Scenarios and styles of strategy formulation in Brazilian public organizations

Abstract

The 21st century is the century of change or uncertainty, and the scenario-based planning methodology has been gaining more and more adherents. However, authors argue that there is a lack of a strong theoretical framework for the scenario-based planning method, as well as a lack of research on this issue in the public area. In this context, the purpose of this research is to develop a research tool that makes it possible to identify if there is a dominant strategic approach, according to the Idenburg strategic approach model, in Brazilian federal public administration institutions that build scenarios. The research was based on the application of a structured plot at a distance in nine institutions belonging to Brazilian federal public administration and an open face-to-face interview with three of these institutions, using intentional sampling. The results suggest that the rational approach is the dominant one among the researched institutions. However, there are also characteristics belonging to the other strategic approaches, suggesting a hybrid strategic behavior. The tool used was proved to be adequate, and the interviews validated the respondents’ answers, clarifying the reason for the existence of hybrid strategic models. Thus, it is suggested to include open research variables in the tool, to allow the participants to justify their answers, enriching the results of the research.