New development: Strategic planning in interesting times—From inter-crisis to intra-crisis responses

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how emerging types of crises provide opportunities for strategic planning as a form of intra-crisis response. The article supplements existing literature and approaches to strategic planning that conventionally emphasize its value in relatively more stable conditions or mostly as a platform for pre-crisis preparedness. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. IMPACT As an intensive, long-term oriented and deliberative process, strategic planning is generally viewed as an essential practice in the public sector, yet mostly in relatively stable or non-crisis contexts. However, emerging crisis types (such as ‘creeping crises') come with a novel mixture of features that disrupt conventional norms of public administration, crisis governance and policy-making. Drawing on the theories of creeping crises, strategic planning and empirical observations, the author explains how such crises create windows of opportunity for intra-crisis strategic planning. In such crisis conditions, practitioners should dedicate sufficient time to undertake intra-crisis strategic planning to drive crisis policy-making and crisis governance, rather than engaging in ad hoc and stopgap crisis responses. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.