Obstacles to the Policy Innovation in the Public Sector - Coursework Example

Obstacles to the Policy Innovation in the Public Sector Name Institution Obstacles to the Policy Innovation in the Public Sector Introduction In the 21st century, innovation has many challenges in public sector than in the private sector. Public sector is usually defined as institutionalized or government organizations which is attributed of having a history of the path dependency and routinization (Lewis & Ricard, 2014, p.2). Albury (2005, p.51) argued that innovation is vital for the enhancement of services, hence it should be institutionalized to add value in public organizations. Studies show that innovation has highly thrived in the private sector. The fast technological advancement in the private sector has created opportunity companies to create new products, improve processes and conduct business (Borins, 2002, p. 467). However, in the public sector, the situation has not been the same as studies shows that innovation has really lagged behind. The conventional perception concerning the situation is that innovation in the public sector is often a virtual oxymoron (Borins, 2002, p. 467). Therefore, this essay will review various literatures to discuss various obstacles to the policy innovation in the public sector and recommend how they can be addressed. Obstacles to innovation policy In the public sector, there is a desire for one fits all, more heterogeneous and diverse economy of 24 hours in seven days, which can provide better services (Considine, Lewis & Alexander, 2009, p.87). Management theorists argue that this can only be made possible through innovation. However, this has been achieved in the private sector, but not in public sector. Several reasons have been given as to why innovation in public sector has stalled. In other words, there are numerous obstacles to innovation policy in this sector. The Public choice hypothesis holds that the agencies in this public sector are always monopolies which have no pressure or competition to innovate (Borins, 2002, p. 467). In most cases, the government uses their power to stop private investors who wants to produce similar products or services. As such, competition is eliminated and monopoly is created. In some circumstance, the ruling party uses its majority numbers in parliament to pass regulatory laws which stop private investors from venturing in some industries (Mulgan and Albury, 2003, p.36). Studies show that energy sector, particularly power generation, road constructions, provision of water and airline industry are some of the most regulated sectors making policy innovation less achievable. Political scientists also argue that opposition parties and media curiosity in exposing the public organization failures creates major obstacle to policy innovation (Borins, 2002, p. 467). In many cases, media and the opposition view innovation as a way of creating corruption loophole by the government. Most media are owned by private investors who have a personal interest in government projects. In most cases, the media wants to be involved in public relation activities and advertisements. When they fail to get such tenders, they can resort painting the government in bad light. Similarly, Osborne and Brown (2005, p.76) asserted that some media identify with the opposition parties and would do everything to see government projects fails. Such media and opposition scrutiny the reports tend to concentrate on the risks, failures and shortcomings of the innovation. Hartley (2012, p.112) pointed out that people criticizing the innovation do not focus on the project that is assisting the majority, but rather on the minority who faces problems. A lopsided concentration on such action can result in major perceptions and claims of public sector ineptitude and incompetence. Such publicity to public criticism often works as a powerful discouragement for risk taking or research and again creates a notion that there is a need to cautiously manage and control the innovation in the public sector. Media such as Fox News had been accused by the government of siding with opposition to criticize government projects. Borins (2002, p.471) claimed that opposition parties often understand that if public sector innovation sails through, then it will give the government the political mileage. In that way, they will always fail to recognize the benefits and value of innovation in public sector. When a controversy is raised by the media and opposition, the government would eventually stop the innovation so as to win the public trust. Bureaucracy is another factor which sets barrier to innovation in public sector (Evans, et al., 2012b, p.3). Organizational sociologists argued that firms within the public sector normally have rooted bureaucracy structure which is normally resist change or disrupts innovation. The bureaucracy concept often perceived as being similar with inefficiency, government and inertia. While numerous current public or government institution have bureaucracies, it must be recalled that bureaucratic structure had in the past been an initiative of the private sector initiative which was originally created to increase efficiency and productivity in private firms. Bason (2010, p.53) claimed that, it was later adopted by governments in the 20th century. Some of the attributes of this structure are that, it is hierarchical, rigid and full of routinization which are a problem in themselves. Whereas technology is considered an efficient driver of change agenda, its effect on the public sector is confined to particular features which strongly embedded in the practices and structure of governance. In his research, Weber noted that organization within the public sector is normally rule-based and process-oriented hence