*1.3. IGO Strategic Management Challenges*

With increasing demands for more services provision, IGOs have been mandated by their member states to pay consistent attention to planning, developing and dynamically adjusting their strategic plan, which consequently entails the effective management of change. This is especially true when member states require the IGOs to reposition their strategic model to entail an increasing level of business/commercial activities as a response to the changes in the external environment and reduced funding.

The current strategic planning framework derived and applied to the private sector may not be suitable for the public sector, as it might neither be applicable, nor be able to meet the expectations, of IGO agencies. Moreover, Safi and Mahmood (2022) reported that many public strategic management scholars and practitioners agree that it is very difficult to apply strategic management principles from the private sector to the public sector. Using a number of studies, they further explain and support that this is due to the large gap that exists between the private sector's goals of profit and competitive advantages, and the IGO's purpose of serving its constituency.

Faced with these old and new strategic management challenges, IGOs today have to be strategy oriented, dealing primarily with strategic management (which entails intent, planning and formulation) external institutional pressures (primarily political factors) and change management. In doing so, they would develop the capabilities and maturity to establish a strong yet agile environment, setting the cornerstone for adaptive performance and sustainable change management.

#### *1.4. Motivation and Purpose*

We highlight that many perceive public institutions in general, such as the UN, to be well protected and not particularly vulnerable to internal or external pressures and threats, despite the fast changing global geopolitical, environmental and technological conditions. However, managers, such as section chiefs and bureau directors, in those institutions continue to struggle with their role of managing change, organizational decline and performance. The body of research in the area is lacking guidance to those managers as most of the relevant strategic management models derived from the private sector and scholars and practitioners alike agree that they have limited applicability when it comes to meeting the expectations and context of public institutions. Consequently, the elements of most strategic models including planning, development and implementation are not well suited for public institutions (IGOs) (Giblin and Nowacki 2018; Peretz 2021; Safi and Mahmood 2022). Accordingly, in this study, we aim to achieve two primary goals, namely to clarify the current situation specifying external and internal drivers of strategic management in public institutions, and to underscore how the present situation can be improved. We achieve those goals by empirically investigating strategic management factors and their inter-relationships in the context of IGOs.

#### *1.5. Structure of the Paper*

In this paper, we set out to investigate empirically strategic management in the context of inter-governmental organizations, a member of the public administration organizations family. In our endeavor to understand the context and due to the lack of empirical research in the area, we adopted relevant concepts developed for the private sector, validated them in our context and refined them into an IGO strategic management conceptual model. Our journey towards the final model included a literature review of the body of knowledge in the area of strategic management, as discussed in Section 2. In that section, we revised theories of interest and cross examined the good criteria for strategic management proposed by Courtney (2013) against the context of the IGO, in order to get a better understanding of how the private and public sectors compare. In Section 3, we elaborated on the theoretical background constituting the foundations of our study hypotheses and formulated four research questions, identifying the factors for IGO strategic management, their inter-relationships, cause–effects and mediation. In the following section (Section 4), we presented our methodology describing our sample and procedure and presented the questionnaire used for our study. Section 5 focused on the results and analysis in the same strategic sequence as the research questions, performing an exploratory factor analysis to identify the factors, conducting a confirmatory factor analysis to explore inter-relationships, propose a conceptual model and run a cause–effect analysis via a structured equation modeling approach, and testing for mediation. In the last section (Section 6), we engaged in discussion and conclusions presenting our findings, implication to theory and practice, limitations and recommendations for future research. The references are provided at the end.

#### **2. Literature Review**

In Section 1.2, we elaborated on the extant work, briefly discussing the classical and modern approaches to strategic management. Classical perspectives were developed when the pace of external and environmental conditions was slow. Modern approaches were an evolution of the strategic management theories as an attempt to adapt to the significant increase in the changing pace of organizations' environments (Brown 2010). However, considering IGOs as the public organization of our study, we find that classical models for their strategic management provide a better fit for analysis than the modern approaches. This is due to the following: (1) Today, IGOs still perform at a relatively slower pace than the private sector and are still closer in operations to IOs. Therefore, they are not suitable in environments where conditions change at a fast pace (as they still plan on a triennium basis with a fixed static strategic management plan), (2) due to the nature of their business, IGOs remain static, with limited abilities to adapt in time (and for all intents and purposes, they do not need to), (3) IGOs continue to ignore the external environment (and one of the issues studied herein as institutional pressures), (4) due to their source of funding coming from voluntary contributions of member states, IGOs continue to depend on those contributions remaining relatively stable over time, despite today's geopolitical challenges, and (5) IGOs persist on being linear by continuing to make every effort to avoid uncertainty in their strategy management approach as a mitigation and negotiation tactic towards the council. Based on the above, we used the classical models of private firms to explore and adapt their application to the IGO context. Moreover, new models largely ignore external variables

such as institutional pressures. The following literature review therefore focuses on those IO strategy theories.

