Innovation in Public Sector - Literature review Example

?Introduction Innovation in public sector has recently witnessed immense amount of new ideas and flawless execution. Many of these have become globalcase studies of how principles of private sector products and process innovation be applied to public sector to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. Implementing an innovative idea can be by the virtue of introducing new technology, new process, new hierarchy or way of operating or even new legislation. This review is to critically examine innovation in governance. Every public sector organization around the world will have its own limitations to invest money, time, increase number of people and allocate resources to a certain innovation project. But one thing which certainly can be implemented is innovation in governance, the way of operating of its public sector organizations. This review critically examines cases of innovation in governance style and differentiates them from private sector product and process innovation. Critical Review Lot has been written on private sector innovations of products and processes but not much on public sector innovation. Governance innovations in public sector require and deserve greater attention as they go beyond the organizational boundaries to involve other public/private sector organizations, leads to a network based decision making leading to a more efficient implementations and tap new pools of resources among existing resources (Moore and Hartley, 2008). The focus of their paper is on how public sector innovation is different from private innovation in two distinct ways of the latter being very narrow and specific and two the changes are far more concentrated than general as compared to public sector. They focus on how public sector innovation is much more macro than private sector involving a change in thinking patters of management, change in complex social systems and its restructuring, financial changes, process changes and end result is a changed social delivery. Since these are changes in the existing way of operating and managing, they are tangentially different than inventions (Bessant 2003). Moore and Hartley (2008, p. 4) quotes Lynn (1997) that: ‘Innovation must not simply be another name for change, or for improvement, or even for doing something new lest almost anything qualify as innovation. Innovation is properly defined as an original, disruptive, and fundamental transformation of an organization’s core tasks’. Today many public sector organizations are leading their way in redefining the reason for their existence. There is enough criticism which is found in literature which states that only process level innovation in public sector will not lead to any significant change in society and it is unlikely for one best practice to exist for all public sector organizations (Habday, 2005). Savory (2009, p. 150) writes about building knowledge translation capability into public sector innovation process and its special application to National Health Service (NHS) of the UK. this organization thrives on innovation in public health sector in all respects of technology, service and service delivery. This is possible due to two different modes of innovation which is practice based and research based. Both are effective in their own respect, but needs a lot of support from the structure of the organization, policy making and financial resource allocation for the process of real innovation take place. Power lobbies in health care sector and interests of various stake holders also effect the innovation process in NHS, which means that any worthy change to occur at ground level, a network wide change has to occur which reemphasizes the importance of Innovation in Governance. NHS modernization agency was proposed in 2000 for promoting change management the way it’s done in private sector. unlike private sector, change management was divided in two parts, innovation of services and innovation of technology. Though this paper emphasize that similar capacity management can be applied at in similar way for different organizations, a different view emerges from Magalhaes and Carmona (2006, p. 290) where they state that due to the diversity of institutional, physical and socio economic factors of public sector management in UK public sector, change is neither uniform nor coherent. Public sector organizations face challenges to implement governance innovation due to difference in their funding pattern, coordination with law making authorities, need for fitting in the national policy framework and maintenance. The article not only compares the public sector and private sector innovation, but states that over past 15 years, public services have seen themselves cross path with private sector. this is because public services policy design is done in isolation, whereas as the beneficiary of public services in urban social setup needs a more comprehensive solution. This is where it differs from a public sector innovation which keeps the customer and the cost both at the centre of any new development. The lack of vision of decision makers leads to minimal political will to enforce public sector reforms the way it is done in private sector. Innovation in governance comes from policy changes and encouragement from the top most authority responsible for driving the public sector, which is the government. A recent initiative by Singapore Prime Minister’s office, The Enterprise Challenge (TEC) is to