strategic drift in international non-governmental development organizations—putting strategy in...

public administration and development

Public Admin. Dev. 29, 415–428 (2009)

Published online 26 October 2009 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.542

STRATEGIC DRIFT IN INTERNATIONAL NON-GOVERNMENTALDEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS—PUTTING STRATEGY IN THE

BACKGROUND OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

MATTHEW HARRIS*,y, SUE DOPSON AND RAY FITZPATRICK

Oxford University, UK

SUMMARY

Although the use of strategic planning has become widespread in INGDOs they have often been accused of strategic drift—continuous change in their strategic directions with plans only loosely coupled to their activities. However, the way that theyprioritize their activities, and the reasons why strategic drift occurs has generally escaped in-depth research. This article drawson detailed, qualitative research of strategic planning meetings at the executive levels in a major INGDO, carried out betweenJuly 2006 and December 2007 to identify the reasons why strategic drift occurs and the role of strategic planning. It was foundthat by deliberately crafting multiple, ambiguous, and ambitious strategies, managers were able to effect organizational change,not by literal strategy implementation, but by using these strategies as metaphors to harness consensus and legitimacy in keystakeholder groups. Senior managers utilize the symbols, language and deliberative arenas of formal strategic planning to effectorganizational change; however, strategy, in rational terms, needs to be located in the background for its role to be properlyunderstood. The research unpacks complex decision-making processes in an INGDO and, contrary to normative literature,recommends that, in order to avoid inflationary planning, managers should not take their strategy literally. Copyright # 2009John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

key words— strategy; non-governmental organization; organizational change; strategic planning; strategic drift;development

INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade, INGDOs have demonstrated increasing transparency in allocating their resources (Wallace

et al., 1997). This has occurred for a number of important reasons—a growing involvement with official donors

(Edwards and Hulme, 1995; Hulme and Edwards, 1997; Chabbott, 1999; Smillie, 1999; Fowler, 2000; Boli, 2006;

Tvedt, 2006); a shift in development discourse that favors long-term sustainable change (Korten, 1987); a general

emphasis for non-profit organizations to explicitly demonstrate value (Smillie, 1999; Lindenberg and Bryant, 2001;

Lewis, 2007); and the ‘managerialization’ of non-profit organizations, with personnel drawn increasingly from the

for-profit sector (Alexander, 1998; Phills, 2005) (for overviews of the growth and political economy of the non-

profit sectors in the US, UK, and global contexts see Kendall and Knapp, 1996; Chabbott, 1999; Salamon, 1999, and

Dobkin Hall, 2006). As a result, INGDOs now use formal strategic planning at many managerial levels to identify

and guide organizational direction, purpose, and planned organizational change. Its use varies from one

organization to another (Wallace et al., 1997), however, it has become so systematized and institutionalized within

aid bureaucracies that some INGDOs use strategic planning even in emergency situations (TIME, 2008).

*Correspondence to: M. Harris, Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Said Business School, Oxford University, Park End Street,Oxford, OX1 1HP, UK. E-mail: [email protected] Fellow.

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

416 M. HARRIS ET AL.

‘Planning’ and ‘strategy’ are, however, the most used and misused words in the lexicon of management studies

(White, 2004; McGee et al., 2005). There are a variety of definitions:

‘The determination of the basic long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of course or

courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals’ (Chandler, 1963 in

McGee et al., 2005, p. 7).

‘A disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organisation is,

what it does and why it does it’ (Bryson, 1993, p. 12).

In its stricter form, strategic planning is the process leading to a comprehensive detailed plan, covering all

functional organizational areas, for several years into the future; alternatively, a looser version could include a

simple business model, an annual corporate plan or even the general framework of a set of broad long-term

objectives (White, 2004, p. 597). Planning can range from simple budgeting exercises through to elaborate planning

systems, for example scenarios, competitor and market analysis, option generation, detailed action plans, budgets,

and control systems (Faulkner and Campbell, 2003, p. 5).

The rapid adoption of strategic planning in INGDOs has not, however, been universally viewed in a positive way.

There is, for example, an ongoing debate over whether it has any positive effect at all on non-profit organizational

performance (Crittenden et al., 1988; Odom and Boxx, 1988; Webster and Wylie, 1988; Stone, 1989; Martin et al.,

1992; Bielefeld, 1994; Kushner and Poole, 1996; Siciliano, 1997). More specifically, many have observed that

INGDOs simply overuse the word ‘strategy’, using it to refer to almost any grant, or any programme, that has been

made with some purpose in mind (Porter and Kramer, 1999). Others note that they often possess a ‘strategic

ambiguity’, not stating their objectives clearly (Lewis, 2007). Frequently they exhibit a strategic drift—‘a slow,

organic and unguided transition of the strategic thrust. . .’ where formal strategies are not implemented or are

simply reinvented (Ansoff, 2007).