Höglund et al. (2018) identifies a small but growing research field that, for the past decade, has studied strategy work in the public sector context and the possible consequences of strategic management. Of this group of studies, some have investigated the application of SM (Andrews and Walle 2013; Boyne and Walker 2010; Bryson 2018; Bryson et al. 2010; Ferlie and Ongaro 2015; George 2017; Höglund and Svärdsten 2018); however, only a few studied the use of tools for the practical application of SM to realize strategic intent (Schmidt et al. 2017; Elbanna et al. 2016; George and Desmidt 2018; Höglund et al. 2018, 2021; Johnsen 2016; Lane 2008; Poister 2010). Even fewer studies were performed to determine which tools are used in strategic making (George et al. 2016, 2017, 2018), with none, to our knowledge, in the public or IGO context (Höglund et al. 2018).

As mentioned earlier, IGOs are faced with significant external governmental pressures that influence their strategic management and change processes. Considering institutional pressures, organizations' strategies and change management may vary depending on the nature of the conflict and the motivation of organizational groups to see one of the competing demands succeed (Pache and Filipe 2010). Oliver (1991) highlights that strategic choices vary from active resistance (i.e., manipulation of rules and expectations) to a passive or neutral response (i.e., to acquiesce and fully conform to institutional pressure and expectation). Goodstein (1994) proposed that strategic choices for conformity or resistance are made to cope with institutional pressures. Boon et al.'s (2009) study on strategic human resource management demonstrates the presence of different institutional pressures. However, this does not necessarily mean that organizations see that institutional environment as restrictive. Organizations can create more leeway in choosing a human resources system themselves (Boon et al. 2009). Finding the correct degree of adaptation to institutional mechanisms can be a source of organizational success, even if it operates in a highly institutionalized context (Oliver 1997). Early institutional theory often overlooked this role of active agency and resistance in organization–environment relations (Oliver 1991), which reintroduced agency, interests and power into institutional analyses of organizations (Garud et al. 2007).

New institutionalism, which is distinguished by Meyer and Rowan's (1977) classic paper and followed closely by DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) study, refers to a view of institutions as collective cognitions that acquire a degree of social concreteness and compel organizational behavior. While old institutionalism focused its attention on processes that occur inside the individual organization, new institutionalism focused on interactions among organizations, a level of analysis common in the organizational field (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Tohidfam and Touserkani 2021; Naveed et al. 2021). The organizational field refers to a recognized institutional network: regulatory agencies, key suppliers, resource and product consumers and other organizations that produce similar services and products (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Today, new institutionalism has been profoundly impacted by both globalization changing patterns and governance movements, where countries and IGOs find themselves facing irresistible and novel pressures. With significant reforms, political changes and widespread IGOs activities, mechanisms for governance, strategic management and change management are timely (Hossain 2022).

Institutional theory advocates that organizations active in social networks perceive institutional pressures to be significant for achieving social legitimacy and the acquisition of rare resources, essential for acceptable organizational performance (Zucker 1987; Scott 1995), sustainability (Teo et al. 2003; Oliver 1997), and strategic management. Such pressures can be in the form of coercive, normative and mimetic pressures. According to DiMaggio and Powell (1983), coercive isomorphism is a result of political influences and the problem of recognizing legitimacy; mimetic isomorphism is a result of responses to uncertainty; and normative isomorphism is associated with professionalization and trade association. As such, these institutional pressures impact strategic management processes of IGOs.

In the organization strategy domain, strategic planning has long been adopted to revitalize privately owned corporations and government-owned public agencies. With the increase in global political instability, economic uncertainty and the accelerated pace of digital innovations and social change, there seems to be some disillusionment with strategic management efforts that cannot adapt to the fast-paced environment, leading to increased skepticism about its overall effects. Some IGOs make significant efforts to find the best mechanism to optimize their strategic planning and development processes, with the goal of maintaining their organizational effectiveness and relevance. However, due to their inherent complexity, strategic planning efforts and processes have proven to be difficult to implement and pointless, with no/weak measured outcomes.

