"Innovation: Management, Policy and Practice"

Potts, Jason; Kastelle, Tim

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.122pmid: N/A

AbstractThis paper introduces the analytic context of public sector innovation studies along with an overview of the nine papers in this volume. But it also seeks to advance a new research agenda in public sector innovation studies from the economic perspective of the incentives to innovation in the public sector. This argues for a practical model of public sector innovation that is less about imitation of the market sector or other public sector best practice and more cognizant of the scientific method of randomised controlled experiments.

Luke, Belinda; Verreynne, Martie-Louise; Kearins, Kate

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.138pmid: N/A

AbstractThis paper investigates the drivers and facilitators of innovative and entrepreneurial activity in three New Zealand state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Illustrative cases reveal that those aspects typically associated with entrepreneurship, such as innovation, risk acceptance, pro-activeness and growth, are supported by a number of other elements within the public sector context studied. These elements include external drivers related to performance, including operational excellence and cost efficiency. They also comprise internal facilitators such as a more flexible culture, an investment in people, a focus on branding, and the deliberate application and transfer of knowledge. The implications are twofold. First, that innovation and entrepreneurship in the public sector can go beyond government policy-making, with the SOE model representing an important policy decision and sector of the New Zealand Government. And second, that the impact of several SOEs on international markets suggests competition on the global stage will increasingly come from both public and private sector organisations.

Haelermans, Carla

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.154pmid: N/A

AbstractThis paper analyzes the diffusion and determinants of innovations in secondary education. First, the diffusion path of five clusters of innovations in secondary schools is described. Second, the determinants of the adoption of these innovations are analyzed. The findings show that size is one of the main determinants of share of innovations in a school. Other determinants are competition, school type, and teaching method. These should be factored in innovation in public sector education. This paper explains why.

Gambarotto, Francesca; Cammozzo, Alberto

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.166pmid: N/A

AbstractEmployee silence plays a crucial role in the evolution of public services because it stops communication, opportunities to modify routines and knowledge sharing. The case study presented in this paper highlights employee silence as outcome of a bottom-up innovation introduced into the University of Padova. Using a questionnaire, we collected information about silence and voice to an ICT community of practice. The results are that silence due to fear of top management is less important than silence due to fear of sharing knowledge and information among colleagues. We conclude by suggesting innovation adoption difficulties in public services not only as a management deficit, but also as a governance problem.

Hüsig, Stefan; Mann, Hans-Georg

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.180pmid: N/A

AbstractThis paper examines two cases of higher education innovation in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the public University of Regensburg in Germany. The introduction of the Honours-program, a program to promote the best students in business and economics, as well as the change from the German Diploma to the Bachelor degree are analyzed and evaluated using a cross-case study methodology. Sources of change were analyzed; the processes categorized emerging barriers and key factors to overcome resistance and implementation of these fundamental changes identified. Our findings indicate that fundamental changes in the public space — independent of their early-mover reactive and top-down or anticipatory and bottom-up characteristics — might face a similar kind of implementation challenges and solutions in the higher education sector. The success of these change processes mainly resulted from the commitment of the identified promoters which support the validity and applicability of change concepts and approaches that are transferred from the private sector to the public sector. However, the case findings also indicate that the government could facilitate bottom-up innovation initiatives by supplementary support to overcome system barriers due to resource shortages.

Cromer, Cory

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.192pmid: N/A

AbstractWeb 2.0 offers both technology and an environment that facilitates transparency and communication for users and stakeholders. With this opportunity, public sector e-services are given tools to engage their own employees in an atmosphere that not only fosters new ideas, but provides a framework for managing prototypes and pilot projects that encourage experimentation. In addition, this environment encourages collaboration and breaking down walls of information asymmetries between various stakeholders. Public sector e-services has a legacy of a risk adverse environment where many times the focus is on the politically charged short-term delivery of goals and results, lacking a long-term strategy of managing the risk and renewal cycle around service innovation. The promises and potential that Web 2.0 technologies may provide still have to deal with fragile systems that are currently in place in public sector e-services. Government regulators, consumer advocacy groups, and e-services need to understand how Internet innovation affects the end user/consumer directly. The central premise being that these groups are modeling consumer trends and may be making decisions on false or fabricated information, even suggesting this could lead to inhibiting overall Internet innovation.

Bienkowska, Dzamila; Larsen, Katarina; Sörlin, Sverker

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.206pmid: N/A

AbstractInnovation processes involve diverse sets of organizations including universities, private firms, corporate research labs and public research institutes. Collaborative forms of knowledge production and innovative activity enable actors to reduce risk, specialize, and take advantage of knowledge internal and external to the own organization. This paper discusses interactions and collaborations between public and private sector innovation. This is done through an analysis of semi-public research institutes in Sweden and their roles as arenas for R&D processes involving industry, university and government in terms of funding, research and public—private innovation. Particular attention is paid to technological niches of research institutes and utilization of research findings from collaborative R&D. The results show that institutes occupy specific niches which influence their ways of transferring knowledge. It is argued that diversity among R&D performers as well as funding opportunities is paramount for innovation systems to thrive.

Moon, Junghoon; Swar, Bobby; Chan Choe, Young; Chung, Miri; Hyun Jung, Gu

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.217pmid: N/A

AbstractIn recent years IT outsourcing has evolved from a formal contractual-based practice to a relationship-based practice. This new practice is viewed as an innovation in IT outsourcing in the public sector. The main goal of this study is to conduct an empirical investigation on IT outsourcing projects in the public sector to examine the best IT outsourcing practices from the relationship perspective. A four outsourcing relationship types (FORT) framework is applied to 178 IT outsourcing projects initiated by 56 different government organizations in Korea. Data shows that the best practice of IT outsourcing in the public sector can be achieved when strategic impact of the outsourced IT is highest and the extent of substitution by the vendor is large but not fully substituted. This finding can be explained in terms of government organization’s fear of loss of control and conservative organizational culture.

Mehra, Kavita; Joshi, Kirti

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.227pmid: N/A

AbstractThe paper explores the role of various actors and their interactions in biotechnology based antifungal drug development within the perspective of National Innovation Systems. It portrays the type of involvement of differential actors, their linkages and how such relationships evolve. It also analyses the role of decision makers (as individuals) in the ambit of organizational and institutional settings in influencing the innovation process. The case confirms the key role played by the public sector in facilitating the successful commercialization of indzenously developed drug.

Potts, Jason

doi: 10.5172/impp.12.2.238pmid: N/A

AbstractA new approach to public sector innovation is proposed here that amounts to ‘innovation by doing less’ or innovation by experimental elimination. This approach seeks a systematic and rigorous methodology, drawing upon the literature of policy experiments and evidence-based policy, to develop ways of reducing government or public services under experimental conditions. This model reverses the normal experimental and control groupings, where the experimental group consists of a negative policy or strategic elimination and the control group is the regular public sector service. This is proposed as an experimental methodology to procedurally down-size or slow the growth of the public sector in a scientifically robust manner that is, ineffect, public sector innovation in reverse.