Navigating Public Sector Innovation Under Populist Contexts: Insights from Israel

Introduction. For the public sector to be innovative, it is necessary to have professionals with the skills to innovate and generate improvements in the provision of public services. Therefore, it is necessary to define and develop such competences in public servants using research techniques that generate quality and consistent results. Goals. Define the competences necessary for professionals working with innovation in the Brazilian public sector, based on data triangulation as a way to generate a more complete and consistent list from different sources of information. Methods. A descriptive, cross-sectional research with a mixed approach was carried out, the qualitative one with analysis of seven documents, 27 interviews and three focus groups with 14 participants in total, and the qualitative approach with the application of an electronic questionnaire with 674 participants to define and validate the necessary skills with triangulation of data. Data were subjected to thematic content analysis and descriptive and multivariate statistics. Results. 32 competencies to innovate were defined, all of which were identified in interviews, 25 in focus groups and 20 in documental research. All competencies had averages greater than 7, indicating the perception that they are necessary to innovate in the public sector, in addition to having factor loadings greater than 0.80, indicating the excellent quality of the items and internal consistency of 0.990, corroborating the quality of the data. generated by qualitative research. Conclusions. The use of triangulation allowed a more complete list and higher quality in the definition of competences for innovation, considering the advantages of the different collection techniques used, contributing to a greater validity of the results.

O objetivo deste trabalho é verificar os antecedentes da inovação em Núcleos de Inovação Tecnológica (NITs). O que motivou essa investigação foi a escassez de pesquisas sobre os antecedentes da inovação no setor público brasileiro e, em especial, em órgãos que atuam como agentes de inovação, como os NITs. A fundamentação teórica adotada é a literatura sobre os antecedentes da inovação no setor público. A metodologia é qualitativa, e os dados foram coletados por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas com sete trabalhadores de um NIT, localizado na região Nordeste do Brasil. Foi realizada análise de conteúdo, que contou com auxílio do software NVivo11®. Os resultados revelam que “características da inovação” atua como o principal antecedente-facilitador da inovação nos NITs, enquanto “antecedentes organizacionais” atua como o principal antecedente-barreira. Os resultados desta pesquisa podem ser utilizados para fundamentar outros estudos sobre inovação, compreender as particularidades da inovação no setor público brasileiro e formular políticas públicas que promovam a inovação.

This paper aims to explain the diffusion of management accounting innovations within the public sector in Jordan as influenced by IMF reforms. It is concerned with the diffusion of management accounting systems viewed as a process of actor-network building and translation. The paper presents an interpretive case study by drawing on Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The aim is to better understand the nature of accounting systems. The study recognizes that accounting innovations in Public Financial Management over the last decade were central to the rise of the New Public Management (NPM) doctrine and its associated ideas of Results Based Management (RBM) and public accountability, of which accounting is a key element. The study also concludes that the diffusion process implied three isomorphic interests; i.e. it created pressure for similar reforms and structural changes in many governmental aspects, especially the ways of thinking and doing. It thus provides a discernible conclusion through exploring the processes of accounting change as influenced by the tenets of ANT. Like Chua (1995), it has examined accounting change as a process of ‘fabrication'. Accounting innovations are constructions (Andon et al., 2007), often built on a wide array of social, economic and political factors. There have been several studies of the public sector transformation following IMF reforms but this paper has a different focus: the diffusion and adoption of management accounting systems within the new public sector. The paper discusses the findings of an interpretive case study, which is Ministry of Finance (MOF) in Jordan. The results of the study indicate that diffusion and adopting of accounting innovations by MOF is largely affected by the government influence, and these innovations usually occurred “beyond the enterprise” as well as within it. The study contributes to both accounting literature and Actor-Network Theory by providing more understanding and explanation about the dynamics of accounting innovations in the public sector. This paper has interesting findings, but also points to the need for more studies about the diffusion of accounting innovations in the public sector.

This study explored whether perceptions of organizational business ethics differ by hierarchical levels. The study sample included more than 40,000 executives, mid-level managers and non-managerial employees from business organizations in six countries: Brazil, China, Germany, India, the UK and the US. We found that executives provided the most positive assessment of ethical business culture within their respective organizations. Employees’ assessments were less positive, and mid-level managers’ assessments fell in the middle. Organizational size and respondents’ age were not related to differences in responses. Statistically significant differences among hierarchical levels were found in Brazil, the US, Germany, the UK and China. Differences were not significant in India. Executives with longer tenure at the same organization tended to provide higher ratings of organizations’ ethical cultures, while managers’ and employees’ ratings tended to decrease with time.

