Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of Indonesia’s public service innovation drawn from the top 99 nominees of the national competition for public service innovation from 2014 to 2016. Design/methodology/approach To answer the research question, this study applied archival research as a research strategy. A documentation method was conducted to collect the data. Using content analysis aided by NVivo 11 this study analyzes the following themes: implementing agencies, innovation types, innovation goals, innovation outcomes, policy sector in which innovation implemented and geographical perspective. Findings The public service innovation in Indonesia from 2014 to 2016 were dominated by local government and process innovation in which designates to the amalgamation of technological and administrative dimensions of innovation. The most occurrence outcomes were aimed to tackling societal problems in the health and education sector. Whilst in the geographical perspective, big portion of innovation were taking place in Java Island. Research limitations/implications The result of this study is mainly based on secondary data drawing from public service innovation competition held by the Indonesian Ministry of Administrative Reform. Consequently, the result is limited to provide a mapping feature and trends of innovation. Future research may use more extensive samples (not only sourced from the nominees but also all submitted initiatives) to obtain more representation of public service innovation in Indonesia. Practical implications Given the fact that lack of collaboration between public and private actors, the government needs to consider on designing strategies and policy direction to foster collaboration in public service innovation. Originality/value This research offers a comprehensive analysis on Indonesian public service innovation. Methodologically, the research introduces archival research as one of the alternative research strategies on public sector innovation scholarships.

Th is paper aims to investigate the narrative of smart city policy in four Indonesian cities. Yogyakarta City, Surabaya City, Magelang City, and Madiun City were chosen as the locus of this study since these cities were winners of the Indonesian Smart City Index 2015. Th e author compares their medium-term development planning documents using analysis of policy narrative approach which reconstructs the stories that actors tell about policy issues written in the offi cial policy document. Th is study endeavours to analyse how these cities engage with smart city policy and initiative from a comparative-based study. Based on the content analysis as a research method, it can be concluded that these cities conceptualise the smart city program in diff erent ways since there is no specifi c regulation guiding smart city policy in Indonesia. Th e result of this study also maps the main themes of smart city as stated in their medium-term development planning document. Th eoretically, it contributes the discourse of smart city policy studies in a developing country context. Practically, this study suggests a policy implication that cities need to consider as a specifi c grand design on how local government implement smart city initiative.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale for measuring perceived bureaucratic readiness for smart city initiatives. Design/methodology/approach The present study employs a mixed method approach to achieve its research objectives. An exploratory study, consisting of literature review and qualitative interviews with key informants, was conducted to develop an initial instrument for measuring bureaucratic readiness. An online survey of 40 civil servants involved in smart city programmes in the Yogyakarta City government was then administered to test the instrument’s validity and reliability. Findings Perceived bureaucratic readiness can be measured through four dimensions: commitment of the upper echelons, legal support, information technology resources and governance. Research limitations/implications The proposed scale provides an alternative instrument for measuring perceived bureaucratic readiness for smart city initiatives. However, as data were only derived from one city government, they are relatively small in scope. Future research can be conducted for generalisation by replicating this study in other cities, thereby measuring its effectiveness in other contexts and settings. Practical implications This study not only provides a better understanding of bureaucratic readiness for smart city initiatives, but also proposes an assessment tool as a practical means of assessing bureaucratic readiness. The quantification of readiness is beneficial to putting smart city programmes into practice, as it allows smart city managers to assess the internal bureaucracy’s level of readiness. It also allows managers to mitigate and further policy agendas and thereby improve the bureaucracy’s support for smart city programmes. Originality/value Literature sometimes underestimates the role of bureaucracy in smart city implementation while overly stressing stakeholders, vendors and technology. This paper attempts to contribute to smart city research by reaching beyond the technological perspective and focusing on local government bureaucracy. None of the extant literature provides a scale for measuring bureaucratic readiness. The study thus proposes a systematic way to develop a means of measuring perceived bureaucratic readiness for smart city programmes.

The motivation of this paper is to identify the possible unintended consequences of reform program to modernize public administration in Indonesia through cultural theory looking glass. The cultural perspective matters to understand the context of reform-based implementation and the setting of society where public sector reform occurred. Applying cultural theory perspective, four patterns of unintended consequences in Indonesia's bureaucracy reform are proposed to aid the analysis of reform deficit pattern. I name reform inertia for fatalist, formalistic reform for hierarchies, benefit-based reform for individualist, and conformity-based reform for egalitarian typed-organisations. This framework gives an alternative outlook to address potential negative effects as well as unintended consequences of bureaucracy reform in which reform advocates or public administrators could consider to anticipate in the process of reform.

This paper discusses the agencification phenomena as one of New Public Management (NPM)-