Jul 2026· Journal of Management Research and Review· Vol 02· 0 citations
Abstract
Background. Indonesia’s decentralised governance has devolved substantial authority to sub-national governments, yet regional development outcomes remain spatially uneven and institutionally fragmented.
Purpose. This review synthesises how strategic management is conceptualised and applied in Indonesian regional development, and how governance, public policy, and sustainability considerations shape that practice.
Method. Following PRISMA 2020, a Scopus search returned 486 records; after screening by document type, language, publication window (2021–2026), and thematic relevance, 62 English-language articles and reviews were synthesised through bibliometric description and thematic analysis.
Results. Five interlocking themes emerged: strategic management in regional development, governance and institutional capacity, public policy, sustainable development, and digital transformation. The evidence shows that strategy in Indonesian regions is enacted less through formal planning documents than through the interplay of institutional capacity, multi-level coordination, and stakeholder collaboration.
Implications. Strengthening dynamic capabilities, aligning fiscal and regulatory instruments, and institutionalising collaborative governance are pivotal for translating regional plans into measurable development gains.
Originality. The study offers the first theory-driven synthesis integrating the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, institutional theory, and stakeholder theory to explain strategic regional development in a large decentralised emerging economy, and proposes a forward-looking research agenda.
Political governance is widely regarded as a decisive determinant of rural development; however, the evidence from West Africa remains fragmented across countries, governance levels, and policy sectors. This article synthesises that evidence through a systematic review conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Four databases were searched, yielding 1,284 records; after de-duplication and a two-stage screening process, 12 peer-reviewed studies published between 2022 and 2026 were retained. A thematic synthesis organised the findings around five dimensions of governance: decentralisation and local government capacity, institutional quality, policy implementation, participation and accountability, and corruption and public financial management. The review finds that decentralisation improves rural outcomes only when fiscal authority, administrative capacity, and downward accountability accompany the transfer of functions; that institutional quality exerts a threshold and non-linear effect on growth and poverty reduction; and that policy design frequently outpaces implementation capacity at the subnational level. Corruption and conflict consistently attenuate the developmental returns on public expenditure. The evidence base is geographically skewed towards Anglophone states, particularly Ghana, and is dominated by cross-sectional designs. The review concludes that strengthening the governance and development nexus in rural West Africa requires genuine fiscal decentralisation, investment in local administrative capacity, and institutionalised social accountability. Comparative, longitudinal, and Francophone-inclusive research is necessary.
T. O. Adefisoye· Interdisciplinary Journal of...· 0 citations
Regional Commissioners (RCs) occupy a strategically important position between Tanzania’s central government and the authorities responsible for district- and council-level implementation. Yet their contribution to sustainable development has received limited empirical attention. This qualitative case study examines how RCs understand and exercise their authority to coordinate development across sectors and administrative levels, and how leadership competence shapes that role. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with ten serving and five former RCs, supplemented by documentary review and contextual observation, and analysed thematically. Sustainable development is treated not as a single outcome attributable to an individual office-holder, but as a governance process requiring policy integration, territorial equity, institutional continuity, public accountability and attention to long-term social, economic and environmental consequences. Participants portrayed RCs as brokers of national priorities, convenors of sectoral and security institutions, and influential actors in district-level implementation. They also emphasised that formal authority does not produce effective coordination automatically: its developmental value depends on competence, credibility, sectoral knowledge and the capacity to anticipate interactions among policy fields. Concentrated authority can accelerate implementation, but it may also weaken participation and accountability when directives are insufficiently questioned. The study therefore recommends a transparent competency framework, systematic induction, performance assessment and stronger accountability safeguards for RC appointments. It concludes that RCs can enable sustainable regional development, but their contribution remains institutionally mediated and should not be inferred from authority or short-term output gains alone.
