Issues Management and Strategic Planning PRL2001 Public Policy, Scanning, Identification and Monitor

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Issues Management and Strategic Planning PRL2001
Public Policy, Scanning, Identification and
Monitoring

• Course Examiner - Elizabeth Dougall
• Lecture 4, Week 4
• Semester 2, 2002

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Objectives

• On completing the lectures, tutorials and
  readings for this week you should be able to
• Describe Wartick Mahons (1994) issues
  lifecycle
• Discuss issues scanning, identification and
  monitoring techniques and processes
• Define public policy
• Describe incremental erosion.

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Lifecycle of an IssueWartick and Mahon (1994)
                                               
                                 
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The Nature of Public Issues

• The development of an issues in the public policy
  process can occur from
• The dissatisfaction of a group
• Dramatic events
• Strategies to obtain social disharmony
• Emergence of strong leadership

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Public Policy

• a specific course of action taken collectively
  by society or by a legitimate representative of
  society, addressing a specific problem of public
  concern, that interests society or particular
  segments of society.
• That is - public policy is policy legislated by
  government as a result of pressure and discussion
  from within society.

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Lifecycle of an Issue

• Stage 1 - Public opinion formation
• Stage 2 - Public policy formulation
• Stage 3 - Public policy implementation

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Stage 1Public Opinion Formation

• Concern is on the emergence and development of
  pubic opinion.
• Organisation strategy - via factual dissemination
  of information and views via traditional
  communication tools

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Stage 2Public Policy Formulation

• Concerned with the introduction of public policy
  by government.
• Organisation strategy - offset government
  intervention via direct lobbying.

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Stage 3Public Policy Implementation

• Government has adopted the issue and passed
  legislation to enforce change.
• Organisation strategy - to seek legislation that
  is workable and interferes least its operations.

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Public Policy Plan

• Comprehensive statement of the org. position
  towards an issue.
• Shows whos responsible for what in the areas of
  monitoring, forecasting, and outlining key
  issues.
• entails the allocation of resources to
  create, change, take advantage of, mitigate or
  defeat public policies through legislation,
  regulation or litigation. The plan is a tactical
  option to engage in governmental relations to
  help create a climate favorable to the
  organisation's strategic business plan while
  seeking to advance the interest of the
  stakeseekers and stakeholder of the
  organisation. (Heath 1997, p.32-33)

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Scouting the Terrain

• Issues Managers must scan the environment to
• ascertain what public policy issues are arising
  and progressing
• know their substance
• identify why they are staying alive and what
  players are sustaining them, and
• learn from the analysis.
• (Heath, 1997, p. 83)

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Scouting the Terrain

• Scanning for issues can be proactive and / or
  reactive.
• Reactive scanning focuses on the search for
  obstacles.
• Proactive scanning looks for issue opportunities
  i.e. Those shifts in opinions that the
  organisation can use strategically to foster
  mutual interests.
• See Heath (1997, pp. 84 -88) for more on issues
  identification etc.

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Scouting the Terrain

• Where do issues emerge?
• Sources of issues include
• Special interest advocates
• Media commentators
• Government agencies
• Industry leaders and visionaries (and wannabes)
• Bad apple companies
• Technical experts
• Community leaders
• (Heath p 92)

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Scouting the Terrain

• Where do issues emerge?
• Scholarly research
• Opinion publications,
• Underground press,
• Underground internet discussion
• Special-interest newsletters and other
  publications
• Conferences
• Voiced concerns of non-mainstream political
  candidates
• Ungeneralized comments in a community Letters to
  the editor
• Radio talkback.
• (Heath p 93)

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Scouting the Terrain

• Where Do Issues Emerge?
• Heath suggests that the issues management team
  needs to be a matrix of individuals who are
  trained and given incentives to scan for issues
  that are reported into a watch mode that can
  lead to monitoring.
• He also suggests a simple scanning / identifying
  tactic might be to issue cards to staff,
  particularly those with extensive customer
  contact, that allow them to record and report
  customer (and other stakeholder) concerns and
  complaints.
• (Heath p 93)