Advocates of a deliberate, planned approach to resource allocation note that strategic ambiguity and strategic

drift is a source of weakness for NGOs. Ansoff (2007, p. 201) explains this as the fault of managers ‘getting tired of

acting as policemen. . .turning their attention to other priority concerns’. He, and others (Hardy et al., 1983; Denis

et al., 1995; Wallace et al., 1997; Lindenberg, 2001; Bryson, 2004; Phills, 2005; Wallace et al., 2006; Young, 2004)

argue that this is particularly common in non-profit organizations because power is distributed and there is a

change-resisting culture. It has led to two very different recommendations—that INGDOs are not suitable contexts

for strategic planning (Wallace et al., 1997; Wallace et al., 2006) or that INGDOs need to do strategic planning

better (Porter and Kramer, 1999), adopting complex processes to ensure that plans are implemented (Porter and

Kramer, 1999; Courtney, 2002; Bryson, 2004; Young, 2004; Phills, 2005; Lewis, 2007).

Despite leveling these criticisms at INGDOs, there has been little in-depth empirical research that explores why

and how this strategic drift occurs and the value and use of strategic planning within the organization. Managers

could be criticized for inadequate planning and implementation failure, however, it would belie complex internal

dynamics around which the formal strategic planning process might have considerable importance, attending to

some of the nuances of ‘NGO-ing’ (Hilhorst, 2003).

This article describes an exploratory, descriptive case study that sought to unpack the value of planning, broadly

defined, in INGDOs. We describe how managers creatively used ambitious and ambiguous strategies to harness

consensus and legitimacy from key stakeholder groups and thereby effect organizational change in subtle, but no

less important, ways. The research demonstrates that, in complex federated organizations, operating in volatile and

changing contexts and with multiple oftentimes conflicting stakeholder groups, strategic plans are not just

roadmaps for resource allocation, but opportunities to build coalitions and respond to stakeholder demands. As

such, they should be taken seriously, but not necessarily literally. This would lead to a more sympathetic

understanding of how ‘strategic’ INGDO managers actually are. As an empirical case study of a little explored, but

increasingly important management practice, the research will afford some normative recommendations for

INGDO managers that are increasingly subject to the pressures to plan and allocate resources strategically.

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. 29, 415–428 (2009)

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STRATEGIC DRIFT IN INTERNATIONAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS 417

THE RESEARCH STUDY

This article is based on in-depth empirical research of a major confederated INGDO (we use the pseudonym

‘Humanity International’). The research draws on data obtained over an 18-month period, beginning with initial

contact in July 2006 and ending in December 2007. The focus of the research was on the process of strategic

planning in the separate contexts of two major member organizations within the Humanity International

confederation (Humanity USA and Humanity UK).

Data collection began mid-way through the formulation phase of both of their strategic planning cycles and

ended when both organizations were publishing and disseminating their formal strategic plans. The empirical focus

of the research was on the strategic apex (Kushner and Poole, 1996) of both organizations, i.e. the executive team,

trustees, board members, senior executives, CEOs, and Presidents, but not restricted to this group, and many other

kinds of organizational participants were engaged with during the study such as administrative staff, mid-level

programme managers and the directors of Country Offices in Developing Countries where the development

activities of the confederation are implemented. The research is in the tradition of a ‘naturalistic inquiry’ (Lofland

and Lofland, 1984) and drew on qualitative data and ethnographic observations such as surveys, extended in-depth

interviews, participatory and direct observation of strategy meetings (Schwartzman, 1993; Neyland, 2008). In total,

over 100 h of tape-recorded, transcribed, and in-depth interviews and observations of strategy meetings, and

approximately 2000 pages of supporting archival material were obtained for analysis. Delineating between the

strategic planning processes of the two member organizations in the study is not straightforward as many actors and

issues cut across both organizations. For illustrative purposes only, this article draws mostly on the strategic

planning process of Humanity USA although similar observations were found in Humanity UK.

The setting for the research

In existence since the 1940s, Humanity International is one of the largest public health, international development

and humanitarian aid organizations in the world. It has an annual turnover of approximately $600 m per annum,

employs around 12 000 people and has offices in over seventy developing countries. Priority areas include but are

not restricted to child and maternal health, nutrition and HIV/AIDS programmes. It is organized along a

confederation structure composed of around a dozen autonomous member organizations, located in developed

countries, guided but not governed by an over-arching Humanity International Secretariat—a similar structure to

many other INGDOs (Lindenberg and Bryant, 2001).

Although there is some light-touch administrative control over the 70 country offices, all in resource-poor

countries, where Humanity projects are implemented, these are highly autonomous organizations that

independently source local funding for locally relevant public health and development programming. Member

organizations in developed countries independently pursue resources for their own unique and diverse goals and

aims and channel funds to country offices in areas of identified programmatic synergy. There are very good reasons

for this diversity—local Country Office independence provides the necessary flexibility for locally relevant

programming and Member Organization autonomy allows for fundraising practices that are consistent with the

preferences of national constituencies. The programmatic activities of each Member Organization are therefore

highly interwoven throughout the confederation, with each Member Organization funding projects in any number

of country offices.

