While many would not consider Australian local governments the most obvious examples of innovation bureaucracies many are demonstrating innovation in their participatory democracy, or community engagement, practices. Compelled by community demand to have a greater say in public policy as well as increasingly complex and at times incongruous legislative requirements to facilitate community involvement, many Australian local governments are rising to the challenge and dedicating considerable time and resources to community engagement with much success. This presentation will introduce the initial research findings on the form of community engagement in Australian local governments. The data will include: how community engagement is understood by the organisations; the methods being used; the factors that enable its success and innovation as well as those that hinder it.  The results seek to highlight what makes some local governments innovative in their engagement, what makes others mediocre and why some lag behind.

As the cliché goes, one should not look at the government for innovation and creativity. At the same time it is often assumed that public sector employees are very different from private sector employees; Research has found that the motivations for persons to work for either private or public organization differ greatly (see e.g. Buelens & Van den Broeck, 2007). This would lead one to believe that public sector employees would also end up being less creative and innovative than their private sector counterparts. This paper investigates, based on European Social Survey (ESS) data, whether or not this is the case. It finds that, in fact, there are no great differences between the two groups with regards to the importance that the individuals attach to innovation and creativity. This is in line with earlier finding by Lyons et al. (2006), who find that there are no differences between public and private sector employees on most of the values they test. It expands on this as well, since Lyons et al. do not investigate the importance of innovation as a specific value.

- Buelens, M. & Van den Broeck, H. (2007). An Analysis of Differences in Work Motivation between Public and Private Sector Organizations. Public Administration Review, 67:1, pp. 65-74.

- Lyons, S.T., Duxbury, L.E. & Higgins, C.A. (2006). A Comparison of the Values and Commitment of Private Sector, Public Sector, and Parapublic Sector Employees. Public Administration Review, 66:4, pp. 605-618.

Current research on how to organize the roles of government in promoting innovation converges around a rather simplified single-organization explanation: support of innovation requires either (Weberian) elite expert organizations or (Schumpeterian) fluid peripheral organizations. We show that looking at history of innovation bureaucracy, a more complex picture emerges: historically we find a rich organizational variety in how governments have organized different innovation promoting activities. We show that historically this organizational variety is, first, driven by highly diverse public-private relationships; second, the variety is of evolutionary nature; third, the diversity of organizations itself is an important factor in success and failure of innovation policies. Combining analytical lenses created by Weber and management literature on capabilities and ambidexterity, we build analytical framework to understand how organizational variety of innovation bureaucracy evolves over time. We finish with discussing the importance of organizational variety for the concept of entrepreneurial state.

One approach to address contemporary societal challenges, such as climate change or sustainability, is by introducing and diffusing breakthrough innovations. It is becoming increasingly acknowledged that these innovations will not be achieved by market parties alone, but that they require a leading role of state authorities (see Christensen et al. 2016). This acknowledgement, which has nurtured the debate in innovation policy about new rationales and instruments to support this leading state role (Weber and Rohracher 2012; Kivimaa and Kern 2016), remains largely neglected in policy sciences.

As suggested by Mazzucato (2011) in The Entrepreneurial State and later refined in further research (Mazzucato 2016; Weber and Rohracher 2012; Schot and Steinmuller 2016), one of the key functions of state officials in developing breakthrough technologies is providing directionality. Directionality consists of selecting which technologies to support, creating and developing new markets for them, and guaranteeing that the resulting innovations indeed address the aforementioned challenges. This directionality function of the state raises several questions about the role of public authorities therein, which I address in this research: How is this concept operationalized by policy makers? What is the role of non-elected state officials in achieving this directionality? How do public bureaucracies collaborate with non-state actors to achieve it?

This research aims to answer the aforementioned inquiries empirically. I analyze how policy makers provide directionality to the breakthrough innovation of self-driving cars in the Netherlands, which is expected to address societal challenges as quality of life and sustainability. The Netherlands has been considered a major hub for this breakthrough technology, after embracing an ambitious agenda to introduce this type of car in the following years. I performed a qualitative study in which interviews with non-elected state officials working in this technology were held. This was complemented with primary document analysis of the major organizations participating in the self-driving car development. 

