Internal and external antecedents of process innovation: A review and extension

Evidence shows that public organizations regularly implement new services and service delivery methods. These innovations occur in response to changes in the external environment – deregulation, resource scarcity and customer demands – and are based on internal organizational choices, such as perceived performance gaps, pursuit of a higher level of aspiration and increasing the extent and quality of services (Aiken and Alford, 1970; Borins, 1998; Light, 1999; Osborne and Brown, 2005). The evidence base on the factors influencing the adoption and implementation of innovation is longstanding (Mohr, 1969) and has been growing in public organizations over recent years (Berry, 1994; Borins, 1998; Light, 1999; Newman et al., 2000; Wu et al., forthcoming). It is important to take stock of the antecedents of innovation, to integrate and synthesize the existing knowledge and to identify a research agenda that populates the gaps in the evidence base.