The primary culprits were unclear expectations, unrealistic goals, ill-defined action steps that were not explicit and a lack of stakeholder groups engagement. Moreover, strategic goals and strategic choices are often mixed with member states' agendas, economic interests and program priorities, which further blur the organization's vision and mission.

Looking at how strategy is addressed in the literature, we find a wide range of its definition and treatment. Reviewing this is outside the scope of our research; however, focusing on our context, we map, in Table 1, our analysis of IGO strategic processing elements to Courtney's (2013) criteria. Table 1 shows thirteen criteria identified by Courtney (2013), which are necessary to consider in the strategic planning process. However, IGOs, in general, do not pay attention to all of them. For example, IGO Secretariat, Development and the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) address only criteria 6, 7 and 4 (the first column from left in Table 1), and in many cases only address them partially.

In general, we observe in Table 1 that IGOs in practice do not follow Courtney's (2013) criteria and have the tendency to manage their strategy in different notions that consist of more than one of the criteria. It is difficult to find out the reasons for that, and if those managers are aware of the strategic management process elements, but it is clear that doing so dilutes the original intent of the fundamental theories and makes it difficult (if not impossible) to measure the criteria—an exercise that is necessary for strategic planning and organizational performance.


**Table 1.** Strategic planning process: Mapping between good strategy criteria and IGO processes.


**Table 1.** *Cont.*

In their article, Bailey et al. (2000) captured the major strategic development factors in an integrated, multidimensional conceptual model that can be used to measure strategic development styles. Based on previous strategic development research, and in particularly that of Hart (1992), they produced the following six discrete factors for organizational strategy development: (1) command (Bourgeois and Brodwin 1984), (2) planning (Ansoff 1965), (3) incrementalism (Lindblom 1959), (4) political (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978), (5) cultural (Johnson 1987) and (6) enforced choice (Hannan and Freeman 1989). Bailey et al.'s (2000) multidimensional conceptual model is in line with Hart and Banbury's (1994) criteria which, in general, elaborate on the factors of strategy development, in that they should represents elements (1) where vertical interactions between organizational managers are essential, (2) such that these managerial interactions represent capacities and abilities of the organization and (3) exemplify those interactions as routines reflecting the nature of the organization's strategy-making philosophy and process.

It is noteworthy in this line of research to point out that there is evidence on the diversity of strategic management which reveals typological commonalities with calls for the integration of the different approaches. Consequently, we draw attention to the strong link between Bailey et al.'s (2000) model and DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) institutional pressure framework. As mentioned earlier, Bailey et al.'s (2000) command, political and enforced choice elements can be considered as representative of coercive pressures. Coercive pressures, in turn, mainly entail the capacity to establish rules and enforce conformity via the manipulation of rewards or sanctions (Scott 1995). From a cultural perspective, it is equivalent to mimetic/cognitive pressures, whereby individuals take compliance for granted due to common social belief structures (Scott 1995). The original target of Bailey et al.'s (2000) model was organizations in general, without any specific considerations to the public sector or INGOs. The model is distinguished from others in that it incorporates various aspects of strategy planning, development, implementation and incremental and formal planning modes. These elements found in Bailey et al.'s (2000) model meet most of the current IGO strategic planning processes needs and are the reason for its adoption herein.

#### **3. Theoretical Background and Research Question**

Diverse theoretical and empirical research studies related to strategic management concur that the strategy development process is multidimensional in nature (Fredrickson and Iaquinto 1989; Derkinderen and Crum 1988; Eisenhardt and Zbaracki 1992; Bailey and Johnson 1996). Considering the IGO context of our study, we find the research from Hart (1992) and Bailey et al. (2000) to be the most appropriate and potentially representative, especially since they both focus and demonstrate the multidimensional nature of strategic management. Hart (1992), through his analysis of previous research on the strategy making process, identified five dimensions, which were command, symbolic, rational, transactional and generative; while Bailey et al. (2000) elaborated on strategic management as consisting of the following components: strategic planning, strategic development and strategic implementation, including a model for institutional pressures.

Therefore, based on Hart (1992), Bailey et al. (2000) and evidence from Fredrickson and Iaquinto (1989); Derkinderen and Crum (1988); Eisenhardt and Zbaracki (1992) and Bailey and Johnson (1996), we adopt and adapt to the context of our study, the six dimensions, namely command, planning, incremental, political, organizational and enforced choice. We elaborate on these dimensions below as they are reflected in the IGO context.

