Research student

Stephen A. Reid is affiliated with The Open University Faculty of Business and Law, Department for Public Leadership and Social Enterprise.

You can email Stephen A. Reid directly, but for media enquiries, please contact a member of The Open University's Media Relations team.

Biography

Having lectured for 15 years in Organisation, Leadership and Ethics at NLA University College in Oslo, I am now pursuing doctoral studies at The Open University – Department for Public Leadership and Social Enterprise. My supervisors are Dr Edoardo Ongaro, Dr George Frynas and Dr Alessandro Sancino.

My research focuses on strategic management in government agencies. Specifically, I analyse how politico-administrative and institutional context influences the use of strategic management. Situated in Norway, I primarily examine Norwegian government agencies – thus contributing to a research tradition which in no small degree has focused on Anglo-American tradition. My research is based on both quantitative and qualitative data from central-administrative government agencies. I have published internationally within this field of study and presented empirical findings in international conferences, such as the European Group for Public Administration, EGPA.

I received my MSc in Public Management from Oslo Metropolitan University.

In addition to my academic work, I also do consultancy work for leadership and team development, mainly for organisations in the public sector.

Current research

How do Government Agencies Adapt their Use of Strategic Management to their Institutional Environment and the Politico-administrative Context?

Strategic management is a practice used widely in the public sector. A substantial portion of research into strategic management is, however, focused on the business/management context. As one of several management-tools, strategic management has been widely employed as part of the New Public Management reform agenda. However, this reform tradition has been locally adapted and continually developed in a variety of ways, depending on politico-administrative contexts. This adaptation affects how strategic management has been implemented. Universal aspirations to understand how strategic management is employed in the public sector should, therefore, incorporate contextual considerations.

I plan to do an empirical study of how politico-administrative context and the immediate institutional and organisational environment affects strategic management in government agencies. Employing a mixed-methods approach, I intend to do a population-wide quantitative study of the use of strategic management in central government agencies and a more in-depth analysis of the use of strategic management (including strategic thinking, plan formulation, plan implementation, plan evaluation and strategy outcomes) in a select sample of agencies.

I expect to find a complex intertwining of performance management and strategic management and believe an analysis of environmental and contextual determinants may contribute to the interpretation of how government agencies employ strategic management.

Supervisors

Previously published

Reid, Stephen. 2019. "Strategic management and Performance Management in Government Agencies ", Oslo Business School, Faculty of Social Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University.

Johanson Jan-Erik, Johnsen Åge, Pekkola Elias and Reid Stephen Affleck. 2019. "Strategic Management in Finnish and Norwegian Government Agencies." Administrative Sciences 9 (4): 80. doi: 10.3390/admsci9040080.