Gabriel Adamson King, L. Massoi· Journal of Research and Acad...· 0 citations
This study examines the role of leadership in shaping governance processes, public service delivery, and local development outcomes within decentralized systems in Southeast Asia using a qualitative systematic literature review guided by the PRISMA framework. It synthesizes empirical studies published from 2010 to 2025 focusing on local government institutions in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, and other ASEAN member’s state. Literature searches were conducted through Google Scholar and ProQuest using keywords related to leadership, decentralization, governance, and public service delivery. From 1,000 initially identified records, 895 were excluded during initial screening and 53 were removed after full-text assessment, resulting in 52 studies included in the final synthesis. Findings reveal that leadership plays a central role in translating decentralization reforms into effective governance and development outcomes by strengthening accountability, decision-making, stakeholder engagement, institutional coordination, and service responsiveness. However, leadership effectiveness is highly context-dependent and is shaped by institutional design, political dynamics, administrative capacity, fiscal resources, and patronage or elite influence. The review further shows that even capable leaders may experience limited outcomes when governance systems are weak or politically constrained. The study concludes that improving decentralized governance requires a dual focus on leadership capacity-building and institutional reform, emphasizing ethical governance, participatory leadership, merit-based systems, and accountability mechanisms to support sustainable and inclusive development across Southeast Asia.
Jade Kirby Epis, Asterio Olandria, John Archie Matute· International journal of res...· 0 citations
The synthesis identifies three interconnected mechanisms through which digitalization influences Indonesian public governance, and provides evidence-based guidance for policymakers and practitioners to align digital initiatives with the broader objectives of accountable, transparent, and responsive governance in developing economy contexts.
Indonesia's decentralized government relies on collaboration across ministries, regional agencies, villages, public-service units, businesses, universities, civil-society organizations, and communities. This review analyzes how such coordination is converted into integrated policy, joint implementation, and public value. A PRISMA-aligned search of indexed journal literature published in 2020-2025 identified 74 records; 35 articles remained after duplicate removal, screening, full-text assessment, and index verification. The corpus comprised 26 qualitative case/process studies, four mixed or quantitative studies, and five review, policy, or conceptual articles. Because designs and outcomes were heterogeneous, the study used structured extraction, design-sensitive methodological appraisal, and hybrid deductive-inductive thematic synthesis rather than statistical pooling. The synthesis indicates that collaboration is warranted when authority, knowledge, implementation capacity, and legitimacy are distributed across organizations; hierarchy remains necessary for legal authority, minimum standards, rapid command, and accountability. Five conditions repeatedly distinguish substantive collaboration from ceremonial participation: an authoritative mandate linked to resources, facilitative and boundary-spanning leadership, explicit roles and decision rights, integration of plans-budgets-data-workflows, and accountability for citizen outcomes. The proposed Indonesian Collaborative Government Management Cycle connects problem interdependence, actor architecture, shared intelligence, policy integration, joint delivery, and public-value learning. Its theoretical contribution is to position policy integration as the conversion mechanism between collaborative process and service outcomes, while treating mandated participation, decentralization capacity, power asymmetry, cultural legitimacy, and digital interoperability as contextual conditions.
This PRISMA-guided systematic literature review synthesizes research on change management in Greek Local Government Organizations published between 2005 and 2025. Searches across four academic sources yielded 159 records, of which 48 met the inclusion criteria. The reviewed studies were classified into four thematic strands: crises, administrative reforms and resilience; environmental challenges and climate adaptation; e-government and accounting information systems; and urban planning and territorial governance. The findings indicate growing scholarly attention to municipal change but reveal a persistent focus on external drivers, including economic crises, digitalization, climate change, and institutional reforms, while providing limited insight into the organizational processes and capabilities through which change is managed within municipalities. By offering the first systematic synthesis of this literature, the review contributes to public administration and local governance scholarship and highlights the need for future research on organizational capabilities, leadership, learning mechanisms, and strategic change management under conditions of continuous and overlapping transitions.
Panagiotis Zisis, K. Katsaros, G. Beligiannis· European Scientific Journal· 0 citations
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