Limits on Innovativeness in Local Government: Examining Capacity, Complexity, and Dynamism in Organizational Task Environments

Abstract

Theory and evidence on the diffusion and antecedents of innovation in public organizations demonstrate that organizations respond to their environment and react by being more or less innovative. However, questions about the limits of responses to organizational task environments remain unexplored: in short, what is the appropriate level of environmental capacity and when does the environment become too complex or dynamic for innovation to occur? This study examines non-linear capacity, complexity, and dynamic environments in an archival panel of 405 English local governments using primary and secondary data from a number of sources. Findings indicate that non-linearities effect perceived innovativeness in relation to political and social capacity, and political dynamism in an inverted U shape, and in a U shape for community capacity. The implications of these findings for the study of public service innovation are considered.

Context matters: A Bayesian analysis of how organizational environments shape the strategic management of sustainable development

“…Poverty and population appear negatively associated with all three strategy content types, while population density—which captures urban development patterns—is positively associated with them. In keeping with Walker et al (), these findings suggest that larger cities overall may experience a diminished return on investment for engaging in varied growth management strategies, although increased population density positively motivates them. Increases in the poverty rate, meanwhile, appear to reduce the willingness of cities to engage in smart growth strategies across the content types.…”

“…But poverty and population reduces the likelihood of using planning, performance, and financial strategic management content. Future research should follow Walker et al (2015) and examine possible nonlinear effects of these complexities.…”

“…We also account for contextual complexity with proxy measures for development intensity with ‘construction’ industry presence, racial homogeneity (percentage of ‘White’ residents), and income disparity (‘poverty rate’). We expect greater construction presence, racial heterogeneity, and income disparity to reduce the likelihood of strategic activity for smart growth based on previous research (Ramirez de la Cruz ; Walker et al ). We also control for ‘population’ and ‘population density’.…”

Influence and Complementarity of Follow-on Managerial Innovations within a Public Organization

“…Indeed, in contrast to technological innovations, where transformations mainly concern the technical system of the organization, managerial innovations go hand-in-hand with changes in internal operating methods and social interactions (Walker, 2006). By modifying hierarchical relations and decision-making procedures, they inevitably affect actors' zones of power and influence as well as internal balances and social arrangements (Walker et al, 2015;Lux & Petit, 2016). Moreover, by throwing into question not only the practices but also the values and representations associated with organizational routines (Ayerbe & Fonrouge, 2005), managerial innovations are liable to upset an organization's system of social norms and rules.…”

“…Research on antecedents to innovation generally considers three groups of factors: environmental and contextual; organizational; and intrinsic innovation 7 characteristics). In the public sector, most studies have focused on the organizational or environmental determinants (De Vries et al, 2016;Walker et al, 2015)). Damanpour & Schneider (2006, for example, have highlighted the positive influence on local governments' innovation decisions of environmental factors such as economic growth, population growth, the tax base and the size of the community in which the organization is located.…”