Getting integrative urban regeneration strategies done: Insights from Antwerp and Gothenburg
| Author | Sara Brorström,Jannes Willems |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211029122 |
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Getting integrative urban
regeneration strategies
done: Insights from
Antwerp and Gothenburg
Sara Brorström
Gothenburg University, Sweden
Jannes Willems
Erasmus University Rotterdam and University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Abstract
Integrative strategic management for urban regeneration involves reconciling conflicting
demands and translating abstract concepts into concrete actions. This article examines
how public-sector strategists address these dilemmas by developing a dynamic perspec-
tive that helps in understanding how they ‘strategize’. This perspective was applied to
two urban regeneration projects in Gothenburg (Sweden) and Antwerp (Belgium).
Our findings illustrate how actors strategize at different locations and times, putting
middle-management strategists, in particular, on the horns of a dilemma. Acting quickly
through establishing experimentation spaces could result in innovative outcomes, but
politicians and local residents may feel bypassed; however, waiting until strategic visions
are translated into detailed actions may eventually result in no action at all. This article
helps us understand the disconnect between planning, implementation and performance
in strategic management.
Points for practitioners
Public-sector strategists have to overcome conflicting demands in urban regeneration
projects and translate ambitious visions into actions. As strategists’actions can drift
from the original goals, they have to regularly reflect on the contribution of actions
to the vision. Middle managers, in particular, have to be careful: their leeway can lead
to innovative actions but can also clash with initial goals. Finally, living labs –used to
Corresponding author:
Sara Brorström, Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics and Law,Gothenburg
University, Sweden.
Email: Sara.brorstrom@handels.gu.se
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2023, Vol. 89(2) 346–362
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523211029122
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
implement the strategy at a small scale –should not become detached from the broader
urban regeneration project.
Keywords
Strategic management, public management, strategy-as-practice, urban regeneration
Introduction
Public organizations, such as local governments, increasingly draft visions and strategies
for their future (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015; Rosenberg Hansen and Ferlie, 2014), a devel-
opment prompted by new public management (NPM) reforms (George et al., 2019;
Johnsen, 2021). These vision and strategy documents, often approved across organiza-
tional boundaries in response to ‘wicked problems’such as sustainability (Head and
Alford, 2015), tend to be abstract and encompass conflicting demands (Brorström,
2020). This trend has also been acknowledged by post-NPM movements, such as new
public governance (Osborne, 2010), which emphasize cooperation, collaboration and
community engagement by increasing interaction between sectors (Torfing and
Triantafillou, 2013). Klijn and Koppenjan (2020) recently argued that this has entailed
an increased complexity for public organizations that requires new forms of leadership
and strategizing.
In this article, which considers how public-sector strategists at the middle-
management level respond in practice to conflicting demands, we investigate how two
local governments moved from strategic intentions to action in two urban regeneration
projects. Urban regeneration projects typically encompass conflicting demands related
to social, economic and environmental goals, such as improving residents’quality of
life, promoting sustainability and increasing housing prices (Albrechts, 2006;
Frantzeskaki et al., 2014). Urban regeneration projects thus encompass various policy
domains, such as housing, transportation, social welfare and urban drainage. Research
has so far focused on identifying institutional and organizational barriers to integrative
strategic management. To illustrate, Mawson and Hall (2000) noted that departmental
‘silos’give rise to institutional fragmentation, in which each policy domain defines its
own ambitions and approaches. However, integration between these domains is consid-
ered necessary (Frantzeskaki et al., 2014) because it can contribute to synergetic effects
(Rode, 2019). The task of strategists in public organizations becomes one of facilitating
integration between departmental silos and policy domains.
To focus on the practice of integrative strategic management, we adopt a dynamic per-
spective that considers strategic management as an ongoing activity undertaken by actors
who may have different motivations (Candel and Biesbroek, 2016; Rouleau, 2005).
Strategic work is not something that necessarily leads to integrative urban regeneration,
but rather a continuous and contested practice, in which actors at all levels of an organ-
ization are integrating (or disintegrating) strategic agendas (Carter et al., 2010). We adopt
this perspective on strategic management because it has rarely been operationalized until
Brorström and Willems 347
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