Jean Hartley

Innovation in Governance and Public Services: Past and Present

Three approaches to innovation in the public sector in the post war period are identified and analysed for their implications for policy-makers, managers and citizens. Various relationships are identified between innovation and improvement in public services. The traditional bias of the literature that innovation is necessarily functional is undermined. Important lessons for policy, practice and research include the need to develop an understanding of innovation which is not over-reliant on the private sector manufacturing literature but reflects the distinctive contexts and purposes of the public sector.

Organizational learning and knowledge in public service organizations: A systematic review of the literature

This paper is a systematic review of the literature on organizational learning and knowledge with relevance to public service organizations. Organizational learning and knowledge are important to public sector organizations, which share complex external challenges with private organizations, but have different drivers and goals for knowledge. The evidence shows that the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge are under-researched in relation to the public sector and, importantly, this raises wider questions about the extent to which context is taken into consideration in terms of learning and knowledge more generally across all sectors. A dynamic model of organizational learning within and across organizational boundaries is developed that depends on four sets of factors: features of the source organization; features of the recipient organization; the characteristics of the relationship between organizations; and the environmental context. The review concludes, first, that defining ‘organization’ is an important element of understanding organizational learning and knowledge. Second, public organizations constitute an important, distinctive context for the study of organizational learning and knowledge. Third, there continues to be an over-reliance on the private sector as the principal source of theoretical understanding and empirical research and this is conceptually limiting for the understanding of organizational learning and knowledge. Fourth, differences as well as similarities between organizational sectors require conceptualization and research that acknowledge sector-specific aims, values and structures. Finally, it is concluded that frameworks for explaining processes of organizational learning at different levels need to be sufficiently dynamic and complex to accommodate public organizations.

Innovations in governance

Abstract This article explores a special class of innovations - innovations in governance – and develops an analytical schema for characterizing and evaluating them. To date, the innovation literature has focused primarily on the private rather than the public sector, and on innovations which improve organizational performance through product and process innovations rather than public sector innovations which seek to improve social performance through re-organizations of cross-sector decision-making, financing and production systems. On the other hand, the governance literature has focused on social co-ordination but has not drawn on the innovation literature. The article uses four case studies illustratively to argue that innovations in governance deserve greater attention theoretically. Further, it argues that five inter-related characteristics distinguish public sector innovations in governance from private sector product and process innovations. Innovations in governance: go beyond organizational boundaries to create network-based decision-making, financing, decision-making, and production systems; tap new pools of resources; exploit governments capacity to shape private rights and responsibilities; redistribute the right to define and judge value; and should be evaluated in terms of the degree to which they promote justice and the development of a society as well as their efficiency and effectiveness in achieving collectively established goals.

Researching the Roles of Internal‐change Agents in the Management of Organizational Change

There have been increasingly rapid changes inboth the external and the internal environmentsof many organizations – in both private, publicand voluntary sectors – over the past few years,and these have encouraged renewed interest inthe planning and management of change. This hasled in turn to a greater recognition of the need to mobilize programmes and processes of organ-izational and cultural change, and of the role ofchange agents.The recognition that organizational change can no longer be conceived as a one-off event, ora temporary adjustment, but must be seen as acontinuous process of adaptation to flux in the en-vironment, has encouraged an explosion of bothacademic and management literature charting theimportance of organizational learning processesas key assets for long-term success (e.g. Garratt,1990; Kanter, 1990; Quinn-Mills and Friesen,1992; Pedler, Boydell and Burgoyne, 1991; Senge,1992). Organizational learning requires, amongother features, the development and dissemina-tion of personal learning about the managementof organizational change. In this respect, internalchange agents may be important assets for anyorganization, whether in the private, public orvoluntary sectors.This paper focuses on the perceptions, rolesand learning needs of internal-change agents inelected local authorities. Changes in the externalenvironment of local authorities and other UKpublic-service organizations have been no lessprofound than those experienced by the privatesector (Benington and Stoker, 1989; Leach,Stewart and Walsh, 1994). Research has high-lighted the scale and the scope of the economic,social and political changes facing the welfare stateand the public-service sector in the UK, includingBritish Journal of Management, Vol. 8, 61–73 (1997)