Humanity’s ‘strategic transformation’ took place slowly and over several years, beginning in the early 1990s

when Humanity country offices experimented with formal strategic planning to capture the complexities of a longer

term development practice that would bring about a more sustainable change at the local level. By 2001, the

Humanity International Secretariat had developed its first long-range strategic plan for the confederation as a

whole and several other member organizations, including Humanity UK in 2003, were developing theirs. Currently,

the Humanity Secretariat, every Member Organization and Country Office each produce their own 3–5-year

strategic plans. Planning is, in general, rational and prescriptive, following widely recognized models of analysis

for internal and external strengths and weaknesses, heavily dependent on data collection and analysis, including


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stakeholder analysis, and draws on commonly used strategic planning tools such as scenario planning and

scorecards.

The advantages of strategic ambiguity

Participants have long noticed that strategic plans do not impact greatly on day-to-day operations:

The last Humanity USA plan was barely adhered to. The programme focus in it meant that there was an

intention to get better at them, but not necessarily to focus on them. There was much business as usual (Trustee

Humanity USA 07/06/07).

The last plan. . .. I don’t think we did anything of it. . ..I don’t think we spent a dime on any of the initiatives

from that plan. . ..my understanding was that it really was just a very handsome looking book (Senior

Executive Humanity USA 14/09/07).

In the last plan, the plan was there BUT people did what they wanted to and if it fitted in with the plan then

great, and if it didn’t then no big deal. There were no accountabilities built in to it (Senior Executive Humanity

USA 19/09/07).

The main focus of the latest Humanity USA Strategic Plan (2008–2015) was a programme strategy which we

have called ‘The Cornerstone Programme’ strategy. This comprised three large-scale ambitious programmes to be

rolled out in all country offices, specifically to provide social education and empowerment to 10 million girls, to

provide healthcare to 30 million women, and to provide microfinance to 30 million households in Sub-Saharan

Africa. Whilst it was a credible programme strategy, attending to pressing development and public health concerns

in developing countries, it was also developed to fulfill several equally pressing organizational concerns specific to

the funding context and non-profit culture of Humanity USA:

We asked ourselves what would differentiate this NGO from other NGOs. . ..What type of lasting change can

you make to help elevate people out of poverty. . ...what programmes can be found that knit together the

culture, history and traditions of the organization. . ...what compliments and enhances Humanity’s

programming. . ..what can be aligned with the Public Policy agenda. . ..can be a credible operational

platform. . . and that delivers on brand and promise? (Management Consultant Humanity USA 18/09/07).

Humanity USA managers also crafted the Cornerstone Programmes strategy to be ambitious and bold, in part to

harness the interest of Country Office Directors that would be key actors in their implementation. As Country Office

Directors are mostly autonomous, some element of persuasion or incentive was required for these peripheral actors

over whom Humanity USA had little direct control to sign up to the Humanity USA Strategic Plan.

[The figure of] 10 million girls [for the Girls Empowerment Cornerstone Programme] is to build

support. . .afterwards we will look at real measures. . .We need to move forward in the belief that the

Cornerstone Programmes will happen. . .. build it and they [the Country Office Directors] will come. . . (Senior

Executive Humanity USA 18/09/07).

The Cornerstone Programmes were not the only ambitious strategies in the Humanity USA Strategic Plan:

- W

C

e will ensure that Humanity is recognized as a leader in impact measurement.

- W
e will align all Humanity country offices in longer term impact-based planning and budgeting.
- H
umanity will be recognized as an organization with best in class knowledge management practices.
- T
here will be full integration of programme and programme support activities to maximize Country Office
effectiveness.

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Offline, participants acknowledged that given the long-standing independence of each Country Office upon

whose compliance most of these strategies are dependent, each strategic direction is sufficient in and of itself to

warrant the entire confederation’s full attention. The actual value, in terms of implementation, of each of these

strategic directions was frequently left un-examined:

We don’t need to agree on the details, but lets agree on the path (Senior Executive Humanity USA 10/12/07).

Indeed, throughout the Humanity USA strategic planning meetings there was a sense of tension between the

need to elaborate actionable strategies but that were not overly specific. A certain ambiguity appeared necessary;

not only in the overarching mission statements, but also in the Business Plan that was drilling further down into

direct actionable ‘Key Action’ priorities. For example, with regards the Cornerstone Programme strategy, key

actions in the strategic plan included:

To launch distinctive programming to drive funding and build capabilities to innovate, capture and share

knowledge. . .resulting in significant increase in restricted funds, clear progress against key impact goals, anda strong association of the Humanity brand with three focused sector areas.

It was not apparent what ‘clear progress’, ‘significant increase’ and ‘strong association’ indicated with respect to

how resources would be allocated to achieve them. As one senior executive noted, ambiguity such as this in the

strategic plan enables flexibility in its interpretation:

It [the Strategic Plan] is like the Bible, you know? Everything is in there, if you look close enough’ [laughter]

(Senior Executive Humanity USA14/09/07).