*The command dimension*: this dimension represents the Secretary General (S.G.) and IGO Governing Body (equivalent to the Chief Executive Office in the private sector. This represents the degree of control or power exercised). In the IGO sector, top executives can either shape and foster an entrepreneurial environment where initiative and risk-taking behavior is nurtured and rewarded (Birkinshaw et al. 1998; Kanter 1985; Pinchot 1985); or create strong leadership conditions that others can mimic via ambidexterity, decisive action Dess et al. (1997) and unilateral decision making, thereby improving responsiveness (Eisenhardt 1989). In an IGO context, however, the latter executive style may prove to be impossible to attain, since the governing body (for example, the council with representatives from member states) has an equal, if not more powerful influence on strategic direction adopted by the Secretariat.

*The planning dimension*: The question concerning strategic planning influence and value to the organization's performance continues to be debated, with inconclusive evidence ranging from tenuous to weak (Boyd 1991; Capon et al. 1994; Miller and Cardinal 1994; George et al. 2019; Spano 2009). Brews and Hunt (1999) found that the planning theory provides conflicting advice. Some studies found that formal strategic planning and organizational performance management are associated in dynamic environments (Hart and Banbury 1994; Miller and Cardinal 1994; Miller and Friesen 1983), while other research revealed that strategic planning performs better in environments that are stable and predictable (Fredrickson and Iaquinto 1989; Mintzberg 1983). In a comparative analysis between stable and unstable environments, Brews and Hunt (1999) observed that unstable environments strategic planning is managed under increased uncertainty and therefore requires less formalized structures that will allow managers to flexibly and organically adapt to the changing internal and external conditions.

*The incremental dimension*: The incrementalism approach (another approach to strategic planning) to strategy development and management is based on general strategic goals (Bailey et al. 2000). Incrementalism, compared to formal planning, is more flexible and focuses primarily on the various aspects of strategy implementation (Grant 1995; Menon et al. 1999; Nutt 1993). This approach (incrementalism) suggests that the nature of planning should be flexible and that strategic plans are fluid and change over time. This type of planning management environment promotes the intensity of the entrepreneurial spirit (Barringer and Bluedorn 1999). Moreover, incrementalism encourages experimentation and is more appropriate for dynamic environments (Brews and Hunt 1999).

*The political dimension*: The political dimension is central to the IGO context, where the board of governors consisting of representative of member states and the Secretariat, which is responsible for the strategic management and operations of the organization, engage in a continuous play of power dynamics and shifting alliances. This dimension pertains to interaction dynamics and negotiations between the council members and managers in the Secretariat constituting the formation of coalitions pursuing shared interests, agendas and objectives. Political power dynamics, as part of this dimension, suggest that the organizational strategy and its strategic management framework will reflect the interests of the dominant political group, as rightfully expressed by Bailey et al. (2000), and that the dominant political party is one that holds resources which the organization depends on.

*Organizational culture*: Organizational culture can be defined as shared values and beliefs regarding the understanding of organizational functioning (Deshpande and Webster 1989). Studies have shown that culture and entrepreneurial orientation are associated and are mutually reinforcing (Covin and Slevin 1991; Cornwall and Perlman 1992). Moreover, Covin and Slevin (1991) found that entrepreneurial posture influences the way organizational culture develops.

When entrepreneurship is lacking as part of the organizational strategic goals, the culture does not support risk taking, opportunity seeking and innovation, whereas a strong cultural commitment may increase organizational members' willingness to buy into the organizational strategic management processes, increase the level of consensus, and strengthen managers' decision making (Menon et al. 1999; Iaquinto and Fredrickson 1997, Cornwall and Perlman 1992).

*The enforced choice dimension*: Internally originating enforced structures, such as direct development and imposition of strategy direction, results in the opposition of strategic plan and implementation creating barriers in the internal environment of the organization, limiting its operations and strategic choices. The external environment can also impose strategic constraints. These consist of coercive practices of regulatory organizations, competitive industrial sectors and global economic and normative pressures, which are considered as obstacles and barriers to growth (Bailey et al. 2000). Based on the latter six dimensions, we empirically study their validity in the IGO context. Therefore, the following research questions are posited:

*Research Question 1 (RQ1): What are the factors that influence strategic management in IGOs? Research Question 2 (RQ2): What relationships exist between the strategic management factors. Research Question 3 (RQ3): What conceptual model can be derived from the resulting relationships. Research Question 4 (RQ4): Are there any strategic formulation mediation effects on the relationship between strategic intent and strategic change?*

#### **4. Methodology**

#### *4.1. Sample and Procedure*

A survey methodology approach was followed using the questionnaire presented in Table 2 below. The online survey tool utilized in this study was '*Qualtrics*', which enabled us to ensure confidential and quick distribution to participants via a link and allowed us to manage the surveys in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. The sample data entailed completed surveys from 117 participants from different IGOs in the United Nations system. The questionnaire was based on validated survey items and adapted to meet the context of IGOs.

