Goals, Strategic Planning, and Performance in Government Agencies

The setting of clear goals and strategic planning are characterized as critical roles of public managers that are closely related to the measurement and enhancement of organizational performance. This study investigates the effects of goal properties and strategic planning capacity and their interacting effects on government agency performance, an aspect which has rarely been explored in the public administration field. For this analysis, we use the hierarchical linear modelling method with data from the 2005 Merit Principle Survey and the 2005 Program Assessment Rating Tool. The dependent variable is perceived organizational performance at the individual level. The main independent variables are three types of goal properties - job-goal commitment, job-goal specificity, and mission specificity, measured at the individual level - and strategic planning capacity, measured at the agency level. The results suggest that in the data these goal-related attitudes and activities can make crucial contributions to the enhancement of organizational performance with no interacting effect.