With a strategic plan that was not overly specific, Humanity USA executives could appeal to the hearts and

minds of a multitude of donors, each with their own very different view of what they would like Humanity to spend

their money on. Elaborating long-term strategy statements that were overly specific would put at risk the support of

potential donors that together fund Humanity in many different areas.

[Donors] rely on us as the kind of ambassadors of Humanity to kind of outline [the strategic plan] for them. It is

probably a good thing that they don’t ask for [the strategic plan] because we outline it mirroring the outlook

that reflects back to them, mirroring their interests so we look like a good match. . . (Senior Executive


Whilst strategic planning, by necessity implies change and prioritization, in Humanity, its use was also to justify

the status quo. The diverse mix of projects that comprise Humanity USA’s programme portfolio was coupled, to the

overarching strategic pretensions of the organization so that its coherence would be maintained. So to a large extent,

the programme strategy is crafted not only to reflect what is intended to happen, as a rational strategy perspective

would suggest, but also, importantly, what is ongoing already:

Our programme strategy is all about linking up the mix of things that we are doing to a broader vision and

mission (Country Office Director 10/12/07).

By keeping strategies ambiguous, the projects, that country offices raise funds for and that are locally relevant or

in the interests of local donors, can be reasonably referred upwards to the Humanity USA Strategic Plan without

being confronted by any contradiction in focus.

If you look at the elements that were extracted [to be included in the Strategic Plan] emergency, advocacy,

organisational evolution, knowledge sharing. . .. there is nothing inherently wrong with any of those, so there is

a fundamental soundness to the elements that were chosen. Whatever the choices that you made, you could

still argue that they were the right choices (Trustee Humanity USA 17/09/07).


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As a result, by including some ambiguity into the strategic plan, the inherent diversity of the confederation’s

programme portfolio can be captured without excluding or de-legitimising the outermost kinds of projects. By

maintaining ambiguity around strategic directions, the ongoing work of the organization, whether Humanity USA

or country offices, built up over long, eventful and diverse trajectories, could not only be maintained, but

legitimized in whichever way proponents found necessary. With enough explanation almost any of the ongoing

projects could be aligned with the content of the plan:

[The Strategic Plan] doesn’t require us to throw anything out (Country Office Director 10/12/07).

So presumably, [the strategic plan] will emphasise, it will provide guidance, but I don’t think it will have an

immediate dramatic effect on how we do business because we want to keep a lot of the benefits of that

decentralised and contextualised stuff. So I don’t think a Country Office would be barred from taking a grant

from Humanity Norway, you know, to do some. . .I don’t know. . . GORILLA PRESERVATION! ’ (Senior

Executive Humanity USA14/09/07).

Planning processes and coalition building

In Humanity, like many non-governmental development organizations, there is a culture of participation in

planning that is reflected at all levels in the confederation:

In Humanity, everybody needs to have touched the decision in some way. . . (Senior Executive Humanity USA

03/06/07).

So, for many years, participants have recognized that things get added, and not taken away. The trend is to try

and do more and more, to accumulate strategies, resulting in strategic plans with multiple strategies, and rendering

it overly ambitious.

One of the problems in our strategic planning process was that we put more and more on our plates and nothing

came off (Country Office Director 10/12/07).

Whilst, there are at times very clear benefits to allowing this considerable strategic diversity to unfold, it is at the

expense of realism in the strategic plan. For example, the development of the Humanity USA strategic plan

involved a significant and lengthy consultation, lasting over a year, with many Country Office Directors, regional

directors, and other Humanity member organizations, internal staff, executive team members, and of course

Humanity USA board members. Nonetheless, at the Humanity USA Strategic Plan Implementation Conference,

involving these and other key stakeholder groups, discussion of how to implement the bold, cornerstone

programmes led to even further debate when those Country Office Directors not involved in the original

consultation, and even some that were, pushed back on its content, and the proposed strategies. Sacrificing some

programme sectors in the name of strategic prioritization, resulted in protest in the name of public health demand,

poverty alleviation or simply in the name of their own autonomy.

The tension caused by prioritization of certain strategies over others by the Humanity USA senior management

team (a necessary feature of any strategic planning process) unearthed deeper and long-standing issues of ‘trust’

between headquarters staff and their Country Office counterparts. For the purposes of consensus building, this was

reconciled by allowing ‘open space’ discussion of deeper structural issues between both camps. Humanity USA

trustees and senior executives viewed the long-standing autonomy of Country Office as a weakness in an

increasingly globalized and inter-connected development aid industry. Concern around the need for more

integration of organizational processes and practices between country offices and member countries could be aired

in this more open forum. As a result the original focus of the Humanity USA Strategic Plan Implementation

Conference, the implementation of the Humanity USA strategic plan, was shifted back several stages to problem

identification and strategy formulation. Eventually familiar, wicked problems that the Humanity USA senior


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management team had been debating for the previous year and a half, and had apparently prioritized solutions to

them in the form of the Strategic Plan, returned to be aired in a larger and even more inclusive forum. Impromptu

focus group meetings, designed to air and resolve these tensions around ‘trust’ and ‘autonomy’ produced

challenging questions such as:

- W

C

hat does Humanity USA and the country offices need to do to enhance communication?

