Does governing board involvement impact strategy implementation effectiveness? The role of information sharing in the politics-administration interface

ABSTRACT

Many local authorities are governed by a dual governance structure involving a political governing board and a chief administrative officer (CAO). The question if both strategic actors should collaborate has been long debated. The politics-administration dichotomy perspective advocates independence, while the complementarity view eulogizes interdependence. But, what is the appropriate level of governing board involvement during strategy implementation? We use data of 96 Flemish local authorities’ CAOs to investigate if specific strategic board role behaviours (SBRBs) stimulate governing board-CAO information sharing and, subsequently, foster strategy implementation effectiveness. Results confirm the relevance of overseeing SBRB in combination with information sharing.

Keywords:

• Politics-administration interface
• information sharing
• strategic board role behaviour
• strategy implementation effectiveness
• interdependence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2103174

Notes

1. Given that the control variables do not significantly impact the study’s variables and that adding them does not result in a significant R² change (see Supplementary material C), they are omitted from the structural model.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Special Research Fund [BOF.PDO.2021.0046.01 - BOF21/PDO/053].

Notes on contributors

Kenn Meyfroodt

Kenn Meyfroodt is a postdoctoral researcher in public management in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. His research focuses on strategic planning processes, decision-making, and the role of information processing in public strategic decision-making teams.

Sebastian Desmidt

Sebastian Desmidt is associate professor of strategic management in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. His research focuses on the effectiveness of strategic management instruments and strategic planning processes, the determinants of strategic consensus, and the motivational power of mission valence in public and non-profit organizations.