Employee-Driven Innovation Boosts Public Service Well-Being

Employee-based and incremental
innovation in public services
Innovation well-being of
employees

Helsinki January 28 2011 Inno-Wellness project, Lars Fuglsang

What is inno-well-being about
• Employees want their job to have meaning
and importance in society.
• They tend to identify with temporary
projects and deep core values of an
organization (Fiol 2001).
• Many also want to have influence on and
control with their job.
• Many actively seek to influence their job.

Inno-well-being after G. Ekvall (1996)
Weak innovation Strong innovation
climate climate

Apathy; indifference; Challenge Joy; meaningfulness;
alienation. energy.

Passivity, rule-bound, Freedom Exchange of information;
anxious to stay inside taking initiatives; discuss
established boundaries. problems; make
decisions.
”No” is the key word. Idea-support Attentiveness towards
Counter-arguments ideas; listen to each
always present. other; constructive and
Mistakes and failures. positive atmosphere.
Suspiciousness; fear of Trust/openness Open and
making mistakes; Afraid straightforward
of being exploited and communication without
robbed of good ideas. fear of reprisal and
ridicule.


Types of public innovation
(Danish tax authorities)
1. Service innovation
2. Administrative innovation
3. Policy innovation
4. Democracy innovation

5. Conceptual innovation?

(Corresponds more or less to Windrum 2008)


Does innovation happen in the
public sector?
• Public sector is characterized by plural values of frugality, rectitude
and resilience (Hood 1991). Does this create indecision (Denis et al
2010)?
• There are “silos” and knowledge boundaries in the public sector.
• It is sometimes believed that public sector institutions innovate less
than private companies.

• Nevertheless, research has never been able to prove this (see e.g.
Koch et al. 2005; Earl 2002; Earl 2004; National Audit Office 2006a,
2006b).
• For example, in a Canadian study, Louise Earl (2002) finds that in
some critical areas of change, Canadian public sector organizations
are almost twice as innovative as private firms.
• Koch et al. (2005) find numerous examples of innovations in the
public sector. They show that there are specific drivers as well as
barriers for innovation in the public sector.


Drivers of public innovation (Koch
and Hauknes 2005)
• Competitive drivers.
• Problem-oriented drivers.
• Non-problem oriented improvement.
• Political push.
• Growth of a culture of review.
• Support mechanisms for innovation .
• Capacity for innovation.
• Technological factors.

Questionnaire about Danish public
innovation, Pedersen et al. (2007)
• Response from 759 leaders in Danish public institutions
(kindergartens, schools, after schools, elderly care)
• 64% of these institutions say they have innovated within
the past 5 years.
• Institutions drive innovations themselves according to 70
% of the leaders.
• Employees are ”to a high degree” the most important
source according to 78 %
• According to 70 % of the leaders innovation leads to
increasing quality.
• ’Only’ 15 % say that the institutions are in a better
economic situation as a consequence of innovation.


Organizing innovation and
well-being
• As an ad hoc process
• As a separate function

• As a systematic activity
(Fuglsang, Hansen and Serin 2011)


Forms of public innovation
(Danish tax authorities)
• Expert driven
• Citizen centered
• Citizen involving
• Citizen driven


Innovation tool books

Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority 2010


Innovation tool books

DESINOVA 2009


Characteristics of
the innovation process
• Planned changes. From idea to product.
• Experimental, rapid applications
• ”A posteriory recognition of innovation”, ad hoc
innovation.

• Systematic (using tools). Integrated with
community development and core values of
employees.

• After Toivonen, Tuominen and Brax (2007);
Gallouj and Weinstein (1997).

Observed innovation processes (2)
• Top-management initiated abstract interest-
creating activity.

“We have some external requirements and
expectations which can put focus on a need for
development. It can be something that happens
in society at the political level and the citizen
level.”

• Tool: A development department. Negotiations.

• Management mediated problem-driven formalised
activity

“An example is the development of a new waiting-list
system for people who have been promised a place in a
residential home. The system is meant to ensure that a
rule of 4 weeks guarantee is strictly kept ...The idea for
this new system came from staff and management and
was further developed at staff meetings.”

• Tool: Weekly meetings. Project culture.

• Bricolage as a process of everyday problem-solving
based on resources at hand and core working values.

“I had a client who was completely deaf ... She had a
lamp which gave out light when one pushed the door
bell. Often she sat knitting. You could give her a fright, if
you entered the door. Then I stamped my foot in the
floor. Then she felt the vibration. Then she was not
scared when somebody suddenly stood there.”

• Tool: A culture of bricolage. A mobile phone.


Managing innovation (Fuglsang 2010;
Fuglsang and Sørensen 2011)


Linking micro and macro
• The dual organization
• Loose or tight couplings
• Sense of community and core values.


Theorization and problemtization
Lounsbury et al (2007)


”The
fantastic
library of
the
future”


Changing the role of the library

From being (partly myth)
• quiet, boring, authoritarian, the librarian difficult to talk to.
To becoming
• lively, open-minded, outreach, the librarian as an
information expert, consultant, a guide.


The public library theory

• Starting point was the library spirit from the
early 20th century. The library as social
movement.
• Competition entered into the public sector:
Google and other search engines.
• Libraries and librarians felt forced to
rethink their role.
• Rethink the ”library spirit” and the key
problem of libraries.

Problematization and readiness
• The Danish Bibliographic Centre (DBC) was created in 1993, a
private limited company with responsibility for IT.
• The Danish National Library Authority was restructured in 1997. A
more top-strategic organization.
• White paper on libraries in the information society was published in
1997
• New Library Act in was passed in 2000: Strong emphasis on
electronic materials and Internet.
• Modernisation of the Royal School of Library and Information
Science during the 1990s.
• The Danish Union of Librarians was to become “a union of
information specialists and cultural intermediaries.”
• Creation of Danbibbase, bibliotek.dk and net-libraries through
government and project funding starting from the mid-1990s.


Theorization: New library strategy

”We have to define very clearly the role of
the library and strategies in relation to the
needs of the knowledge society. The
overall goal with the contribution and
service of the library must be to strengthen
innovation and coherence in society.”

Strategy of the National library Authority
2006

The role of the librarian

”… libraries today are much more than an elderly lady
with an amber chain that wears her hair in a knot at the
back sitting behind the counter of the public library ...

(DBCAvisen, ”The DBCnews”, 04 Winter 2005).


By way of conclusion: changes in public
innovation (J. Hartley 2005)
• Traditional public administration.
– A stable homogeneous environment in which needs are defined by
professionals and innovations are large-scale and universal.
• New public management
• Competitive and atomized in which needs are expressed through
the market and innovations concern organizational changes.
• Networked governance or citizen-centred governance (rectitude and
innovation):
– A continuously changing and diverse organization in which needs are
seen as complex and volatile, and where innovation takes place both at
the central and the local level.
– Public managers are explorers rather than clerks and citizens are co-
producers rather than clients.

– Inno-well-being: Develop a clearer language and theory about
innovation which is integrated with occupational practice.


End


Employee-Driven Innovation Boosts Public Service Well-Being

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