Cities are social and economic drivers of the regions in which they are located. They are also dynamic and complex realities facing the need to successfully address and manage the main challenges that condition their competitiveness.Therefore, cities need to adopt a long-term management perspective and establish the premises on which to base their future.They must seize the opportunities and neutralize the threats to be found locally. In this regard, they have to use their resources to develop a value offer that is attractive in the long term and which provides their target audiences with added benefits over other cities.
In this context, Strategic Management of cities has emerged in recent literature as one of the key aspects that determines which urban centres are more competitive.Furthermore, the relevance of the role of local governments as the ones primarily responsible for that management and the background that may foster the development of urban Strategic Management is being analysed in increasingly greater detail.As regards the background, there are several authors who point to TQM as one of the key aspects to be taken into account.
TQM is a global management system whose adoption steers organisations towards a quality awareness and culture among all the people involved and in all the processes and it seeks the efficient long-term satisfaction of the different stakeholders. Therefore, customer orientation, continuous improvement and team work become its core principles.It is necessary to build on the strengths and opportunities in the long term, along with remedying weaknesses and threats in order to adopt and develop those principles. Thus, organisations can bring to the customer value on an ongoing basis and improve their competitive position. Therefore, TQM requires both internal and external significant information to be gathered and analysed.
Urban Strategic Management, in turn, involves the formulation and implementation of strategies or actions that allow the city to reach its long-term goals by providing added value to its relevant stakeholders. Moreover, modern Strategic Management has to adopt an integrative approach that combines rationality and emergency. That is, some degree of systematization and formalization to achieve adequate levels of efficiency (rationality) and adaptability and flexibility to cope with changes in the environment (emergency).This process requires gathering and analysing relevant information for decision-making to match the internal resources and capacities of the organisations with the opportunities and risks created by its external environment, so that they lead to a better organizational performance.
In that light, we should consider the existence of affinity or complementarity between TQM and Strategic Management.In this regard, the strategic management that organisations implement at each moment may be reinforced by the adoption of TQM and, in turn, impetus to the development of Strategic Management may be given in organisations that achieve a significant implementation level in TQM.This paper seeks to demonstrate that the adoption of TQM in urban management has been the precursor of the development of Strategic Management.
Additionally, the categorization and operationalization of the constitutive elements of TQM in the academic literature have been developed mainly through excellence models.Due to its acceptance as a good indicator of the application of TQM, itsbusiness and social appreciation and its development and use in our context, we have opted on focus on the EFQM Excellence Model, on its application to local government and on its contribution to the development of the integrative approach of urban Strategic Management.
Main purpose
Therefore, by seeking to extract useful conclusions for the management of cities, this paper aims (1) to analyse the relation between the core principles of TQM and the integrative approach of Strategic Management in local governments and (2) to explore the application of TQM in a local government by means of the EFQM Excellence Model, and its task as the precursor of urban Strategic Management.
Methodology
Case study has been the research methodology used. This article considers the holistic research of a single case. Furthermore, due to the complexity, multidimensionality and quantity and diversity of stakeholders that cities face, we have narrowed down our analysis unit to the management authority of urban tourism in the city of San Sebastián (Spain).
Tourism has a great cross-cutting economic impact on the development of other aspects of the urban economy.Tourism management authorities likewise operate with a municipal budget and have people answering to the local government as managers.Therefore, we consider that the management of the tourism management authority is an analysis unit that adequately reflects the management of the city overall.
The suitability of San Sebastián stems from applying several theoretical sampling criteria and systems:a city with its own tourism management authority, which is small in size, which cannot offer a main tourism of sun and beach and whose management seems to be noted for its success.Furthermore, it is an extreme case and rich in information.
Different methods were used for the information gathering process with a focus on triangulating data and their validity and reliability:1) in-depth interviews with experts in the sphere of urban management, tourism and TQM in the public administration and local governments, along with the people in charge of managing tourism in different cities along the Bay of Biscay coast; 2) documentary evidence and 3) direct observation.
Results and Conclusions
The analysis allows us to conclude that customer orientation, teamwork and continuous improvement, being the three principles that lead to the successful adoption of TQM, can be adopted by local governments. However, it has to be taking into account the specific characteristics of this type of organisms.
Additionally, these three principles are fully consistent with the development of Urban Strategic Management from a modern and integrative perspective, encompassing aspects related to both formulation and implementation, and to the adoption of rational and emerging approaches in the process.
Besides, the results of our empirical research lead us to conclude that the San Sebastián tourism management authority has introduced and established different mechanisms that facilitate the management of the five facilitators of the EFQM Excellence model:(1) leadership; (2) strategy; (3) people; (4) alliances & resources, and (5) processes, products & services.Thus, the selected case shows the viability of the adoption of TQM by means of the EFQM Excellence model in local government.
However, it should be noted that two main problems inherent to the public character of the body selected were observed in the adoption and development of the EFQM Excellence model.On one hand, the mainstreaming of the “person” dimension due to the very characteristics of the public collective and, on the other hand, the fact that the majority of the main managerial posts of local authorities are eminently political.Political uncertainty hinders the long-term commitment needed for TQM to be adopted correctly.However, once known, both difficulties can be managed and overcome.Thus, in the case in question, as regards the “person” dimension, despite the difficulty of rewarding and modifying posts underscored by the authority, there are mechanisms to develop training, participation and internal communication, and great progress has been made in this respect.As far as the managers are concerned, we find that in the San Sebastián tourist sector (1) the tourism management authority has more than one leader and, therefore, not only political leaders and (2) tourism is not directly managed from the Mayor's Office, but rather there is a specific authority.Both aspects professionalise management by reducing the impact of political uncertainty and by fostering the adoption of TQM.
As regards the modern Strategic Management, it is possible to say that its adoption in the tourist area of the analyzed city is a fact. The Strategic Management developed in San Sebastián Turismo-Donostia Turismoa covers aspects related to the formulation (mission, vision & values, objectives, strategic analysis and strategic plan) and the implementation (implementation and control), from both approaches: rational and emergent.
Moreover, this study allows us to establish that there is a relationship between the urban Strategic Management from an integrative approach and the EFQM Excellence model in the local government analysed. Regarding the direction of this relationship, it is worth mentioning that it has been the adoption of the EFQM Excellence model the one that has generated mechanisms, knowledge and sufficient experience to have helped in the development of the modern Strategic Management both in its formulation and implementation phases and in its rational and emerging approaches. So the EFQM Excellence model could be considered as the precursor and facilitator of the development of the urban Strategic Management in San Sebastián. It can therefore be concluded that urban managers, concerned about the recognitions of their measures, often prioritise the development of TQM by means of excellence models and that these practices spur on modern urban Strategic Management and, therefore, contribute to making the city more competitive. Classification-JEL: R1 Keywords: Tqm, Dirección Estratégica Urbana, Gobierno local, Administración pública, Efqm de Excelenci, Urban Strategic Management, Financial sufficiency of local governments, Public Administration Pages: 67-103 Volume: 2 Year: 2018 File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2546.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:2:y:2018:p:67-103