Bibliography 

Christensen, Jesper Lindgaard, Ina Drejer, Poul Houman Andersen, and Jacob Rubæk Holm. 2016. “Innovation Policy: How Can It Best Make a Difference?” Industry and Innovation 23 (2): 135–39. doi:10.1080/13662716.2016.1146128.

Kivimaa, Paula, and Florian Kern. 2016. “Creative Destruction or Mere Niche Support? Innovation Policy Mixes for Sustainability Transitions.” Research Policy 45 (1): 205–17. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2015.09.008.

Mazzucato, Mariana. 2016. “From Market Fixing to Market-Creating: A New Framework for Innovation Policy.” Industry and Innovation 23 (2): 140–56. doi:10.1080/13662716.2016.1146124.

Schot, Johan, and Edward Steinmuller. 2016. “Framing Innovation Policy for Transformative Change: Innovation Policy 3.0.” Sussex: Science Policy Research Unit.

Weber, K. Matthias, and Harald Rohracher. 2012. “Legitimizing Research, Technology and Innovation Policies for Transformative Change: Combining Insights from Innovation Systems and Multi-Level Perspective in a Comprehensive ‘failures’ Framework.” Research Policy, Special Section on Sustainability Transitions, 41 (6): 1037–47. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2011.10.015.

In the innovation discourse, there seems to be something like a "Confucian Paradox", which means that the particularly hierarchical, retrospective and seemingly non-innovative Public Administration (PA) system that is based on Confucianism (in values and/or institutions) appears to generate innovation-based economic performance and development. Based on evolutionary innovation theories, one can explain this paradox through the concept of institutional complementarities: in a specific time and context, the public sector has to cover exactly those areas (and styles) that the private sector does not. Thus, what seems like a paradox is actually what one would expect prima facie. We propose that the structural-institutional model of Confucian PA together with the philosophical-cultural concept of the Mandate of Heaven – that legitimacy comes through overall, rather than indicator-driven, performance – can be seen as potentially providing the East and Southeast Asian ideational and structural context in which civil servants are endowed with both the legitimacy and ‘capacities’ to support innovation in markets and – if needed for the former – to pursue innovations in government as well.

In regards to the rate of adjusting and responding to changes in the rapidly transforming environment, the public sector noticeably lags behind the private sector; in consideration of this fact, organizational innovation is an issue that must be further emphasized and dealt with in public organizations rather than private organizations. Even within the process of the Korean government’s diverse policy enforcement, there has been continuous criticism that organizations and respective members have rampantly displayed attitudes of ‘peace-at-any-price,’ rather than trying to express innovativeness and creativity through innovation and change. Public sector innovation extends beyond the simple issue of efficiency and is directly linked to the benefit of citizens and national quality of life, which is why it serves as a driving force behind the creation of efficient public services. Based on the unique social and cultural qualities long inherent in Korea’s public sector, the government has lead various structural changes in organizations. What sorts of contributions might these efforts for change have brought to the enhancement of public sector innovation? Based on a similar research question, this study examined the effects of organizational structure on innovativeness, pro-activeness, and risk-taking in the Korean public sector. Furthermore, it examined in detail how the effects differ according to organization type. Based on empirical analysis results, this study aimed to propose beneficial implications for future public sector innovation studies and to extract policy-related suggestions on the basis of the uniqueness of Korean society and culture.

Whilst the concept of entrepreneurship is rarely welcomed in public organizations.  It is however very important for public officials in every public organisation and staffs in local governments to understand the concept public entrepreneurship and apply it in their work. This study aims to analyze the role of public entrepreneurship in Advancing Public Organization Performance and  Public Excellent Services. 