The survey started with a short opening statement explaining the research setup, including its purpose, survey guidelines, confidentiality and ethics, their rights to ask any questions of concern, the participant's right to withdraw at any time and an offer to leave an email address if interested in seeing the results when available. Then, the survey continued to capture demographic information, followed by the validated and adapted questions from the sources mentioned above.

#### **Table 2.** Survey used in this study.


The process began with an email to each chief information officer (CIO) or head of information technology department of ten IGOs, encouraging them to participate in the study. Seven responded that they would like to participate and that they were willing to help share the surveys within their organization. Three gently declined to participate due to their internal legal concerns. After that, the link to the surveys was shared, and up to three reminders were sent (one week apart) to follow up on those who had not yet completed the survey.

Due to sensitivities in relation to the context of the IGOs and participants, such as expected concerns related to reputation risk to their employer, anonymity was guaranteed. The time trend extrapolation test suggested by Armstrong and Overton (1977) was used to examine non-response bias, and the results suggest that non-response bias is unlikely to be a problem. After data cleaning, a sample of 108 usable records was retained for analysis.

Demographic analysis shows that participants were relatively well distributed across gender, at a ratio of 2 males to 1 female. Around 63% of participants had less than five years of IGO experience, 14% of them had more than five years but less than ten years of IGO experience and more than 23% of participants had more than a decade of IGO experience. All participants had at least a university degree.

## *4.2. Questionnaire*

The survey constructs and items for the strategic planning and development analysis in our study were adapted from Bailey et al. (2000). A 7-point Likert scale ranging from '*Strongly Agree*' (1) to '*Strongly Disagree*' (7) was utilized for all items. The six constructs, planning, incrementalism, cultural, political, enforced choice and command, including 24 items, are presented in Table 2.

#### **5. Results and Analysis**

Our goal in this study is logically stated in our four research questions. At this point, it is worth recalling our goals, which are to empirically study Bailey et al.'s (2000) constructs and test their validity for the IGO context. Moreover, through our analysis, we would investigate the relationships between the constructs/factors and aim to optimize the measurement instrument. Finally, using the validation results, we would derive a causal relationship that can help explain strategic management planning and development for IGOs.

To that effect, the analytical strategy used on the data collected and to meet our research questions entailed performing an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the constructs with factor reduction in mind (RQ1). We then performed a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to identify and confirm relationships with additional optimization (RQ2). Finally, we used the last set of data to perform a causal analysis of our proposed research model using structural equation modeling (RQ3). We conducted one final analysis to test any mediation effects (RQ4).

Our analysis (performed using SPSS 22, AMOS) was based on Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) proposed two-step approach to theory testing and development entailing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Firstly, the EFA was used to estimate the measurement model, and secondly, the CFA was performed to test the relationships between the latent variables. It is common in such type of empirical studies to use the maximum likelihood estimation method during both the EFA and CFA steps. Conducting the EFA allows us to better understand the grouping of the latent variable, represented by the items/questions; how these groups (referred as factors) relate to each other (evaluated via the CFA); and what these groups reflect from a contextual perspective. Since in this study, we are seeking to establish a causal structural model to help us better understand the strategic phenomena in the IGO context, our analysis in the CFA assessment included dimensionality, convergent validity, construct reliability and discriminant validity.

The CFAs results were analyzed to assess the model fit by considering goodnessof-fit indices, namely NFI, CFI, RMSEA, SRMR and Chi-square/degree of freedom. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency was used to test for the reliability of aggregated scales, which was calculated to be acceptable (>0.70) at 0.79.

#### *5.1. Sample and Procedure*

Our data set was first tested to determine if it is appropriate for the EFA. This was achieved using the Bartlett test of Sphericity (BTS) and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO). Results from both tests (BTS: Chi-square = 1246.306; DF = 276; sig = 0.000, and KMO = 0.818) confirm that the data are appropriate to use for exploratory factor analysis.

