Limits on innovativeness in local government: Examining capacity, complexity, and dynamism in organizational task environments

Richard M. WALKER, Frances S. BERRY, Claudia N. AVELLANEDA

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

37 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Theory and evidence on the diffusion and antecedents of innovation in public organizations demonstrate that organizations respond to their environment and react by being more or less innovative. However, questions about the limits of responses to organizational task environments remain unexplored: in short, what is the appropriate level of environmental capacity and when does the environment become too complex or dynamic for innovation to occur? This study examines non-linear capacity, complexity, and dynamic environments in an archival panel of 405 English local governments using primary and secondary data from a number of sources. Findings indicate that non-linearities effect perceived innovativeness in relation to political and social capacity, and political dynamism in an inverted U shape, and in a U shape for community capacity. The implications of these findings for the study of public service innovation are considered.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)663-683
Number of pages21
JournalPublic Administration
Volume93
Issue number3
Early online date2 Mar 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2015
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2014S1A3A2044630).

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