LAUSR

ABSTRACT This introduction to the special issue on strategic planning has four main parts. First comes a discussion of what makes public-sector strategic planning strategic. This discussion is meant to reduce confusion about what strategic planning is and is not. Next, we introduce in detail the five articles in the special issue and note their unique contributions to strategic planning research. Third, we provide a broad assessment of the current state of strategic planning research organized in terms of prominent themes in the literature and our assessment of how the articles address voids related to the themes. The themes are: how should strategic planning be conceptualized and defined? How should it be studied? How does strategic planning work, or not? What are the outcomes of strategic planning? What contributes to strategic planning success? Finally, we offer conclusions and an agenda for future research.