innovation is slowed down (Lewis & Ricard, 2014, p.5). The rules and processes are attributed to the fact that such organizations maintain direct control and power at the top of the chain of command. The structure of public organization are always very long and communication and decision making for change takes time to reach the bottom of the hierarchy hence delayed innovation process. In public organization, work is separated into specific duties and routinized. Public companies are usually called institutionalized within innovation literature or texts and typified by instilling a culture of path dependency and routinization. In addition, they are regularly associated with a formal hierarchical arrangement of the Weberian bureaucracy. Lewis and Ricard (2014, p.7) contended that such routinization needed to conform to a wide-ranging collection of administrative regulations and rules, which in fact limited decision-making power among the managers. The intention was to make sure that “bureaucratic power” in this context public sector executives served honestly and devoid of partiality. Furthermore, Max Weber noted that the efficiency of the bureaucratic structure and culture depended mostly on the degree to which irrational and personal emotions such as ambition, jealousy and greed were eliminated from the business operations of the organization. Most managers are jealous that when one of the executives succeeds with an innovation process, he or she might get promotion or favours from the top management (Osborne & Brown, 2005, p.24). As such, other are determined to reduce ambitions of their colleagues. Similarly, when one manager pushes for change and succeeds, others who have not succeeded before will look as incompetent and could even face the sack. Management research demonstrates that human being is naturally afraid of change based on its impact. Evans (2010, p.18) said that while some managers wants innovative culture based on high technology and “smart” organization, most public firms operate in an organizational culture which is aligned with the traditional roles of the organization and less innovation. Therefore, a change creates uncertainty. Employees of these organizations feel uncomfortable and could be disoriented from their comfort zone. Such circumstances can lead to employees’ resistance to innovation. Osborne and Brown (2005, p.77) claimed that new culture also brings fear of the unknown and as a result can lead to employees’ resistance. Corruption in the public sector creates a hurdle to innovation. In most cases, public sector is prone to corruption from senior to junior officials. Corruption forms the whole process of innovation. Officers in this sector normally create an innovation process so as to siphon funds from the project so as to divert into their personal accounts. Bason (2010, p.5) contended that the managers come up with innovation initiative and outsource the process to an external firm. Firms who bid the tender, sometimes are forced to bribe the government to win it. Innovation is often inflated to enable the public officers to squander funds for their personal interests. Public administrators misappropriate even the funds meant to complete the innovation making the process to stall (Evans, 2010). Moreover, when corruption leaks to the public it paints the public sector in the bad light, making the top official to stop the innovation so as to win public trust. Management literature holds that distribution of the resources, funding and resource dependency in the public sector has a negative effect on innovation practices. Innovative tasks require financial resources. Improvement and Development Agency (2005) posited that inflexible financial support in the public sector is a major problem. The inflexibility is caused by centralization alignment principles and attributes of level of power. Borins (2006, p. 30) claimed that conventionally, public sector fund innovation using cost savings or budgetary slack owing to better efficiency. The complexity with such modes of financing is uncertainty which comes with it. Budgets are read every year by the government hence innovation gets short-term planning and budgets. Innovation, on the other hand, can take a long time hence need for long term budget. For instance, construction of road, land reclamation, building of stadiums, and construction of hospitals normally takes time and may exceed one year hence short term budgets makes such projects unachievable. It means short–term budgets and planning deprive public organization resources to become innovative (Evans, 2012a). Funds for innovation are distributed by national treasury of a country. The process of allocating funds takes a long time to reach the organization and managers in charge hence delaying the innovation. Therefore, resource dependence on treasury is bad for innovation. Traditionally, public sector finance moves through rigid plans which have a comprehensive approach on what project and the length of time they are likely to support it (Bason, 2010, p. 23). Once the funds have been focused to defined project and timeline, it is difficult to prolong the financial support money. Management attributes short-term planning and budgets to the election arrangement of countries. Countries have different length of term of governments; while others are four others are five years. Within that term government normally wants to start innovation in every sector when the time is in fact shorter. The short term in office, therefore justifies short term budgets for innovation. Poor skills are an obstacle to innovation in public sector (Albury, 2005, p.55). Skills imply to knowledge, personality, communication and technical competence to carry out innovation. In major cases, public organizations are filled with political