The local own-source revenue (PAD) component, which is a source of income for the Makassar city government, consists of regional taxes, regional levies, the results of separated regional wealth management, and other legitimate regional original income. According to Mulgan and Albury (2003), the measurement indicators used included several inhibiting factors. The data collection method used a qualitative descriptive method through observations, interviews, and documentation studies. Informant determination was performed using purposive sampling. Data analysis was performed through the stages of data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results illustrate that innovation programs are used, which are original ideas from the regional revenue department of Makassar city, namely the integrated and digitalized tax application commonly referred to as PAKINTA. The obstacles faced in implementing or creating innovations at the regional revenue department of Makassar city, based on data and facts, are the lack of implementation of training or technical guidance in adding skills for the department’s employees who contribute to increased tax innovation. There are still several employees who have not received education and training related to PAD management. Another obstacle that organizations experience as barriers to innovation is the lack of awareness of taxpayers to report and pay taxes on time. Keywords: barriers in public sector innovation, public sector, local own-source revenue

What factors drive open innovation in China's public sector? A case study of official document exchange via microblogging (ODEM) in Haining

Innovation has become a necessity in order to overcome some challenging times in the rapid changing world. The world's paradigm is shifting towards sustainable development and shared values. Even though numerous benefits of innovating the public sector (PS) have been recognised worldwide, the concept of public sector innovation (PSI) is still new for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The complex and stratified structure of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and its PS has been forever standing in the way of any larger progress. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the development of PSI in FBiH as an opportunity to enhance the performance of public services, increase their efficiency, and decrease the costs. The research was completed by using a mixed-method approach in order to analyse the concept of innovation in the PS. The primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with the management and a survey with close-ended questions which was completed by the employees of the public sector institutions in FBiH. The method of structural equation modelling was used in order to test the research hypotheses. A part of this paper is analysing the main PSI drivers and challenges. The results show that the main obstacles to PSI are the institutional system and the regulations in the FBiH. On the other side, the manager and employees are considered to be the largest drivers of public sector innovation in FBiH. The paper concludes with several recommendations on how to overcome the main barriers of public sector innovation in FBiH.

This study deepens our knowledge on innovation barriers within Public Sector Innovation (PSI) processes in local governments. It analyzes the barriers to PSI from a mixed method approach using an original survey directed to innovation managers in the largest Spanish city councils and semi-structured interviews within a case study. This study shows the most relevant barriers to innovation in different stages of development, the strategies used to overcome these barriers and the relationships among them. This research contributes to PSI literature by shedding light on the barriers' dynamics and how they operate in local governments within contexts of high levels of digitalization. Results suggest a significant prevalence of institutional barriers, more common in countries with a Napoleonic administrative tradition, and uncover the relevance of politics and human resource management foster innovation at the local level.

Purpose The subject of innovation in public service has been gaining attention in Brazilian scientific practice and production. This paper aims to identify national studies on innovation in public administration and increase the level of knowledge about the subject, as well as to inspire new research and promote advances in theoretical and practical knowledge about innovation in the public sector. Design/methodology/approach The present study has a descriptive purpose, quantitative nature and was performed through a bibliometric study based on the protocol proposed by Cronin et al. (2008). Documentary data were collected from scientific articles, and quantitative techniques for descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results. Were selected Brazilian scientific journals classified with Qualis equal to or higher than B1, in the area of Public Administration and Business, Accounting and Tourism, in the quadrennium 2013-2016; a total of 164 journals searched. Findings The results herein indicate a research gap that should be filled by more theoretical studies. Also, they point to the need for multimethod research studies that promote the evaluation of product and process innovation, especially related to the phases of invention and implementation. Originality/value Few studies have covered public administration and, especially, innovation reviews; none of these studies focused on innovation in the Brazilian public sector, as proposed by this research; the period of analysis and coverage of journals used as search criteria also differ from other reviews in the area of innovation and public sector.

Considerando a relevância da inovação para organizações públicas e que as pessoas são fundamentais para gerar a inovação, identificou-se ausência de modelos de competências necessárias para uma gestão pública inovadora no Brasil, mesmo com recomendações de desenvolvimento deste tipo de modelo pela OCDE. Objetivou-se propor um modelo teórico de análise multinível de competências para inovação no setor público Brasileiro. Trata-se de ensaio teórico subsidiado a partir de análise de publicações científicas e pesquisas documentais acerca de modelos de competências e de inovação no setor público. Foi possível estabelecer premissas e conceber um modelo teórico de competências para inovação no contexto público, sendo este dinâmico, sistêmico, multinível e integrado, de modo a permitir a identificação das competências necessárias para subsidiar os subsistemas da gestão por competências para inovação no setor público visando a melhoria na prestação dos serviços. Contribui com a proposição de um modelo para testes empíricos em estudos futuros.

