The Mapping of the Strategic Issues that Affect the Local Governments’ Performance

Abstract. Various strategic issues that have an effect towards the performance of local governments in Indonesia are very complex just like the local governments in other countries, as investigated on previous researches. These strategic issues, which include the fiscal capacity, the background of the local leaders as entrepreneurs, and the capacity of management, would have significant influence towards the performance of local governments. This research tries to conduct the investigation towards other strategic issues i.e. the characteristics of local governments, the public entrepreneurship, the strategic environment, and the enforcement of ethics and accountability of bureaucracy, which is both very important and very certain in terms of the influence towards the performance of local governments. As the initial phase of thorough research is related to the influence of public entrepreneurship towards the performance of local government, the mapping needs to be conducted in order to ensure the level of importance and certainty of  the strategic issues with the use of the Strategic Assumption Surfacing Test (SAST) approach involving the selected experts through limited Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The results of data processing would give an overview that  the characteristics of local governments and its elements (the regional assets, the fiscal capacity, the capacity of management and entrepreneurial behavior), the public entrepreneurship (innovation, the creativity of the individuals within bureaucracy, proactiveness, risk-taking and public-oriented) are the strategic issues, which are important and certainly influence the performance of local governments in Indonesia.Keywords: characteristics of local government, performance of local government, public entrepreneurship, strategic assumption surfacing test Abstrak. Berbagai isu strategik yang memengaruhi kinerja pemerintahan daerah di Indonesia sangat kompleks seperti halnya pada pemerintahan daerah di negara lain, sebagaimana diungkapkan pada hasil penelitian-penelitian sebelumnya, antara lain kemampuan fiskal, latar belakang pimpinan daerah sebagai entrepreneur, dan kapasitas manajemen memiliki pengaruh signifikan terhadap kinerja pemerintahan daerah. Penelitian ini mencoba untuk melakukan investigasi terhadap isu-isu strategik lainnya yaitu karakteristik daerah, public entrepreneurship, lingkungan strategik, serta penegakan etika dan akuntabilitas apakah sangat penting dan pasti pengaruhnya terhadap kinerja pemerintahan daerah. Sebagai tahap awal penelitian menyeluruh terkait pengaruh public entrepreneurship terhadap kinerja pemerintahan daerah, pemetaan perlu dilakukan untuk memastikan tingkat kepentingan dan kepastian dari asumsi strategik tersebut  dengan pendekatan Strategy Assumption Surfacing Test (SAST) yang melibatkan pakar secara terbatas melalui penyebaran kuesioner dan Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Hasil olah data atas jawaban kuesioner mengindikasikan variabel karakteristik pemerintahan daerah dan elemen-elemennya (aset daerah, kapasitas fiskal, kapasitas manajemen dan perilaku kewirausahaan), public entrepreneurship (inovasi, kreativitas, proaktivitas, risk-taking dan orientasi kepentingan publik) merupakan asumsi strategik yang penting dan cukup pasti pengaruhnya terhadap kinerja pemerintahan daerah di Indonesia.Kata kunci: karakteristik pemerintahan daerah, kinerja pemerintahan daerah, public entrepreneurship, strategy assumption surfacing tes