This research evaluates the development of strategy and planning undertaken by the three federal protected areas management organisations in Canada. These organisations and the protected areas they manage are: the Canadian Wildlife Service (National Wildlife Areas and Migratory Bird Sanctuaries), the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (Oceans Act Marine Protected Areas), and the Parks Canada Agency (National Parks, National Marine Conservation Areas, and National Historic Sites). As non-renewable resources become more valuable, urban centres expand, and the climate changes, protected areas will face an increasing number of threats, the mitigation of which will require significant new financial resources. In order to acquire these new resources, protected areas management organisations will have to compete with other aspects of the government’s agenda. In this research, strategy is identified as an important component of successful competition. A review of literature from various disciplines explains some of the main theories of strategy development: strategic planning, strategic management, and collaborative planning. Management planning for protected areas helps to understand the congruence between strategy and site management. Using a qualitative approach, the research triangulates the results of interviews, reviews of documents, and participant-observation to evaluate the way that each of the organisations develops strategy and understands management planning activities. The research also includes a model strategic plan for the Canadian Wildlife Service protected areas network. The model plan stems from data collected during this research. This research supports the results from a previous study (Foresta, 1985) that found Parks Canada (now the Parks Canada Agency, or PCA) has been actively pursuing a coherent strategy through systematic management planning since the late 1960s. The PCA can attribute a significant degree of its ongoing success in creating and managing National Parks to its consistent strategy and systematic planning efforts. Another important part of the PCA success has been its external orientation, which demonstrates its awareness of the importance of maintaining public satisfaction and its high public profile. No prior research on the development of strategy or of systematic planning at the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) was uncovered. This research concludes that the CWS, which has many strategic plans on paper, has not actively pursued strategic or management planning. The lack of strategic thinking and planning contribute significantly to the relatively low budgets of the CWS, and to its low public profile. The DFO has decided to take a “learning approach” to its protected areas, by creating a set of pilot marine protected areas and then identifying the policies and procedures needed to manage the sites. The public profile of the DFO protected areas is even lower than that of the CWS. The CWS and the DFO are internally-oriented, do not have significant public outreach programs, long-range or strategic planning, and do not seem to have champions. The most important contributors to the PCA’s success are the finite nature and the simplicity of their goals, which Parks staff can easily communicate to decision-makers and to the public. The external orientation of the PCA, demonstrated by extensive public outreach programming, such as natural history interpretation and the provision of camping opportunities, is also an important part of its success. Another important contributor, identified in this research, is the support of a small number of key political champions. This research identifies means by which organisations could improve their competitiveness, including by improving public profile. The research highlights the importance of externally-focused strategic plans that include certain elements that are well-defined in the literature, and the importance of strategic thinking. The results suggest that there is a need for a new approach to developing strategy, and proposes the exploration of collaborative planning as a potential model. This research contributes to the academic literature and to planning practice by identifying key elements that created conditions of success for the PCA. The PCA experience highlights the importance of strategic thinking, in the context of developing a strategic plan.

