Vision Compliance, Strategic Planning, and Risk Management for Governance Performance: Evidence from Muscat Municipality

Abstract

Objective: Governmental and public sector entities face ever-increasing pressures for enhanced governance, more accountability, better services to the public, etc. It is usually argued that both planning and risk management are important tools for good management. However, limited empirical research is available about how the combined effect of planning and risk management contributes to improving governance in local governments and especially in the Gulf region. In Muscat Municipality, we examined the linkages between strategic planning, risk management and the performance of governance.   Theoretical Framework: The governance performance was captured into three aspects of governance: managerial, resourceful and project governance.   Methodology: We followed a cross-sectional quantitative research design methodology, where data were gathered using a structured questionnaire from 303 respondents from various departments and managerial levels within Muscat Municipality. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis.   Results: Results show that both strategic planning and risk management had positive effects on the improvement of governance performance in all three dimensions; while strategic planning had higher significance as a predictor of the success of governance performance and more relevance to project governance, focusing on prioritization, coordination, and performance measurement. Likewise, risk management contributed positively towards governance performance through improving the effectiveness of the controls, making good decisions by managers, and dealing efficiently with internal uncertainties. The current research contributes to the strategic management and enterprise risk management research streams by examining the role of Omani municipalities (an under-studied area) in strategic risk management.