Este estudo analisa experiências de inovações no setor público brasileiro, no meio rural, premiadas nas 20 edições do “Concurso Inovação no Setor Público” promovido pela Escola Nacional de Administração Pública. Concomitantemente, analisa antecedentes, barreiras e indutores inerentes a tais inovações. O referencial teórico foi desenvolvido à luz do modelo de antecedentes da inovação no setor público. A pesquisa se caracteriza como qualitativa-descritiva, com a utilização de análises documental e temática. Os resultados da análise de 16 casos inovadores do setor rural revelam maior número de indutores como antecedentes organizacionais e de barreiras como antecedentes ambientais. As ações desenvolvidas nas experiências para solucionar/minimizar as barreiras são indicadores de participação social, revelando que há, no quesito participação, um importante aspecto dos casos rurais premiados. Como agenda para pesquisas futuras, tornam-se relevantes estudos comparando experiências premiadas e experiências não premiadas quanto às características que explicam como dada iniciativa se torna caso de sucesso.

Public sector innovation (PSI) is an emerging multidisciplinary field that is attracting practitioners from a wide range of sectors and industries, with a correspondingly broad set of skills and experience. PSI aims to significantly improve the services that a government has the responsibility to provide by taking a user‐centered, partnership‐based approach, from service content development through to methods of service provision (OECD 2012). Yet the work is complex and not without risk, if undertaken without appropriate foresight, thoughtfulness, and rigor. In particular, when it comes to pursuing PSI in the design of social service policy and its provision, some of the more substantial risks lie hidden in systemic power imbalances that can easily be exacerbated, despite practitioners' best intentions. This article uses a case study about homeless service provision in New York City (NYC) to offer a candid portrayal of undertaking research and design work in PSI. It highlights common challenges and risks, as well as best practices for mitigating them. The issue of power is examined through the lens of agency, as it's a productive framework for helping to identify and work with the power dynamics that circulate between everyone involved in PSI design projects: the project team, research and design participants, intended end users, and the government client. In the spirit of making a pragmatic contribution to a burgeoning field, this article ultimately advocates for a reflexive practice. Working reflexively means inhabiting a mindset of self‐awareness, reflection, and never ‘turning off’ as a researcher. This reflexivity enables practitioners to navigate the complexities of PSI design work, and ultimately, to better support their government agency client and those that the agency is aiming to serve.

Purpose While research on innovation is extensive, less is known about public sector innovations (PSI) as distributed processes based on both internal and external knowledge. Research has shown that the public sector often imitates private firms’ innovation processes, particularly when introducing new solutions such as digital processes. This occurs despite the fact that the public sector’s goal is not profit, but rather the provision of quality services. In this paper, we explore the consequences of such imitation for PSI processes related to digitalization, with a particular focus on how innovation orchestration functions in these settings. Design/methodology/approach Empirically, the paper is based on a regional government initiative that used orchestrators to intermediate innovation processes. Interviews and focus groups were the main data source, complemented by internal documents from the initiative. Findings The study develops five propositions that highlight the paradoxical nature of PSI orchestration: the need for top management involvement, which can also stifle innovation; the necessity of orchestrator engagement in implementation, which limits their boundary-spanning role; the benefits of organizing innovation away from daily routines, which simultaneously hampers implementation; the tendency for collaborations among diverse stakeholders to emerge as outcomes rather than drivers of the process; and how the public culture orients the process to resources rather than value. Originality/value The paper contributes to previous research by addressing PSI. More specifically, it does so by integrating such research with innovation orchestration. The paper highlights how these processes differ substantially from those in the private sector, particularly with regard to the ability to orchestrate relational aspects as an antecedent to innovation.