- W
hat concrete actions can Humanity USA take to engage with Humanity International?
- H
ow can we obtain and allocate unrestricted funding more effectively?
- W
hat are the concrete actions that can be taken to build capacity of field staff?
These issues were discussed as if the Humanity USA Strategic Plan itself did not exist. As the debate returned

once more to the first principles of organizational direction, internal assessment, external environmental

assessment, and so on, scope for adding new strategies emerged. So, although at the start of the conference,

the Humanity USA Strategic Plan was considered by the senior management to be in the implementation

phase:

The plan is what it is, it is non-negotiable, we need to see what needs to be done to implement it, what can be

implemented and the spaces where you [Country Office Directors] can contribute. . . by the end of the day, you

should be a sponsor of the plan, be able to go out of the room and talk positively about it. . . (Senior Executive


. . ..before long, new strategic priorities not included in this final strategic plan were being considered even by the

same senior executives:

Conflict, climate change and emergencies are continually factors that we have to be aware of, and it is not

articulated enough in our plan, and as we develop the plan we need to ensure that these areas cut across through

the plan (Senior Executive Humanity USA 10/12/07).

And strategic plan champions, such as Humanity USA senior executives and trustees, were seeking to appease

Country Office Directors, reinforcing that nothing would be done without their approval and full support:

We are becoming much more open about our needs and communicating what we are able to achieve, and what

we are not able to achieve. We need to come up with key actions that if included [in the Strategic Plan] might

make you feel more able to commit to the plan (Senior Executive Humanity USA 11/12/07).

Before long, specific, disparate but targeted initiatives were agreed between Country Office Directors and

Humanity USA senior executives:

- Ensure that project managers will be involved in planning and implementation.

- Ensure that Humanity USA provides more support to Humanity Country Offices in Bolivia, Haiti and Brazil.

- Organize a regional conference in the Asia region.

- Country Office Directors to try to change behaviour towards HQ, be more welcoming and communicate more

frankly concerns to the Senior Management Team.

The strategic plan that was supposed to be being ‘implemented’ was pushed somewhat into the background.

Whilst the accumulation of these targeted initiatives put at risk the implementation of the strategic plan, the process

had the effect of preserving consensus and collaboration between Humanity USA senior management and Country

Office Directors. Discussion of how to ‘implement’ the Humanity USA Cornerstone Programmes resulted instead

in a debate of the first principles for organizational changes and in participants visualizing, understanding, and then

supporting the greater goal of integration within the confederation that, offline, senior executives admitted the

cornerstone programmes were implicitly designed to achieve.

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Participants agreed on these targeted initiatives to achieve a greater level of integration between country offices

and Humanity USA and in doing so adopted new beliefs, terminologies and aspirations, and making more use of

new language such as ‘integration’, ‘innovation’, ‘global’, ‘unity’, and ‘communication’. By the end of the

Humanity USA Strategic Plan Implementation Conference, Country Office Directors had begun talking of

themselves as ‘X from Humanity International in Burundi’ rather than ‘X from Humanity Burundi’, resulting in

spontaneous applause as all the Country Office Directors realized what it meant to be an integrated confederation.

Conciliating the demands of Country Office Directors in this way, and permitting an accumulation of strategic

priorities beyond that which was addressed in the strategic plan, served to harness support for the senior

management team as a reasonable partner, open to negotiation. Humanity USA’s Strategic Plan became less a road

map, a meaningful document that details in a rational sense the future directions of the organization, and more a

medium to harness internal commitment and consensus within the confederation, in whichever form.

Overall, the strategic planning process in Humanity USAwas an integrating activity in its own right, between the

senior management and Country Office Directors.

What it does is it brings everyone together in a dialogue, so it is really an integrating mechanism. Without it

you’d be sort of sitting in your own little world, you know? . . .When everyone across all the members, comes

together in a planning process it really is a process of constructive dialogue, where you are feeding in all these

different viewpoints and enriching one another, and coming out the other end with a greater area of common

understanding and common commitment. I think that can only really be achieved through a process where you

sit down and dialogue with other people (Senior Executive Humanity International 17/09/07).

The use of the planning process to effect a subtle organizational change in this way is described well by one trustee:

At the end of the day the strategy IS the implementation (Trustee Care USA 19/09/07).

