Incremental approach to regional strategising: Theory, methodology, practices

The relevance of the study stems from the growing importance of the strategic approach in governance, insufficient involvement of various groups of stakeholders in regional development strategising, and the lack of uniform methodologies to the formulation of a region’s strategy for socioeconomic development. The paper researches into the incremental approach to regional strategising. The methodological basis rests on the theoretical concepts of strategic management, regional economics, and political science. The key feature of the incremental approach is the formulation and implementation of a strategy for socioeconomic development of a territory as a gradual, step-by-step, conscious process that ensures continuous improvement of the existing mechanisms and their timely revision, as well as allows adjusting strategic actions and making necessary manoeuvres. The research relies on a comprehensive analysis of the strategies for socioeconomic development of the subjects of the Russian Federation by stages of the strategic management cycle with use of dialectical, causal, and expert evaluation methods. The theoretical significance of the study lies in providing the rationale behind adopting the incremental approach in regional strategising that is due to its ability to increase the likelihood of reaching a consensus between stakeholders, as well as to reduce the risk of making subjective suboptimal managerial and strategic decisions. The practical significance of the paper arises from evaluation of regional strategies and methods of strategising, breaking them down into their basic components (environmental analysis, goals, priorities, mechanisms of implementation and control), and identifying their distinctive features that are typical of the incremental approach.