Leading and learning? Knowledge transfer in the Beacon Council Scheme

This paper examines the Beacon Council Scheme as a distinct policy element within the UK government’s wide-ranging local government modernization agenda. The aim of the Beacon scheme is two-fold. First, reward for high performing councils and second, the achievement of substantial change by sharing ‘best practice’ from identified centres of excellence. The scheme presupposes an implicit theory of organizational change through learning. The Beacon Council Scheme is based on the assumption that the organizational preconditions exist which will facilitate learning, and through its application to practice, improve service delivery. The paper analyses the presumed and possible conditions which facilitate or impede interorganizational learning and service improvement through the scheme. The paper then examines empirical data from 59 local authority elected members and officers about their attitudes towards and motivation to take part in the Beacon scheme during the first year of its existence. The data indicate that there are differing motivations for participation in the scheme and that these reflect different learning needs. The experiences of local authority participants suggest that the formulators of the dissemination strategy at the heart of the scheme have not yet given sufficient consideration to the processes of interorganizational learning, the conditions that support such learning between authorities and the embedding of new understandings, practices and organizational cultures in the receiving authority. This suggests that the underlying theories of organizational learning and cultural change may be insufficiently developed to create and sustain the kind of transformational change that is intended by central government.

Copy and Paste, or Graft and Transplant? Knowledge Sharing Through Inter-Organizational Networks

This article discusses the governments use of inter-organizational networks to promote sharing of knowledge and innovation between public service organizations. It analyses the conditions for successful knowledge transfer between organizations, and highlights the importance of recognizing the contested nature of knowledge, the differences in interests between organizations, and the importance of relationships of trust, curiosity and respect for diversity, for generating a creative process of co-creation and cultivation of knowledge. It concludes by looking at the implications for policy-making and practice, as well as for academic theory and research.

The Modernization and Improvement of Government and Public Services: The Role of Leadership in the Modernization and Improvement of Public Services

This article examines the central role of leadership in the Governments conception of modernization and improvement, before outlining key approaches to understanding leadership and the management of influence in and by local authorities. Local authorities are increasingly concerned with distributed leadership (even though new structural arrangements may concentrate political leadership); of leadership at the cross-roads of different organizational cultures and structures; of the importance of inter organizational leadership not just leadership by individuals; and the importance of influence across organizational boundaries not just control of the internal organization. The authors call for models of leadership to be updated to reflect new challenges.

A model of political leadership

In this article we develop a model of political leadership. In doing so, we analyse the challenges facing political leaders in local government in England and Wales. We use this analysis as a basis for broader theorizing: about leadership at other levels of government, and in other countries. The scope for applying extant accounts of leadership in these domains can be enhanced by considering the relational complexities that characterize the environment within which political leaders act; by doing so we offer an agenda for research. We describe the context for political leaders in terms of figurational sociology, where figurations denote interdependent networks of social relations. These take shape in different arenas of action, and are partly influenced by the different roles that political leaders undertake. These figurations are also constituted differently given the diversity inherent in the context for enacting political leadership. We propose a conceptual model that serves both as a heuristic framework to organize conceptualization of this understudied area, and to orient future research.

Co-research: a new methodology for new times

This article describes an innovative methodology based on inter-organizational collaboration between academics and practitioners, using a “co-research” method that builds on but goes beyond the methodology of insider/outsider research teams. Co-research establishes a dialectical process of enquiry by drawing on the complementary perspectives, interests, skills, and knowledge bases of academics and practitioners. Co-research is based on a triad of research roles. First, the academic responsible for the research, who manages the research team and who contributes an “outsider” view of the organization. Second, the host manager employed by the organization being researched. This person brings an “insider” perspective on the organization. Third, the co-researcher from a different organization who carries out the research alongside the academic(s). He or she is an “insider” in that they are familiar with the type of organization being researched, but an “outsider” in that their own organization has a different context and processes. This article argues that co-research is effective in producing valid organizational research, partly through the harnessing of inside/outsider knowledge and partly through “surprise and sense-making” (Louis, 1980). The research paradigm is one of knowledge generation through a negotiated and dialectical approach to organizational processes.

Leading communities: capabilities and cultures

The concept of community leadership is examined, using a model with four arenas of leadership. Little attention has been paid to the capabilities which managers (as well as councillors and staff) need to perform effectively in this new leadership role. The paper is based on a case study of a highly innovative council. The paper examines three issues: the capabilities required for community leadership in terms of working with communities, in terms of working in partnerships, and the management development programme to support cultural change. The research shows that service delivery in the context of community leadership is increasingly complex, varied and outwardly focused. New skills include responding as well as directing, using lateral as well as vertical skills, having an impact on other organizations, not just one’s own. These have major implications for hierarchical organizations and professionally‐driven services. The development of a community leadership focus also contains tensions for the management of performance and motivation.