Strategic flexibility

In Humanity USA, strategic plan champions crafted a considerable degree of flexibility, even into the final strategic

plan, in response to the frequent tension that strategies exposed if they conflicted with the existing or planned

activities of partner organizations, specifically country offices. Strategic directions were convincingly portrayed as

concrete road maps for change, but then often were diluted down if they were not contextually relevant for the

Country Office:

. . .I mean, in general, our strategic plan is not a MANDATE to Country Offices. . .we are saying that

organisationally we want to see these [three Cornerstone Programmes] things coming through more strongly

in all of our programmes but there may be strong justifications [to not do them]. . . (Senior Executive Humanity

USA 04/07/07).

We will definitely focus on women and girls. . .but not at the exclusion of men and boys. If the only way to

protect women and girls is to work with men and boys then you make that case as part of your plan. Working

with young men can still happen under the rubric of our work (Senior Executive Humanity USA 17/09/07).

Country Offices that haven’t got education in their long-range strategic plan can still apply for the Cornerstone

Programme money [in education]. Of course this makes having gone through [their] strategic planning process

completely moot (Country Office Director 11/12/07).

Informants would explain this as a natural, unavoidable and not particularly problematic issue. Strategic plans

are necessarily variably relevant and that a high degree of flexibility is needed around them due to the variety of, and

the changing nature of, the contexts in which they are being applied:


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. . .The plan makes us very static in the sense of choosing one picture, and moving as in that picture. . .it is not

going to happen, because the picture that we choose is going to be the wrong picture, five years from now

(Senior Executive Humanity USA 14/09/07).

. . .Poverty is so context specific to the geography and the politics in each country, and to the nature of the

poverty in there, in each place, and. . .we have to constantly remind ourselves that each place is really, really

different, you know, the donor interests are different, the supply of natural resources is different, the level of

education is different, whether it is a country in conflict, whether it is a country suffering from HIV/AIDS. . .(Senior Executive Humanity USA 14/09/07).

With strategic plans populated by multiple ambitious, ambiguous strategies, and with managers building

flexibility into agreed upon strategies, it is perhaps unsurprising that strategic plans bear little resemblance to actual

programmatic activities. At first sight, it appears that Humanity USA managers are failing in their planning

attempts resulting in organizational strategic drift. However, as has been shown, unpacking the processes around

strategy formulation reveals important and no less strategic benefits to the strategic planning process.

DISCUSSION

Consensus is an outcome of strategic planning

Non-profit management researchers have acknowledged that because of the very special, decentralized, politicized,

and participatory structure and culture of NGOs, as professional bureaucracies (Hardy et al., 1983; Denis et al.,

1995), broad consensus is required in order for good strategies to be formulated (Bryson, 2004). In these contexts,

‘good’ strategies are meant to be ones that have been endorsed, agreed upon, ratified by many internal and external

stakeholders, increasing therefore its chance for implementation (Bryson, 2004). Denis et al. (1995) note that in

these contexts agreement or consensus for strategies may be obtained, but it is often at the expense of their realism.

Participative planning tends to lead to an inflationary consensus, resulting in strategic plans that possess inordinate

numbers of recommendations that are ambiguous and overly ambitious (Denis et al., 1995). This was evident in

Humanity USA—the strategic plan had been developed by extensive consultation with nearly half the key actors in

the entire confederation, almost all the Humanity Member Organization CEOs, Country Office Directors from

nearly a dozen countries, regional directors, and with external consultants over nearly 18 months, and multiple,

ambitious strategies were the result. Certainly, one needs to ask how much consensus is needed before a plan can be

formulated?

However, of note in Humanity USA was that consensus was not only a requirement for strategy formulation;

rather consensus was an outcome of deliberately ambitious strategy development. Ambitious strategies in the

strategic plan did not appear to be just an accidental, or an unfortunate by-product of a participatory approach to

planning. Rather, they were an effective mechanism deliberately and creatively used by senior management to

engage Country Office Directors in a debate of thorny issues (the need to improve integration) that would not have

otherwise been aired.

Strategy is crafted to harness legitimacy

The pursuit of legitimacy underpins the ability of a non-profit organization to achieve its mission and obtain

resources for its core activities (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Scott, 1991; Galaskiewicz and Bielefeld, 2003; Lister,

2003; Ossewaarde et al., 2008). NGOs operate in highly institutionalized environments where coercive, normative,

and regulatory pressures conspire to influence their activities (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991). One of the key features

of the strategic planning process in Humanity USA was that as participants responded to pressures real, and

perceived, from donors, regulatory bodies, and competitor organizations, strategies frequently lost a lot of their

‘sense’. This was not only as passive consequence of institutional forces or an unfortunate but necessary by-

product, of participative planning processes (Denis et al., 1995). Rather, senior executives were heavily engaged in


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actively constructing legitimizing strategies. Senior managers deliberately crafted ambiguous strategies to ensure

that their existing programmes retained relevance within an evolving strategic frame and to enable donors to find

funding synergies with the organization.

