Strategic management in the public sector: a case study based on schools of strategic thought

The General Comptroller of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul has stood out in public governance in Brazil, having achieved the maximum score in Public Management in the 2021 financial year, in an evaluation by the Federal Government, even without formal strategic planning in execution. This led to the research query: what justifies high performance in the management of a public body when there is no strategic plan in execution? To answer this question, this article aimed to analyze the management practices of the General Comptroller of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, referring to 2021, highlighting the elements that justify such a high result. To this end, research was conducted on relevant legislation and bibliographical studies, with support from works extracted from databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, Capes, and Scholar Google, with a special focus on schools of strategic thought, for a qualitative-descriptive analysis, using inductive reasoning, of the data obtained through the documents considered by the evaluating institution, particularly the Comprehensive Management Improvement Report of the Management Secretariat of the Ministry of Economy, highlighting practices that favor efficient governance. It was possible to observe that, during the mentioned period, despite the absence of formal strategic planning in execution, the public body adopted strategic management using different approaches and presenting characteristics of various schools of thought, such as the design, learning, cultural, and configuration schools. The findings may help managers adopt similar practices, validating a possible demystification of the indispensability of a strategic plan in execution for efficient and transparent governance, demonstrating how other strategic approaches can be effective in public management.