#### *5.2. Exploratory Factor Analysis, EFA*

The EFA process is iterative, with the goal of finding the optimum number of statistically acceptable factors. At first, we relied on theory to determine the number of factors, and in our case, seven factors were specified for analysis, representing the constructs described in the theoretical section. The seven-factor solution was specified using the Promax rotation with Kaiser Normalization, resulting in 70.928% of the variance that could be explained. The rotated factor solution was interpreted using both structure and pattern matrices. While the structure matrix represents a factor-loading matrix with the overall variance in a measured variable explained by a factor, the pattern matrix contains coefficients, which just represent the unique contributions of each factor. Subsequently, these matrices help us progress through the next iterations to optimize the EFA final solution.

Factors with a loading greater than 0.5 were retained for further analysis. Our factor reduction iterations resulted in removing items SM4, SM5, SM8, SM10, SM12, SM14, SM15, SM16, SM20 and SM21 due to either low factor loading or cross-loadings (loading difference between factors is less than 0.2). The resulting solution included an optimized four-factor solution shown in Table 3. For the final solution, the KMO measure is above the accepted

level with the value of 0.797 and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity (Chi-square = 671.288; DF = 91; sig = 0.000). Additionally, all items have factor loadings well above 5.0. Therefore, all identified items used in this EFA were retained for CFA analysis.


**Table 3.** EFA results.

The output from the EFA resulted in not only the reduction of the items by approximately half, but the regrouping of the items in the questionnaire—an expected outcome due to the model's application to a context different from its original intended design. Consequently, we revisited the items for further interpretation of our context. After placing the items into more appropriate groupings, we identified the following four factors/constructs that are more suitable to the IGO context: institutional pressures (IP), strategic intent (SI), strategic formulation (SF) and change (C), as shown in Table 4.

**Table 4.** Definition of new constructs.



The four factors identified above need to be reinterpreted in the IGO context. Institutional pressures in the IGOs context are of special interest and are not to be taken lightly. This is due to the fact that two bodies of equal but different powers govern over the IGO. One includes the counsel representing the member states/governments and funding, while the other entails the executive committee (Secretariat) responsible for running the business.

Fulfilling critical positions, especially in the case of seats on central governing bodies such as the Human Rights Council and the Security Council, is a case in point. The institutional theory advocates that perception of strong pressures (such as coercive, normative and mimetic pressures) to conform is an act of acquiring social legitimacy and rare resources. Going against those pressures may jeopardize organizational performance (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Scott 1995) and sustainability (Teo et al. 2003; Oliver 1997). Oliver (1997), combining institutional and strategic responses, elaborates that institutional context encompasses decision-makers' norms and values (1) at the individual level, (2) organizational culture and politics at the intra-organization level and (3) regulatory pressures and industry-wide norms at the inter-organization level (Greenwood et al. 2011; Nakrošis et al. 2020).

In the same vein, institutional pressures in this study can be considered at the intraorganizational and inter-organizational levels. In consideration of the internal institutional pressures from the council and senior management, the external institutional pressures from member States and other IGOs both negatively influence the Secretariat's overall strategic intent, formulation, and program implementation at all levels. In this study, we adopt Bailey's model and institutional pressures to examine these effects and test whether they are significant enough to influence the strategic planning process, including strategic intent and formulation, in the IGO context.

Strategic intent can be understood as the philosophical base of the strategic management process. It points to the purpose that an organization endeavors to achieve (Hamel and Prahalad 1989). It is a statement that provides a perspective of the means which will lead the organization to reach the vision in the long run. Institutional pressures are recognized that make organizations obligate external parties' regulation and requirements to gain legitimacy in the organization field. In addition, Oliver (1991) argues that the new institutional theory has neglected the role of organizational self-interests in organizational responses to institutional pressures. Organizational self-interests as endogenous factors would impact organization strategy intent.

Strategic formulation, in this study, is based on strategic intent, which emphasizes the development of a performing environmental and organization appraisal process, the consideration of alternative strategies, the undertaking of strategic analysis and the preparation of a strategic plan. Since strategy formulation is the consequence of strategic intent, it would be negatively associated with institutional pressures as well.

Moran and Brightman (2001) define change management as "the process of continually renewing an organization's direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers.", which by association extends to the evolving nature of the strategic management process. Strategic change comprises strategic evaluation and control, performance evaluation, exercising control and recreating strategies. In the strategic planning process, once strategic formulation is set up and strategy is implemented, it subsequently leads to strategic control and evaluation. In Bailey et al.'s (2000) model, the element of incremental dimension is highly associated with the concept of strategic change. It is expected that strategic intent and formulation will impact strategic change. Since strategic intent is usually the ultimate goal of an organization, it should be more stable and would not change easily as a part of the strategic planning phase, but it will positively influence strategic change.