The thesis investigates how new forms of public leadership can contribute to solving complex problems in today’s welfare societies through innovation. Accordingly, leadership for collaborative innovation in the public sector is the focus of this thesis. This objective is pursued by making two contributions, a theoretical and an empirical, in order to conceptualize and shed light on a new type of leadership approach. Theoretically the thesis identifies a knowledge gap in the literature; this knowledge gap is resolved by giving answer to the following research question: How to theorise a bottom-up type of leadership for collaborative innovation in a public sector addressing wicked problems? The answer to this question is the development of a theoretical model. Accordingly, bottom-up leadership is defined as follows: 1) An intentional process aimed at the generation and implementation of new ideas in a specific context 2) initiated at the bottom of a public-sector organisation requiring that the 3) lead unit responsible is able to gain influence through leadership recognition, which is conditioned by 4) utilisation of wicked–problem uncertainty as well as innovation uncertainty through skills of public entrepreneurship and making and giving sense. On the basis of this theoretical contribution, the thesis empirically provides an answer to the following research question: How is bottom-up leadership socially constructed through processes of recognition in a collaborative innovation process in the public sector addressing wicked problems? The outcome of the process studied is an innovative approach for dealing with the wicked problem of disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The empirical context for the case study is the City of Copenhagen. In one of the seven central administrations, the Technical and Environmental Administration (TEA), a newly established office sets in motion an organisational innovation process aimed at increased coordination across administrations. This happened in 2008. The office is called Neighbourhood Development, and is responsible for managing area-based programmes in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. In 2012, when the case study finished, the endeavours of the office and its collaborators had resulted in developments of a larger scale than the office had expected in 2008: A powerful cross-administrative setup was developed, involving all seven mayors, level-2 directors and professionals from each administration; a partnership forum has been established between municipality and the social housing sector; and finally, an ambitious area-based policy was approved unanimously among local politicians and mayors, the Policy for Disadvantaged Areas in Copenhagen. However, despite this innovative outcome, highly contentious issues of organisational identities, the blurry scope of the innovation project and doubts of the collaborative value of the innovative solution dominate. These issues require of the bottom-up leadership to redefine its own leadership and the innovation project on a running basis. Adaptation, flexibility and making and giving sense in this chaos is what ultimately stabilise the collaborative innovation process and make innovation of a wicked problem possible. Somewhat contradictory to the dominant leadership perceptions of collaborative innovation, an innovative solution to a wicked problem is generated in spite of an inferior leadership position, in spite of a collaborative configuration and in spite a highly specialised, sectordefined outset. The analysis demonstrates that for the people taking upon them the position of leader, this type of leadership requires a constant willingness to make sense of their identity and profession in the light of the conflicts that is provoked in order to allow both leadership and project to keep up with the speed, conflicts and unpredictability related to the process. The thesis finds that bottom-up leadership in the study makes strategic choices in order to deal with specific leadership dilemmas. The analysis displays that each of these choices will lead to different trajectories of discursive leadership positionings. The analysis identifies a specific trajectory of leadership positioning in the case-study: From value-based implementer, over a developing coordinator, towards a strategic implementer, consequently adjusting its leadership to the specific challenges of the collaborative innovation process. This trajectory of a positional development displays a general character concerning bottom-up leadership: establishing – influencing – mainstreaming. The leadership dilemmas, the trajectory of leadership positioning and the general character of bottom-up leadership are findings that other bottom-up leaderships should keep in mind they display a range of strategic choices that the emergent leadership has, concerning the ongoing interplay of innovation project re-development and options of leadership positioning. Ultimately, these findings contribute to the discussion of how the public sector can utilize its assets in order to generate innovative solutions to wicked problems. Assessment Committee Dr. Steven Griggs, De Montfort University, Department of Politics and Public Policy; Professor Ulrik Kjaer, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Political Science and Public Management; Professor Susse Georg (Chair), Aalborg University, Department of Development and Planning Supervisor Senior Researcher, PhD, Lars A. Engberg, Aalborg University, Danish Building Research institute Co-supervisor Professor Eva Sorensen, Roskilde University, Department of Society and Globalization. Moderator Research Director Hans Thor Andersen, Aalborg University, Danish Building Research institute Host Aalborg University, Danish Building Research Institute, Department of Town, Housing and Property

It is well known that innovation plays a substantial role in the public sector. However, there are concerns about how far public sector innovation (PSI) research has contributed in providing ideas to the government in formulating and implementing public policy. This study intends to investigate how PSI research has progressed and been disseminated, explore major topics mentioned in PSI studies and determine the primary players in PSI studies. This research analysed the bibliometrics of scholarly publications on public sector innovation as of August 2021, as documented in the Scopus database. We analysed the evolution of PSI research in 53 years by assessing published studies, source titles, types of sources and documents, as well as the languages in which the papers have been published. We additionally analysed PSI's main research topics by examining popular subject categories, the most often used keywords and title analysis. Finally, we investigated the key actors in PSI research by focusing at the biggest contributions nations to PSI studies, the major establishments involved, as well as authorship and citation analysis. The conclusions suggested that during the initial stages of PSI development half a century ago, public sector innovation attracted the interest of Eastern and Western scholars, as well as the number of books and articles published each year which have increased dramatically. Although there has good inter-country cooperation exists, a deficit in PSI research also exists from specific nations compared to the rest of the globe. Our results contribute significantly to public sector innovation inclusiveness.