This paper will analyze the characteristic of public entrepreneurship in local governments in Indonesia. It will reveal how characteristics such as innovative, ability to seize opportunity, willingness to take risk and the level of discretion can be found in the public officials of local government. Further, this paper will discuss how those characteristics matters define the performance of the local government and also advancing the public services.

The paper is based on the finding from research of two local governments in Indonesia. It, therefore, will provide general understanding of how public entrepreneurship role in local governments in Indonesia. The study use a mix method research design and the data is collected from both questionnaire and interviews. This study benefit from large data collected from 44 units in two local governments, 178 interviews with informants from public official staffs and 248 questionnaire from community member.

The result of this study indicates that the most observable public entrepreneurship characteristic are (1) innovative, (2) ability to identify opportunities and (3) mission driven. Further, the characteristic of taking risk is the least characteristic found in local government. Further, it is also evident from this research that the most observable characteristics of public entrepreneurship affect the local government performance and its public services. 

One of the core question of innovation management is how to make organizations good at both the routine implementation and delivery of specific activities and the search for new ideas, solutions and practices to improve one’s daily operations, or competitive position in the broader organizational landscape. Organizational and management research has largely agreed that this requires organizational and managerial approaches that combine and balance – either in one organization of through organizational variety – between different capabilities, be them defined as capacities to explore and exploit, ordinary and dynamic capabilities, or organizational ambidexterity. Modern innovation policy research is tackling with a similar issue: how to secure the capabilities of innovation policy bureaucracies (innovation bureaucracies) to both implement innovation policies (to finance, regulate, guide innovation processes through direct and indirect actions) effectively and to come up with new policy approaches and instruments in case existing ones seem to fail.

In this paper, we look at the evolution of innovation bureaucracies in East Asia (we focus on three cases: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and argue that contrary to the Western trends of building peripheral innovation agencies as "change agents", in East Asia, we see an opposite trend of building highly visible central "change agents" with strong political support and involvement. This is supported and sustained by policy narratives and development models that emphasize the entrepreneurial/developmental role of the state in economy.

              In the last decades, economic, social and political-administrative transformations have generated a variety of restructuring process and, consequently, important results in the Brazilian public administration. The country has experienced several advances regarding the socioeconomic indicators, as well as the quality of public services provided by the State. Notwithstanding the improvements in the economic sphere, especially the monetary stability initiated with the Real Plan (1994) and recently the middle class growth (after 2004), the exclusive economic explanation is insufficient to interpret the Brazilian development in the last twenty years, particularly, because the GDP average growth  was low in comparison to international patterns.

              An alternative explanation may come from the efforts of the Brazilian government in building innovative capacity to formulate and implement effective public policies, despite the recurrent structural limitations, such as fluctuations in revenues, e.g. In this context, this paper’s argument is that innovations within the federal government in Brazil have followed the values and trends of international public management, specially post NPM Era, which has caused improvements in access and quality of public services and, subsequently, has impacted on better socioeconomic indicators.

              Based on the internationally widespread propositions of the New Public Management (NPM), in 1995, the federal government initiated a reformist project focused on rearranging the State’s intervention scope and the overrun of the bureaucratic model, allegedly inefficient. The project, called PDRAE (Directive Plan for the Reform of the State Apparatus) proposed, among others, reducing State activities, thru privatizing and publicizing some sectors, the operation of the government strategic core with regulatory role and guided by the managerial model. Therefore, instead of the inflexibility and inefficiency that were a mark of the administrative machinery, the public service would turn to a result based management organization, similar to the private sector. After partially approved the 1995 reform, the new government that took over in 2003 did not present a distinctive proposal of administrative reform, however, many changes implemented before were kept and others were introduced.

              Therefore, the paper aims to investigate the innovative capacity of the Brazilian government by focus on the convergence/divergence of the Brazilian innovation with the values and trends of international public administration. The goal is not to prove the causal relationship between innovations in the public sector and development, which in fact is an assumption of this research on management capacity in Brazil.

