Making sense of the complexity of managerial flow: the case of urban regeneration in the UK

The idea that managerial flow incorporates the managerial assets and actions involved in the policy implementation process highlights the importance of paying attention to more complex matters of strategy, governance, selection, coordination and communication as potential gaps (Vechi and Brusoni 2012). Part of the value of articulating the decision making process in this more nuanced way is that it challenges overly- rationalist assumptions that the policy decision making process occurs in a linear and sequential way and that decision making process is rooted in mathematical logic – i.e. that a + b = c (all of which leads to an expectation of reaching a singular outcome on grounds that ‘rational choice drives self-interest’) (Stone 2002). In keeping with the idea that not only is reality more complex; but that there are a much wider range of actors involved (Arganoff and Mcguire 1998); and that this is based on networks of collaboration (Ansell and Gash 2007), we argue that by also paying attention to the importance of values in the framing and evaluation of policy, we can consider the human interpretation involved, in addition to the context.

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