drive change in public agencies to be open to new and even risky ideas, and lead innovation in public sector for significant benefit of its people (Lee, 2006 p. 14). TEC is now a significant part of the public service improvement plan. This is what Innovation is in governance which is seen trickle down from high up till the executors of the plan. TEC enables an agency to take up an innovation project without the worry of failing and wasting public funds, as TEC works with those agencies to make the idea work. Management expertise and technical help is given to each agency who has received funds for innovating a product, service or an organization on a whole. Unlike private sector which is purely driven with top line and bottom line effects of any changes, TEC ensures that the projects are not pressurized by deadline at the cost of productivity. TEC committee works together with the public sector organization to ensure development for economic well being without compromising on the public benefit and social angle. A recent study (Lee and Yoo, 2007) it was argued that unlike private sector, the state led organization is more prone to depend upon existing competencies and internal expertise to drive innovation. This is not a bad thing as made evident from the example of Korea and France. They are administrative economies who have experience drastic changes in its institutions as compared to corporatized countries; France in particular has CIRT (Interministerial Committee of Research and Technology) which is the flagship state organization to drive technological innovation. Korea has also proved to the world by its Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) that state is capable of driving growth and not just depend on its private sector firms for R&D. So given the similarities and differences in the public and private sector innovation strategies, what would be the distinct tool to ensure that public sector reforms are equally worthy of praise and lead to precise socio economic benefits? The importance and use of the analytical tool ‘foresight’ to assist decision making process at different level is mentioned as key in many research papers involving innovation in public sector. Foresight, when looked from a broader perspective of policy and decision making can push forward the innovation strategy. Havas, Schartinger and Weber (2010) state that ‘Foresight processes bring together not only experts, but also decision-makers from research, industry, policy making and representatives of the affected social groups. Thus, a shared understanding of current problems, goals and development options can be expected to emerge’. They also propose a framework to classify types of foresight activities and its impact on public services, and conclude that through the use of foresight has met with some skepticism lately by few countries; foresight can be used as a policy informing tool, integral part of policy forming process, impact assessment and as a pacemaker for building and incorporating innovation. Conclusion Innovation in public sector in governance and policy formation is a vast area of study with numerous examples and exceptions available, but in general they differ from private sector innovation as they are more complex, not driven only by economic benefits and multiple organizations at many different levels are involved in the whole process of innovation. Though this might be a disadvantage for public sector to drive innovation, examples were quoted where distinct success has been achieved by joining up, getting involved at right levels and proper governance. Many innovation implementation tools are available, but foresight is one major driver which if used properly can diminish the line between public and private sector efficiency when it comes to innovation in governance. References Savory C. (2009) ‘Building knowledge translation capability into public-sector innovation processes’, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 149 – 171 Lee Y. P. (2006) ‘Giving wings to innovation in the public sector’, Innovation Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 14 -15 Lee S. and Yoo T. (2007) ‘Government Policy and Trajectories of Radical Innovation in Dirigiste States: A Comparative Analysis of National Innovation Systems in France and Korea’, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 451 – 470 Havas A., Schartinger D. and Weber M. (2010) ‘The impact of foresight on innovation policy-making: recent experiences and future perspectives’, Research Evaluation, 19(2), pp. 91 – 104 Moore M. and Hartley J (2008) ‘Innovations in Governance’, Public Management Review, Vol. 10 Issue 1, pp. 3 – 20 Magalhaes C. and Carmona M. (2006) ‘Innovations in the Management of Public Space: Reshaping and Refocusing Governance’, Planning Theory and Practice, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 289 – 303 Lovett G (2009) ‘Ideo collaborative public-sector pilot heads for roll-out’, Design Week, 12.03.09 Issue, pp. 7 Calista D. and Melitski J. (2007) ‘E-Government and E-Governance: Converging constructs of public sector information and communications technologies’, PAQ Spring, pp. 87 – 120 Yoshikawa T., Tsui-Auch L. and McGuire J. (2007) ‘Corporate Governance Reform as Institutional Innovation: The Case of Japan’, Organization Science, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 973–988 Buuren A. and Loorbach D. (2009) ‘Policy Innovation in isolation?’, Public Management Review, Vol. 11, Issue 3, pp. 375–392 Read More