Strategic Management Research Needs for State Departments of Transportation

A 2-day workshop in Minneapolis from June 25 to 27, 2000 responded to a strong interest in having peer-to-peer discussions among CEOs and senior staff of the state departments of transportation (DOTs) about their experiences in managing internal and external change. The transportation executives shared their experiences in three facilitated sessions, using a "conversation circle" format. Sessions were organized around these topics: Strategic Planning-Driven Initiatives; Workforce and Reorganization-Driven Initiatives; and Process and Program Delivery-Driven Initiatives. Workshop participants used the output of these discussions to identify research that would help state DOTs lead and manage their changing organizations. In addition to crafting research problem statements in the three subject areas, participants added a further category called "Cross-Cutting Issues." This Circular was prepared following the workshop. For each of the four subject areas it provides an overview, key challenges, current activities, lessons learned, research needs, and research needs statements. Appendices contain the workshop program, conference participants, a slide presentation summarizing the issues, a summary of the CEO discussion session "Where Are We Going? What Have We Learned?", and an executive summary of the workshop and the resulting research agenda.