Strategic Management In Public Enterprise Based On Corporate Entrepreneurship Model: The Nigerian Experience

Strategic management, a field developed in the private sector deals with the major intended and emergent initiatives taken by business leadership to enhance the performance of firms. It entails specifying the organisation's vision, mission and objectives; then developing policies and plans which are designed to achieve these objectives through allocating resources in the most optimal ways. The achievement or otherwise of mission and objectives is dependent on a number of factors including quality of management, governance, monitoring and evaluation of performance outcomes. The public sector management however is new to this way of thinking, particularly in the developing countries such as Nigeria. The late 1970s through 1980s and 1990s witnessed the introduction of strategic management in Europe and USA to improve government service offerings. The United Kingdom for example streamlined civil service along market principles with significant improvement in performance and reduction in operational costs. These are the measurable benefits of strategic planning in the public sector. The evidence from Nigeria appears to differ significantly compared with developed countries and the nation has not benefited from the benefits of strategic planning, which have been employed with significant success and reduced bureaucracy in developed nations. Due to this failure, there is large-scale wastage of resources and abysmal performance in the public enterprise in Nigeria with the resultant effect that a nation with huge resources and potential is home to largest population of poor people in Africa. This paper argues that in order to improve service delivery as well as optimise costs, the Nigerian Government would need to adopt strategic management in its public enterprise with active monitoring and evaluation mechanism. We further argue that the process of strategic management is likely to encourage accountability and the issues of good governance as well as democratic processes in the country. Such a process will help in creating an enabling environment that would enhance the relationship between public and private sector organisations as they very much depend on one another. Overall direction will be set for macro-economic framework and economic institutions that would be seamlessly linked, creating conducive environment for higher productivity, performance, and reduction of extreme poverty and hunger.