              To do so, a literature review is undertaken in order to identify the values and trends of the post New Public Management (NPM) movement. After that, the paper begins a systematic analysis of the advances in management from all initiatives registered in the Federal Award of Public Management Innovation (FAPMI), from 1996 to 2015. The number of applications is around 2,000 and because of that, the paper uses qualitative software to analyze in which extent the innovations in the Brazilian government have followed the same values and trends identified in the developed countries.

     E-government is the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet as a tool to help achieve better government through efficiency and effectiveness in operations, development of accessible services, and reinforcement of citizen engagement and participation. However, “digital divide” problems of physical access, adaptation, coherence and impacts particularly in public ICT initiatives hamper this initiative. These are magnified especially in rural and agricultural areas where penetration of e-government services seems to be deficient. Studies have highlighted these limitations but much is to be explored about how governments effectively implement e-government despite the challenges especially in developing countries.  

     This study focuses on the Department of Agriculture, an agency responsible for the promotion of agricultural development by providing policy framework, investment and support services for domestic and export-oriented enterprises. It seems unlikely, but e-government is one instrument used by the DA to achieve efficiency, broaden accessibility, enhancing transparency, accountability and corruption control. Therefore, this paper aims to answer the main question: What are the conditions in which allowed the DA to achieve its objectives through e-government despite problems associated with the digital divide? It also aims to answer specific questions: Has e-government achieved the purposes of efficiency and effectiveness in organization; a broader, responsive and more convenient access to services or has it aided in mobilizing institutional and external environmental resources and opportunities to respond to dynamic needs and expectations of stakeholders? This paper aims to relate practice with theory by identifying critical factors characteristic of public management paradigms such as NPM and collaborative governance. Implications, policy recommendations and further study are also incorporated.

     This paper employs in-depth content analysis of DA and its affiliated agencies’ websites and e-government services to assess its development and effectiveness. It uses structured interviews for information officers of DA bureaus and agencies to gather firsthand information on the prerequisites for successful implementation and challenges in executing e-government. It also aims to uncover unintended results and other contentious issues in carrying out e-government.

     DA e-government is still at the level enhanced information dissemination stage but falls short of the transactional stage which is a fully functional level of e-government. However, despite digital divide limits, e-government seems to complement the agencies’ existing DA programs through online capability to monitor current market prices, process permits, monitor weather and pest advisories and learn new farming techniques. A remarkable finding is that e-government has largely involved the use of social media platforms as supplement to existing services. These evidences primarily show that government, regardless of sector and public management style, seems to adapt well to developments in ICT. The next step would be for government to institutionalize existing mechanisms to gain legitimacy, further improve access by citizens, and realize its full benefits.

This paper examines the role of a relatively new provider of health care in the National Health Service in England: the Community Interest Company (CIC). CICs are hybrid forms of private company and social enterprise that have taken responsibility for the delivery of some primary health care (and in a few cases social care) in England since 2011. For policy makers these organisations appear to successfully blend commercial interests with social values, and are therefore considered to be a better alternative to the simple binary option of either public or private provision of health care services.  The paper evaluates the role of CICs in the NHS in England by focusing on their capacity to generate forms of service innovation and improve local accountability. It argues that the scarce existing research far too often articulates CICs as an idealized and spontaneous policy innovation that is decontextualised from wider political processes. The paper adopts the concept of delegated governance to explore the paradigmatic shift in the role of the welfare state that increasingly seeks to provide universal social goods at a distance. It argues that forms of delegated governance have played a decisive role in creating social welfare markets and establishing the new ‘rules of the game’ for the provision of health care. Seen in this light, the so-called innovation and accountability of CICs can be interpreted as politically expedient in opening up the space for potential health care reforms. The paper claims, in contrast to the existing policy discourse, that the types of innovation and accountability that are generated by CICs continues to be shaped by the existing market orientated forms of commissioning for health care. The paper illustrates this by analysing data gathered from policy documents and interviews with health care stakeholders in CICs. In this respect, the paper teases out a number of insights related to the innovation and accountability aspects of the CIC structure by highlighting the role of institutionally, politically and historically determined conditions.