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Issues Identification

• Issue identification involves
• 1. Determining whether a problem or concern
  exists (a contestable point, difference of
  opinion, legitimacy gap)
• 2. Determining whether this could affect an
  organisations ability to achieve its strategic
  business plan.
• (Heath p 91)

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Issues Identification

• Identifying issues is difficult because of
• 1. Complexity - the number of variables that
  affect emergence growth
• 2. Turbulence - an unstable, unpredictable
  uncertain environment
• 3. Information load - more data is required than
  available resources
• 4. Ambiguity - of the issue
• 5. Number of opinion options - because the issues
  is not well defined
• 6. Interdependence - can be positive and negative
  
• (Heath p 92)

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Issues Identification

• The only issues that are likely to affect public
  policy are those promoted by stakeholders who
  have power and rhetorical sophistication.
• Therefore - issue identification entails BOTH
  recognizing concerns AND determining whether that
  concern is likely to manifest itself in
  legislative or regulatory outcomes.
• Many issues can be handled by attentiveness to
  stakeholders interests without engaging them in
  the public policy arena.
• (Heath p 91).

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From Identification to Monitoring

• An issue should be placed into the organisations
  issues monitoring system if it meets three (3)
  criteria
• 1. It is listed in standard indexes, suggesting
  that journalists have come to believe that it is
  legitimate and worth general public discussion
• 2. A case can be made that the issue will
  threaten company operations or offer opportunity
  for market advantage
• 3. The issues is associated with at least one
  identifiable group (govt, activist etc) that may
  be able to bring it to the public policy arena.
• (Heath pp 93- 94).

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From Identification to Monitoring

• Two issues are vital for each issue
• 1) likelihood probability that an issue can
  grow to affect the organisation
• 2) impact potential effects on the organisation

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From Identification to Monitoring
High Impact on the Organisation Low
High
Probability
Low
Impact and Probability of Occurrence Matrix
(Heath 1997, p. 103)
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Issues Monitoring

• Monitoring can be divided into three (3) phases
• 1. Assess the situational environment of the
  organisation (situation analysis - the status
  quo)
• 2. Monitor issues trends (forecasting the
  future)
• 3. Determine whether the organisation's efforts
  make a difference in the direction and outcome of
  the issue (evaluation - was the process
  successful).
• (Heath pp 96).

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Issues Monitoring

• What Does Monitoring Include?
• Private discussions with leaders who are
  sensitive to public opinion trends
• Analysis of newsletters, books and reports of
  relevant interest and advocacy groups and
  government agencies
• Analysis of popular culture - plays, movies,
  novels, TV shows
• Analysis of existing research studies, syndicated
  studies, industry sources and customer studies
• Electronic data base searches

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Issues Monitoring

• Ewing (1979) described 150 forecasting
  techniques.
• Coates et al (1986) shortlisted 25 of these
  methods.
• Heath (1997 pp 101 - 102 ) recommends special
  attention be paid to
• 1. News Hole Analysis
• 2. Trend Extrapolation
• 3. Trend Impact Analysis
• 4. The Delphi Technique
• 5. Forced Rankings
• 6. Cross-Impact Analysis
• 7. Computer Simulations.
• 8. Focus Groups

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Issues Monitoring

• Issues do not sustain themselves.
• Issues are monitored or tracked to ascertain
  whether and when they become associated with
  established and powerful advocates who have the
  potential to sustain the discussion and press an
  issue to its logical outcome.
• (Heath, 1997, p. 94)

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Incremental Erosion

• Activists chip away at the foundations of their
  enemies one premise at a time (Heath p. 180)
• The use of rhetoric by activists to slowly and
  steadily challenge and deny the assumptions on
  which their opponents build their case, justify
  their actions, and generate support.
• Working on different target audiences at
  different times, the activist groups attempts to
  chip away at the various supports underlying its
  opponents position. It makes a series of
  gradual and small moves designed to maneuver
  opponents into a position where they have no
  rhetorical options
• (Condit Condit, 1992 p. 242 in Heath 1997 p.
  180)

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Tutorials Today

• Stem cell research case

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Next week . . .

• John Austin, Corporate Relations Manager, USQ
• Tutorials ORALS
• Anyone not present for the orals will
  automatically forfeit all marks allocated to the
  oral presentation.