Strategic drift revisited

There is a long-standing debate over how non-profit organizations change: as part of some evolutionary life cycle

(Avina, 1993), as an incremental, politicized process (Wallace et al., 1997; Brinkerhoff and Ingle, 2004) or as a

planned, deliberate action. The general criticism that INGDOs are observed to exhibit strategic drift attends to this

latter view and is based on taking their formal strategies somewhat literally. However, this immersion into

Humanity USA shows that we should not be too quick to assume that proposed strategies matter in a literal sense.

Alternative interpretations of the data may, of course, be possible, however, we have shown that in Humanity USA,

managers seemed to be highly creative in the use of formal strategies to generate consensus and legitimacy. They

used the formal strategic planning process, to manipulate and harness the interests of diverse autonomous

professionals, bringing about change in an incremental way.

It is necessary to be explicit around how ‘strategy’ is conceptualized. In part, this is because even in the

management literature it is a highly contested concept and may not be the rational, deliberate action that typically

has been mooted by business schools and the popular management literature. Indeed, multiplicities of schools of

strategic thought have arisen. This is the result of strategic planning being a subset of the larger scholarly fields of

decision-making and organizational change and mirrors changes in prevailing thought in both of these fields, in

particular, around debates over the relationship between structure and action (Hall and Saias, 1980; Frederickson,

1986; Amburgey and Dacin, 1994), organizational adaptation and environmental selection (Hannan and Freeman,

1984; Hannan and Freeman, 1989; Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003), and the rationality of individual actors (Lindblom,

1959; Cohen et al., 1972).

Strategy has therefore been conceived as a top-down rational plan for organizational change used by senior

managers, and drawing on a variety of prescriptive economic literatures (Porter, 1979; Williamson, 1981; Barney,

2001). However, formal strategies have also been viewed as part of an evolving strategy process that unfolds

iteratively with some formal strategies discarded as others emerge (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Pettigrew, 1987).

Furthermore, other schools propose that strategy is an enacted activity composed of practices and procedures that

themselves serve implicit strategic functions (Jarzabkowski, 2005). Finally, it can be seen to be an artifact of

organizational life that is loosely coupled to the evolving, unfolding pattern of change rooted in people’s

interactions (Stacey, 2007).

Because of the historical evolution of the field of strategic management it has been difficult (and arguably not

desirable) to create a shared conceptualization or comprehensive theoretical framework of strategy (Bowman et al.,

2002; Pettigrew et al., 2002). Indeed attempts to unify several theoretical views of strategy result in interesting, but

narrow, conceptions of strategy—for example ‘strategising as creation of value-based networks constituted

through routines’ (Denis et al., 2007). Strategy theorists tend to cluster around these loosely structured frameworks

(Teece et al., 1997), forming a ‘crazy quilt’ of paradigms (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992) and distinct intellectual

camps that engage with only parts of the whole picture of organizational strategy (Mintzberg et al., 1998; Pettigrew

et al., 2002), much like blind men describing an elephant (Chakravarthy and White, 2002). Whilst they appear to be

in opposition, they are in fact describing the same phenomenon from different angles.

The data shows that, in Humanity USA, these rational and political perspectives need to be kept in focus

simultaneously and not in competition. Formal strategies, it seems, were used as a vocabulary through which

managers could negotiate and communicate their deeper organizational concerns. By using the language, symbols,

metaphors and deliberative arenas of formal, rational strategic planning an incremental, politicized process of

organizational change ‘of sorts’ was achieved (Pettigrew, 1987). As a result, rather than seeing strategic planning as

an activity through which participants can identify and agree upon strategies for organizational change, one comes

to see strategic planning as an activity around which participants converge to pursue other less explicit objectives,

and formal strategy as a by-product of an ongoing, implicit conversation around the issues of legitimacy and

commitment.


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This does not just relegate strategies to mere symbolic artifacts (Stone and Brush, 1996; Stacey, 2007) but

instead they can be valued tools in the navigation and manipulation of diverse elements in the organization

(Jarzabkowski, 2005). By not taking formal strategies literally, indeed by keeping the notion of a formal rational

strategy in the background, the somewhat judgmental and critical view that INGDOs drift away from their strategy

(Ansoff, 2007), is replaced by a more nuanced understanding of how managers might use the language, metaphors,

and deliberative arenas of strategic planning to influence, gradually and subtly, organizational change, even at the

expense of realism and implementation of formal strategies.

In Humanity USA, formal strategies that might once be viewed as questionable can now be conceived of as

second-order strategies utilized to navigate a diverse array of participants through a process of organizational

change. There is little that is irrational in ambitious strategies when they can be used to generate debate around

deep, complex, and structural issues within the confederation that would not otherwise have been aired. There is

little that is irrational in ambiguous strategies when they can harness legitimacy from external donors, allow

fundraising executives to find synergies with external donors, and even legitimize the existing programme diversity

inherent in the confederation. Strategies that, when examined closely, lack the elements of feasibility, rationality,

and implementability, should not necessarily be viewed as less strategic, nor indeed rational. In other words,

managers can use ‘strategic planning’ very strategically, in order to guide and manipulate elements within the

organization. Much can be gained by viewing organizational change in the INGDO not as an unfortunate and

undesirable process of strategic drift, but as part of a constructive, negotiated, creative, and ongoing process of

strategic drift.

