Abstract
ABSTRACT Despite the large literature on gender differences in politics, there have been relatively few empirical studies testing the effects of gender in public administration. This paper examines how male and female public managers show attitudinal differences toward innovation in the public sector. We hypothesize that male and female managers differ in three aspects. Firstly, female managers are more result-oriented than rule-following, and more oriented toward societal interests. Secondly, female public managers are more open to new ideas and creativity, and more willing to challenge the status quo. Yet, thirdly, female leaders are less eager to take risks when would-be innovations may put their organizations in peril. Thus, we argue that female managers are more prudent and entrepreneurial than their male counterparts. We test these hypotheses using a data set of 5,909 senior public managers from 20 European countries. The results of multilevel model analysis find statistically significant gender differences in attitudes toward innovation. Despite the small size of gender impacts, our findings challenge prevailing stereotypes on women’s entrepreneurial attitudes.
Highlights
Innovation in the public sector allows for “revolutionary improvements” (Maranto and Wolf 2013, 238) in normal times and solving “wicked problems” (De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers 2015, 164) in times of crisis
This paper aims to contribute to this literature by exploring the effects of gender with a multilevel analysis based, first, on the responses of 5,909 public managers from 20 countries from the COCOPS (Coordinating for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future) Executive Survey on Public Sector Reform in Europe (Van de Walle et al 2016); and, second, on the characteristics of national public administrations constructed with the opinions of over 1,200 experts in the Quality of Government (QoG) Expert Survey (Dahlström et al 2015)
This study aims to bridge this gap in the literature utilizing the COCOPS Executive Survey on Public Sector Reform in Europe (Hammerschmid 2015), which contains the survey answers of 9,333 senior public sector executives from 21 European countries
Summary
Innovation in the public sector allows for “revolutionary improvements” (Maranto and Wolf 2013, 238) in normal times and solving “wicked problems” (De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers 2015, 164) in times of crisis. Innovating in the public sector is more difficult than in the private sector (Laegreid, Roness, and Verhoest, 2011). This is mainly because of various differences in external environment and internal constraints for management between two sectors (Allison 1986, Rainey 2009). The potential gains for public managers who dare to innovate are relatively small, since private-sector bonuses are not available. Think of the impressive achievements by urban school chancellor Michelle Rhee in improving the education of disadvantaged children in Washington, DC (Maranto and Wolf 2013, 238). Think of the seemingly impossible innovations in the Swedish educational system, from the Compis project, which aimed to introduce modern and inexpensive computers in the schools as early as 1981, when the personal computers with the required specifications were still not available in the market (Kaiserfeld 2000), to the introduction of world’s most developed school voucher system (The Economist 2007)
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