Innovation in public administration reform: a strategic reform through NPM, ICT, and e-governance. A comparative analysis between Lebanon and Romania

Abstract

In addition to the involvement of public administration (PA) as a catalyst for economic development, today we are witnessing the need to enhance innovation in PA itself, with a commitment to maximizing efficiency, effectiveness, performance, and to improve quality of public service. In PA, the emerging theory of innovation represents a combined effort between conventional organizational innovation tools such as strategic planning and modern ones such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and e-governance. With regard to this challenging situation, this paper seeks to present a substantial literature concerning the theory of innovation, New Public Management (NPM), ICT, and e-governance. Furthermore, using a qualitative approach based on centered semi-structured interviews, this article illustrates the current activities conducted by the Lebanese government, specifically the Office of Ministry of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR), compared by data gathered from platforms and databases from Romanian PA such as Ministry of Communication and Information Society, OECD, DESI index, and Eurostat on ICT and e-governance at European level. The paper results reveal the significant effect of innovation in Romanian PA paving the road toward facing the challenge to achieve its digital 2020 agenda and contributing to transparency, efficiency, effectiveness, community participation, and development of public service. However, Lebanese PA should join and shake hands to strengthen the adoption of innovation in its public corridors and should cross the notion of “still born” application of ICT to a fruitful implementation contributing to strategic innovation in public services and improved PA efficiency and performance.