The Australian Public Service (APS) is currently undergoing a historic shift from New Public Management (NPM) towards the establishment of Digital Era Governance (DEG) and current fiscal consolidation measures are likely to further precipitate change. This constitutes more than an increased uptake in IT solutions – it challenges the established ways in which policy is made and public services are delivered, monitored and evaluated. Most significantly, it questions dominant public sector cultures and values. We live in a digital era, where rapid and disruptive change in societal behaviour and industrial and economic patterns have become the norm and government is finally waking up to the realities of the new economy. But how prepared is the APS for an era of disruptive digital innovation? This paper draws on a comprehensive survey of digital thought leaders to evaluate the opportunities for innovative governance in a digital world focusing on Australia as a case study. It explores five key questions. (1) What is the value proposition for digital era governance? (2) What is driving digital innovation? (3) What are the barriers to digital innovation? (4) Where is government acting as an exemplar? And, (5) what are the characteristics of high performing digital governance? It argues that digital innovation is transforming agencies with significant service delivery and data analytic functions in a radical way. Other smaller, non-technical agencies have hardly been affected. The principle influences on the response of different agencies to digital change is determined by a combination of its function, decision-making culture, digital capability, degree of politicisation (i.e. relevance to the core government agenda) and, political-bureaucratic strategic alignment. Innovation requires disruptive change (Bovens 2005 and Dunleavy and Margetts 2012) and in this case the coupling of digital capability and political-bureaucratic strategic alignment is providing it. Indeed, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the essential dynamic of innovation is such a powerful centrifugal force that even the laggards will be unable to resist.

Academic expertise on public administration and public policy and the literature in these fields do not always connect. Many contested concepts exist in public administration, where academics and researchers do not have a clear consensus of the importance, scope or reach of the ideas within the literature. This in turn affects perceptions of trends in both the discipline and practice of public administration and subsequent public sector innovation. In addition, it is unclear where this academic debate can be placed in regard to practical discussions of public administration and public administration reform. This paper will explore the following research question: how have key public administration concepts developed in the social sciences literature over time? What are the academic and practical implications of the robustness of these concepts?

This paper aims to examine key trends as perceived by public administration academics by analysing and assessing the full corpus of literature on these concepts. This research draws on a survey of all European public administration academics, who were asked what they saw as the key trends in the discipline, which would become more important with time, and which would diminish in importance. These results were used to compile a list of key concepts in public administration. The main focus of the paper will be on examining the bibliometric breadth and depth of these key concepts in order to develop a conceptual map of public administration and how this differs across disciplines and sub-disciplines. Methodologically, the research will use bibliometric analysis to examine these concepts across the social sciences. This will provide a bibliometric database of approximately 15,000 articles (using Web of Science) and 650,000 cited references. These can be used to analyse key research and sources used in conceptualising key ideas in public administration, how these concepts travel across disciplines and how research clusters develop over time.

By identifying key articles, more fine-grained qualitative and quantitative analyses of the meaning of these key concepts can also be developed and theorised based on the breadth of the concepts through the discipline and the depth of the concepts in terms of cited references. The paper is highly relevant to understanding academic and practical applications of key concepts in public administration. First, it will provide insight into how public sector reform trends develop, grow and spread academically and across disciplines in both normative and analytical ways. This allows for an assessment of the robustness of these concepts, with bibliometrics providing a quantitative approach to understanding the breadth and depth of the public administration literature. Second, it will provide insight into new areas and disciplines into which these public administration concepts are moving and how they can be theorised, thus highlighting where innovative approaches to conceptualisation may be found and how academic work can be linked to practical applications of public administration concepts. This delivers a clear, systematic and quantitative way of assessing the literature and identifying gaps between public administration knowledge and expertise and the relevant literature on key trends in public administration.