CONCLUSION

International non-governmental development organizations are an important kind of non-profit organization. They

are an extremely important link in the aid chain (Wallace et al., 2006) advocating on behalf of the world’s

disenfranchised; they are an important conduit through which health and development resources are channeled to

developing countries (Salamon, 1999; Salamon and Sokolowski, 1999; OECD, 2000; Pratt et al., 2006); and they

are an important healthcare service provider. The way that INGDOs allocate resources and prioritize their activities

has received little attention (Fruttero and Gauri, 2005; Stone et al., 1999), in part because of a general assumption

that INGDOs simply respond to public health and development demand (Weisbrod, 1977; Wilson and Butler, 1986;

Hansmann, 1987).

With an increasing global emphasis on accountability and performance within INGDOs, managers are under

increasing pressure to demonstrate a certain ‘strategic integrity’, and it seems to have lead to a spiraling in efforts to

‘plan well’. We have shown that, in these contexts, the externally facing product of the planning process, the

strategic plan, may suffer the distortions of ambiguity and ambitiousness, but it should not be seen as a failure of the

senior executive team, nor of the planning process; rather, in the non-profit context, these features of the strategic

plan simultaneously represent and facilitate the, pursuit of consensus and legitimacy that are in general not within

view of external observers, but are no less integral to organizational change and survival. The strategic plan is both

an end and a means for INGDO organizational change and should not be relegated to merely symbolic value or

managerial failure, if it appears to be only loosely coupled to organizational direction.

The implication of the research is that INGDO managers should treat the rational, positivist logic of formal

strategic planning with caution. Although managers may engage in strategic planning processes as part of their

management practice, they should not expect strategies and plans to be implementable and should acknowledge the

inevitability of unintended outcomes of change. In the INGDO context, because of their diffuse power structure,

multiple interfaces and competing commitments (Hilhorst, 2003; Lewis et al., 2003; Lister, 2003; Ebrahim, 2005;

Mosse, 2005) strategic planning is better conceived as a context for political engagement, coalition building and

influence (Mosse, 2005). Managers do need to think of strategy in terms of technical requisites, but also as a

language through which other underlying issues can be resolved. They may do better to conceptualize their

strategies as metaphors, or as artifacts of complex, ongoing negotiations but which can themselves have emotive

and motivational value. They should think about the range of actors that are influencing the strategy process, their


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agendas, what incentives and power issues are at play and how best the strategic planning arena can be used to

expose and further these and other implicit organizational concerns. In this, INGDO managers might avoid

disappointment (and criticism) when strategies are not implemented, and consumption of unnecessary resources,

will be avoided. Furthermore managers should not interpret an apparent ‘strategic drift’ as an indication of the need

to plan better, as this may lead to ‘inflationary planning’ and consume scarce resources. Managers must be

cognizant of and be guided by finding the fragile middle ground where sufficient resources are used to generate,

through planning processes, sufficient consensus and legitimacy.

As the growing global political order emphasizes rational design, as aid policy becomes more managerial and as

the means of aid policy has diversified to the management of more and more (Mosse, 2005, p. 237), capturing and

understanding what this means for the agents of change and development becomes increasingly important. INGDO

managers, and INGDO observers, should balance the conventional rational view of strategic planning with the

conceptual space that we have discussed in this article, so that inflationary planning is avoided and more attention

can be given to the core activities of the organization—the alleviation of global poverty and improvement of health

worldwide.

Whilst the findings in this case study require substantiation by developing similar research in similar settings

such as other confederated INGDOs, it should not be assumed that shared characteristics, for example the non-

distribution constraint, diffuse power, divergent objectives, individual autonomy etc., are sufficient to warrant direct

comparison (James and Rose-Ackerman, 1986). Equally, these characteristics are not unique to INGDOs as many

modern firms are multi-site, multi-product, and multiple goal organizations (Jarzabkowski, 2005). With respect to

understanding strategy processes there is value in theorizing across organizations that share these management and

organizational features. Other organizational forms that possess these characteristics and constraints, such as large

public hospitals, universities, and even some private sector organizations that are confederated, would offer

interesting settings for comparison, avoiding segregation along uni-dimensional lines of for- versus not-for profit

(Ansoff, 2007, p. 16).

It is, however, a simplification to presume that the results from this research might be automatically applicable to

a small grassroots organization or to a faith-based organization. There are lessons to be drawn for organizations that

share characteristics and constraints with Humanity International, such as large, multi-national, confederations

operating in developing countries, particularly as they engage with their own strategic planning processes.

However, what the research illustrates most powerfully is that a full and nuanced understanding of the management

of these kinds of organizations requires detailed, immersion and familiarity with its structure, its actors, and the

trajectory of its strategies.

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