Richard M. Walker

Combinative Effects of Innovation Types and Organizational Performance: A Longitudinal Study of Service Organizations

Innovation research suggests that innovation types have different attributes, determinants, and effects. This study focuses on consequences of adoption of three types of innovation (service, technological process, and administrative process) in service organizations. Its main thesis is that the impact of innovation on organizational performance depends on compositions of innovation types over time. We examine this proposition by analysing innovative activity in a panel of 428 public service organizations in the UK over four years. Our findings suggest that focus on adopting a specific type of innovation every year is detrimental, consistency in adopting the same composition of innovation types over the years has no effect, and divergence from the industry norm in adopting innovation types could possibly be beneficial to organizational performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and research on innovation types.

The new managerialism and public service professions : change in health, social services, and housing

Introduction Professions and Professional Organisation in UK Public Services Dismantling the Organisational Settlement: Towards a New Public Management The National Health Service The Personal Social Services Social Housing Conclusion: Taking Stock of the New Public Management

Plans, performance information and accountability: the case of Best Value

The current UK government emphasizes the importance of mechanisms of accountability that involve the planning and public reporting of performance. One example of this is the Best Value performance plan. However, there has been little evaluation of the quality of the information provided in this type of document. This paper draws on literature on stakeholding and user needs to identify the data required for accountability. It then assesses whether the plans produced by Best Value pilot authorities in Wales provide appropriate information. The analysis shows that very few of the plans contained the relevant material. Interviews in the pilot authorities highlighted two key reasons for the poor level of data: a lack of performance indicators prior to Best Value and limited staff expertise in performance measurement. The evidence suggests that documents such as performance plans currently make little contribution to the accountability of public organizations.

Measuring Innovation - Applying the Literature-Based Innovation Output Indicator to Public Services

Governments have been encouraging public service organizations to innovate. However, little is known about the extent of innovation in public service organizations. A private sector approach to the measurement of innovation - the literature-based innovation output indicator (LBIOI) - is applied to public service organizations to address this significant information gap. The method is described and then explored in one public service sector, English housing associations. A sample of 257 innovations is constructed and then subject to analysis. This initial testing of the LBIOI indicates that the approach can be applied across public services to create longitudinal data sets, which will enhance the communication of good practice and the use of evidence in public policy, management and research. This methodology is demonstrated to offer initial insights to public service innovation and would allow relationships to be explored notably innovation and performance, a relationship central to governments promotion of innovation.

Strategy Formulation, Strategy Content and Performance

Abstract This article tests the independent effects of strategy formulation and strategy content on organizational performance. The formulation variables include rational planning, logical instrumentalism and strategy process absence, and the strategy content variables are prospecting, defending and reacting, which are derived from the work of Miles and Snow (1978). The model, which also controls for past performance and service expenditure, is tested upon forty-seven service departments in Welsh local government. The statistical results indicate that logical incrementalism and strategy absence have negative consequences for performance while prospecting and defending are strategies that are likely to result in higher levels of organizational performance. The implications of these findings for public management research are considered.

The evaluation of public service inspection: A theoretical framework

Inspection is an important and growing element of the regulation of public services. We develop a theoretical framework for the evaluation of inspection and illustrate the practical relevance of this framework with reference to the new Best Value inspectorate for UK local government. The framework contains three elements that facilitate the effectiveness of an inspection system (a director, a detector and an effector), five potential problems that impede its effectiveness (resistance, ritual compliance, regulatory capture, performance ambiguity and information gaps) and a pivotal mediating variable which is the expertise of inspectors. We combine these variables into a matrix that can be used as a checklist for the evaluation of inspection and we identify hypotheses concerning the circumstances that lead to successful inspection outcomes.

Explaining the adoption of innovation: an empirical analysis of public management reform

Innovation has become a cornerstone of many government programmes of public management reform. In this study we provide the first empirical analysis of innovation adoption in a programme of public management reform that involves an external authority decision. Studies of this nature have not formed a central element of innovation-adoption research, which typically focuses upon the voluntary adoption of innovations by public organisations. Over a two-year period seventy-nine services adopting a programme of innovative management in local government were studied. The empirical results indicate that innovation adoption in local authorities is likely to be achieved where there are dispersed populations, where adoption is concentrated upon a limited number of services, and where there is prior experience of facets of the programme of innovative management reform. Explanations of these results are identified and the implications of researching innovation in public organisations are considered.

The Changing Management of Social Housing: The Impact of Externalisation and Managerialisation

The paper examines how the New Public Management (NPM) project has reshaped housing management in England and Wales. Historical tensions concerning the nature and scope of housing management, and its recent establishment as a public sector profession, have been exacerbated by NPM. In particular, the two central NPM processes of externalisation and managerialisation have led to the provision of new social housing by housing associations and the development of rationalistic management. By exploring the changing nature of housing management in externalised housing associations, the paper illustrates the complex ways in which property and welfare-based approaches to housing management are being played out. It is argued that managerialism has worked to define core business and a property-based approach at the expense of aspects of personal and welfare-based services. This process is being intensified by new technologies as seen through the development of call centres. Housing associations and the regulator have sought to recapture some aspects of the welfare approach to housing management to provide services to increasingly welfare-dependent tenants. However, the paper concludes that the tensions between the property and welfare approaches are likely to lead to the domination of a property-based approach because of the ongoing managerial and external pressures on housing associations.

The impact of management on administrative and survey measures of organizational performance

Abstract We review ninety-two studies of public service performance, and analyse in detail those that model the impact of management on both administrative and survey measures of performance. Our review indicates that administrative data typically reflect the performance judgements of government and regulators, while survey data reflect those of citizens, service users and public managers. Analysis of the eleven articles that use administrative and survey performance measures reveals limited differences in the impact of management variables on both types of performance measure. However, management variables appear to have a stronger link with the performance judgements of service consumers than managers themselves.

Exploring The Diffusion Of Innovation Among High And Low Innovative Localities

Abstract Berry and Berry (1999, 2007) argue that diffusion of policy innovations is driven by learning, competition, public pressure or mandates from higher levels of authority. We undertake a first time analysis of this whole framework and present three sub-studies of innovation. First, we examine the drivers of total innovation. Second, we assess whether the factors influencing the most innovative localities are similar to or different from the factors impacting the low localities. Finally, we disaggregate total innovation into three different innovation types. Our findings, undertaken on a panel of English local governments over four years, reveal that a majority of the diffusion drivers from innovation and diffusion theory are indeed positively significant for total innovation. However, local authorities that adopt higher and lower levels of innovation than predicted do things differently while the framework has limited applicability to types of management innovation. We concluded that the Berry and Berry model is best suited to the analysis of total innovation, but not as well suited to the analysis of different types of innovation. We also outline a research agenda that might better explain the diffusion of public policy and public management innovation types than is captured by current literature.