The Moderating Role of Top‐Down Supports in Horizontal Innovation Diffusion

Zhang, Youlang; Zhu, Xufeng

doi:10.1111/puar.13140

Cited by 36 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…To investigate the institutional factors influencing shared SMT adoption, we utilize indicators of geographical proximity (see also Zhang and Zhu 2020). First, to capture coercive institutional pressures we calculate the distance from the headquarters of each district council to the offices of the Department for Communities and Local Government in London 4 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to the independent variables, we included measures of innovative culture/previous innovative practices, financial status, and leadership that are commonly applied in high‐quality public administration research (see Rho and Han 2020; Yi and Chen 2019; Zhang and Zhu 2020). First, to proxy for the potential influence of an innovative culture on the adoption of MI, we included an annual count of the companies operated by each district council, drawing on information in their annual accounts.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following best practice in recent quantitative research on public sector innovation (e.g. Yi and Chen 2019; Zhang and Zhu 2020), longitudinal data for the period 2006–2014 are drawn from well‐established secondary sources. Findings from statistical analysis are then complemented with interviews with a wide range of local government chief executive officers (CEOs), senior managers, and politicians, as per qualitative studies of local government innovation (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Motivations for the Adoption of Management Innovation by Local Governments and its Performance Effects

Andrews

Bellò

Downe³

et al. 2021

Public Administration Review

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This article analyses the economic, political, and institutional antecedents and performance effects of the adoption of shared Senior Management Teams (SMTs)-a management innovation (MI) that occurs when a team of senior managers oversees two or more public organizations. Findings from statistical analysis of 201 English local governments and interviews with organizational leaders reveal that shared SMTs are adopted to develop organizational capacity in resource-challenged, politically risk-averse governments, and in response to coercive and mimetic institutional pressures. Importantly, sharing SMTs may reduce rather than enhance efficiency and effectiveness due to redundancy costs and the political transaction costs associated with diverting resources away from a highperforming partner to support their lower-performing counterpart. Evidence for Practice• To capture economies of scale and cut costs, English local governments are introducing a management innovation, shared Senior Management Teams (SMTs). • Governments that adopt shared SMTs do so when the political circumstances are favorable and coercive and mimetic institutional pressures are present. • The sharing of a SMT leads to reduced public service efficiency and effectiveness, but can help local governments build much-needed organizational capacity.P ublic organizations are increasingly called upon to design and implement innovative management practices to become more effective and efficient (Brown, Osborne, and Walker 2016;Kim and Warner 2016). However, despite the growing emphasis on management innovation (MI) in the public sector, evidence on the economic, political, and institutional factors that lie behind its adoption is only slowly emerging (Damanpour and Aravind 2011; Singla, Stritch, and Feeney 2018). More significantly, very little is known about whether MIs generate the anticipated organizational improvements (De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers 2015; Walker, Chen, and Aravind 2015). In this article, we investigate the antecedents and performance effects of MI in public service organizations. Specifically, we examine shared Senior Management Teams (SMTs) in English local governments-a MI that occurs when two or more local governments formally agree that their service delivery will be overseen by a single group of senior managers.Broadly defined, MI involves the introduction of a new structure, process, system, program, or practice in an organization or its units which changes how managers manage (Birkinshaw, Hamel, and Mol 2008). MIs are therefore distinct from other innovation types (e.g. service, partnership) that entail material changes to what an organization provides to its external stakeholders (Damanpour and Aravind 2011). Because the adoption of MIs may result in the redesign and redevelopment of management systems and processes, it is often radical rather than incremental in orientation (Walker, Damanpour, and Devece 2011). MI may therefore be particularly challenging for public organizations, where changes to established rules and routine...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Motivations for the Adoption of Management Innovation by Local Governments and its Performance Effects

Andrews

Bellò

Downe³

et al. 2021

Public Administration Review

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“…This divergent role is particularly puzzling given that China as a politically centralised country has the capacity to coerce local governments, but also because centrally planned policy experiments have been attributed a great role in China's economic development (for example, Heilmann, 2008;Wang, 2009). Answering this question is theoretically significant because evidence has shown that the influence of higher-level governments takes precedence over other factors in authoritarian systems (Zhang and Zhu, 2020). Thus, analysing the variation of higherlevel government involvement in local innovation adoption can further advance the theoretical understanding of the vertical dimension of innovation theory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The dynamic role of governments in adopting policy innovations in China

Huang

Wiebrecht

2021

Policy &Amp; Politics

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A growing number of studies have paid attention to the dynamic nature of vertical government interactions in authoritarian China. Yet, less attention has been paid to the question of why higher-level governments play different roles in diverse cases of innovation adoptions. Building on the extant literature, this study introduces the concept of innovation copyright, that is, the perceived ownership of the innovation, to explain the different roles of higher-level government involvement in innovation adoption. A comparative case study of policy innovations in China highlights that if higher-level governments perceive that they own the innovation copyright, they act as proactive facilitators, and if higher-level governments perceive that the innovation copyright belongs to local governments, they are involved as political backers. The copyright structures the expectations of higher-level and local governments and as a consequence determines their roles in innovation adoptions.

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“…This issue offers articles with topics that bridge policy and management questions. We begin with a set of three articles oriented around public policy, including a systematic review of the policy entrepreneurship literature (Frisch‐Aviram et al ), a comparative study of policy integration and administrative coordination reforms in 13 countries (Trein and Maggetti ), and an analysis of diffusional pressures from central to local governments in China (Zhang and Zhu ).…”

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confidence: 99%