Analyzing the critical factors for innovation sustainability in the public sector: evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

PurposeThis study examines the critical factors contributing to the different conditions of innovation sustainability after a change in local political leadership.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a multiple case study approach and applied the critical incident technique (CIT) to collect and analyze data from four innovation cases in the two local governments of Indonesia.FindingsThe results highlight that the sustainability condition of each innovation after the political regime change is determined by multiple critical factors.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, the data collected through interviews may contain a memory bias. Second, this study was limited to local governments and did not consider innovation taxonomies.Practical implicationsThe study implies that in order to sustain innovation, public leaders must support innovation legitimacy as a new organizational structure; thus, it can be more durable in the long term. In addition, public leaders need to minimize innovation politicization by authorizing bureaucrats to autonomously manage innovation operationalization.Social implicationsPublic leaders need to pay careful attention to their innovation sustainability because a non-sustained policy can disappoint the individuals working for it, losing their trust and enthusiasm. This dissatisfaction could become a barrier to mobilizing support for the following policies.Originality/valueInnovation sustainability is a new theme that is overlooked in the public sector innovation literature. Therefore, investigations using different methods and contexts are required, as this study offers. This study also demonstrated the value of CIT in identifying critical factors affecting innovation sustainability in the context of political leadership change.

Critical Factors for Women’s Representation in Top Management Leadership Positions in Local Government

“…The interview results were analysed using the content analysis technique. To code the data from the interview process, this study employed NVivo 12 software to facilitate categorizing data similarities or interrelationships into concepts as the first order, themes as the second, and aggregate dimensions as the third order, following pri- or studies (e.g., Nadia et al, 2020;Pradana et al, 2022). Lastly, this study triangulated the data to ensure the research results' reliability by comparing the informants' responses with other sources to find consistency and similarity in responses to the phenomena examined by this study (Creswell, 2018).…”

The Sustainability of the Project-Driven Innovation of Grassroots Governance: Influencing Factors and Combination Paths

“…The concept of "sustainability" was first proposed in the field of ecology, and then gradually applied to other disciplines. Studies on innovation sustainability appear to be relatively few in number, and include works by Van Acker and Bouckaert [7], Cinar et al [8], Pradana et al [9], etc. Cobian and Ramos argue that innovation can be considered sustainable if it is embedded in the routine activities of an organization [10].…”

“…Specifically, in the context of governance in China, political support is mainly reflected in the affirmative statements and supportive behaviors of the superior government and local officials on innovation projects. Under the pressure of performance appraisal, governance innovation needs to pay special attention to political support from within the government [9]. On the one hand, local officials can significantly express and display their governance performance through governance innovation and promote governance innovation by pursuing the legitimacy of performance.…”

“…At the same time, governance innovation is a flexible reform without existing systems as guidance. Therefore, the attitude of leaders towards innovation is particularly important [9]. Furthermore, if the innovation project is approved by the superior government, it is easy to form a demonstration effect in the jurisdiction to realize the institutionalization of innovation.…”

“…Rogers proposes that the relative advantages, compatibility, complexity and testability of the innovation affect its probability of adoption [4]. Susanto, E et al point out that the attribute characteristics of innovation, such as the benefits and performance of innovation, are critical factors contributing to successful innovation survival [9]. Their research implies a hypothesis that an innovation with good attribute characteristics is easier to learn and imitate so as to achieve sustainability.…”