This research evaluates the development of strategy and planning undertaken by the three federal protected areas management organisations in Canada. These organisations and the protected areas they manage are: the Canadian Wildlife Service (National Wildlife Areas and Migratory Bird Sanctuaries), the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (Oceans Act Marine Protected Areas), and the Parks Canada Agency (National Parks, National Marine Conservation Areas, and National Historic Sites). As non-renewable resources become more valuable, urban centres expand, and the climate changes, protected areas will face an increasing number of threats, the mitigation of which will require significant new financial resources. In order to acquire these new resources, protected areas management organisations will have to compete with other aspects of the government’s agenda. In this research, strategy is identified as an important component of successful competition. A review of literature from various disciplines explains some of the main theories of strategy development: strategic planning, strategic management, and collaborative planning. Management planning for protected areas helps to understand the congruence between strategy and site management. Using a qualitative approach, the research triangulates the results of interviews, reviews of documents, and participant-observation to evaluate the way that each of the organisations develops strategy and understands management planning activities. The research also includes a model strategic plan for the Canadian Wildlife Service protected areas network. The model plan stems from data collected during this research. This research supports the results from a previous study (Foresta, 1985) that found Parks Canada (now the Parks Canada Agency, or PCA) has been actively pursuing a coherent strategy through systematic management planning since the late 1960s. The PCA can attribute a significant degree of its ongoing success in creating and managing National Parks to its consistent strategy and systematic planning efforts. Another important part of the PCA success has been its external orientation, which demonstrates its awareness of the importance of maintaining public satisfaction and its high public profile. No prior research on the development of strategy or of systematic planning at the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) was uncovered. This research concludes that the CWS, which has many strategic plans on paper, has not actively pursued strategic or management planning. The lack of strategic thinking and planning contribute significantly to the relatively low budgets of the CWS, and to its low public profile. The DFO has decided to take a “learning approach” to its protected areas, by creating a set of pilot marine protected areas and then identifying the policies and procedures needed to manage the sites. The public profile of the DFO protected areas is even lower than that of the CWS. The CWS and the DFO are internally-oriented, do not have significant public outreach programs, long-range or strategic planning, and do not seem to have champions. The most important contributors to the PCA’s success are the finite nature and the simplicity of their goals, which Parks staff can easily communicate to decision-makers and to the public. The external orientation of the PCA, demonstrated by extensive public outreach programming, such as natural history interpretation and the provision of camping opportunities, is also an important part of its success. Another important contributor, identified in this research, is the support of a small number of key political champions. This research identifies means by which organisations could improve their competitiveness, including by improving public profile. The research highlights the importance of externally-focused strategic plans that include certain elements that are well-defined in the literature, and the importance of strategic thinking. The results suggest that there is a need for a new approach to developing strategy, and proposes the exploration of collaborative planning as a potential model. This research contributes to the academic literature and to planning practice by identifying key elements that created conditions of success for the PCA. The PCA experience highlights the importance of strategic thinking, in the context of developing a strategic plan.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 440-483).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Business Administration. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-140). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ66370.

No description available.

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This doctoral thesis seeks to advance our understanding of organizational legitimacy through the analysis of types and properties of legitimacy and of its relation to the concepts of status and reputation. More specifically, this doctoral thesis seeks to contribute to organizational theory and strategic management by (1) reviewing and systematizing legitimacy types discerned in the literature and contrasting legitimacy with related concepts of reputation and status, (2) identifying the properties of legitimacy, and (3) exploring some of the implications of these properties for management practice and strategic management research. / The doctoral research is presented in the form of a manuscript-based thesis consisting of three interrelated papers: / 1. Organizational Legitimacy as a Form of Judgment. Through the analysis of legitimacy definitions, types and typologies, and operationalizations, this study first develops an enumerative definition of organizational legitimacy, maps different types of legitimacy discerned in the literature onto the process of legitimacy judgment formation and highlights the fundamental differences between cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy types. This paper then advances a conceptualization of cognitive and sociopolitical types of legitimacy, reputation and status as four different types of judgment that actors can render in respect to an organization and explores some implications of this approach for organizational research, namely the role of social judgments in exchange partner selection and the use of social judgments under conditions of uncertainty. / 2. Legitimacy-Based Entry Deterrence in Inter-Population Competition. This paper develops a theory of competitive social norm manipulations and explores the strategies that well-established organizational populations use to build legitimacy-based barriers to entry into their domain. The study develops a typology of legitimacy manipulation strategies that established organizational populations use to prevent, eradicate or palliate the new entrants' impact by: (1) changing the relative importance of legitimacy dimensions, (2) raising the legitimacy threshold and (3) altering perceptions of competitors' performance. Successful legitimacy manipulations are shown to lead to institutional immunization of the incumbents against similar competitive challenges in the future. / 3. Defensive Institutional Strategies in Emergent Industries. Through a comparative analysis of two emergent industries in Canada, this study advances a conceptualization of the process of emergence of a new industry from a successful innovative business model, focusing on sequential lines of institutional defense that are available to emergent industries that come under such attacks: (1) keep a low profile; (2) form a trade association; (3) develop an industry code to provide guidelines and member coordination; (4) enforce the code through self-policing; (5) if everything else fails to end the attack, invite the government to impose regulation. Illustrations of the application of these strategies are provided.

<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <p align="left">This study has evaluated the strategic planning and management of the University of Namibia. The crucial objective was to assess the strategic planning process of the University of Namibia to see if the strategic plans were properly developed and also determine how the Northern Campus feature in the overall strategic plan of the University of Namibia. The research has used the body of knowledge on strategic planning and management to investigate the problem. The secondary objective was to develop a theoretical understanding of strategic planning and management. The study will record and develop a case study on the strategic planning of the University of Namibia, and see how planning has been able to address the issue of development. On the basis of the findings, the research has suggested alternative guiding principles of the planning process. At conclusion the research has made numerous recommendations for the decision makers on how properly planning process can be followed.</p> </font></p>