Styra eller styras : En jämförelse mellan mål- och resultatstyrning och uppdragstaktik

Sammanfattning: When it comes to steering large and complex organisations like the Swedish Armed Forces and others in the public sector, it can be both complex and challenging. People and processes are bound to function in an advanced environment. A well balanced steering model is essential to accomplish assigned duties.  While the main part of the public sector is steered by “Management by Objectives” the Armed Forces uses “Mission Command” as a management philosophy. This study aims to examine what differences and similarities there are between these two management models. Could either part learn something from the other? The study is carried out as a qualitative text analysis of the chosen literature for Management by Objectives and Mission Command. The comparison of the two models is based on two opposing theorys. The first is Webers bureaucracy theory about strict hierarchical organizations. The other is Fiedlers theory that an organization have to adapt to the present conditions by constantly reorganizing to find the optimal form for the moment, the Contingency theory. Based on these two theories we have created a model for the comparative analysis.  The chosen texts regarding Management by Objectives are, two of the Swedish Governments official investigations, and for the Mission Command, the two leading doctrines of the Swedish Armed Forces. The result from the qualitative text analysis is the foundation of the comparative analysis which measures the models against different aspects grounded in the two theories. Even though the two models have much in common we have also found several distinguishing features. One of the most striking differences is how well adjusted Mission Command is for leading activities with great command intensity in short time periods while Management by Objectives is the preferred method for a more systematic control focusing on performance monitoring in a longer time perspective. Our view is that both the public sector and the Armed Forces could take benefit in learning from each other by adopting parts of each other’s management models based of the character of the present task to be performed.