appointees rather than using human resource management approach. In other words, political leaders of the government reward their loyal supporters and campaign official by appointing them to head public firms. The appointments are done without looking at the merit. It means most employees lack innovative minds to instill an innovation culture. This is why people in public offices tend to reject change. A research done by Evans (2010, p.14) established that public employees might be afraid of potential consequences hence do not lean towards acting innovatively. In some instances, top leaders tend to appoint people who pursued courses for vacant position but lacks innovative mind and experience to drive change agenda. The strategy is to hoodwink the public the appointee is qualified, but in the real sense, he or she lacks the required skills and the due process is not followed. A case in point is the appointment of Rex Tillerson as the US’ state secretary by US president Donald Trump. Tillerson is by profession a production engineer with zero or no experience in the Public sector. Tiller had been the CEO of ExxonMobil and supporter of the Republican Party. Public sector also has few incentives or rewards for innovations (Albury, 2005, p.55). Officers who innovate are considered patriots with no need for reward. The rewards take many forms including encouragement, promotion and financial incentives. Management experts consider scaling up the innovations as a significant process of guaranteeing coverage and sustainability of the effective change initiatives. Albury (2005, p.55) stated that scaling up process entails expanding effective pilot innovation to a bigger scale, creating capacities to create sustainability. Due to lack of encouragement, motivation and financial support, innovative public officers sometimes cross over to work in private sector where they feel their talent and innovativeness is valued (Evans, M. et al., 2012b). Unlike public sector, innovative personnel in private sector are well remunerated and treated to ensure they do not leave the company. Another notable obstacle to public sector innovation is the availability of technology as well as constraining organizational culture and cultural set up (Albury, 2005, p.55). In the 21st century, many public sector organizations are adopting technology in their operation. The exercise is aimed automating their operation and improving service delivery. Despite the rush to adopt technology in public organizations, its integration and use is constrained by organizational structure and culture. Borins (2002, p.) claimed that the structure of the public organization has been rigid and rule based, making integration of technology even difficult. Similarly, the organizational culture is where members have been treated to paper work and no knowledge of technology. The paper work culture has been entrenched into public organization to the extent that communication is majorly done using memos while the company companies large information in physical files. The culture has also created a situation where government job applications are sent using physical addresses rather than email. The people are ingrained in such practices to a degree that they would not want to hear about the vchange process. Therefore, the adoption of technology has been slowed because it is yet to be fully accepted in public governance circles (Australian Government, 2017). In fact, firms in public have been slow to detach from failing culture or closing down less beneficial programs. This also translates to slow innovation process in this sector. Management literatures have also discovered that over-dependence on few performers as drivers of innovation as an obstacle to innovation in public sector (Albury, 2005, p.55). Even though public sector is dominated by poor skilled personnel, there are few innovative employees who have always in the forefront if the little innovation that have taken place over the years in this sector. The top management has always relied on the few innovative staff to provide new product or services. However, since the culture is not promoted within the organization, form of over-reliance on few innovative members. With meager salary and less motivation, innovative staffs have sometimes to seek employment work in private sector where they can get well remuneration and other attractive incentives (Australian National Audit Office, 2009). The process makes the started innovation to stall, leaving change management in disarray. Therefore, over-dependence high performers are a hurdle to innovation. Addressing the obstacles Despite facing several obstacles to innovate, public services companies have several intervention strategies to address such hurdles. One of the ways to do this is to eliminate the monopoly and allow the organization in the sector to compete (Borins, 2002, p.467). The government will need to regulate the growth of monopoly power in public organizations. This approach extends to allowing private companies to produce similar goods as public ones but within the confines of the law. The strategy is to make public companies innovate and compete with private organization. Hartley (2012, p.27) opined that the public requires supporting public-private company partnerships. It implies that public organization should involve private companies in their project to make them successful. Some of the public companies which are successful have been privatized. Private companies bring expertise and competition into the project. Some governments have sought innovation by awarding construction tenders to private firms to help them build sustainable roads, hospitals and generation of power. The public sector can remove obstacles to innovation by doing away with bureaucracy. Elimination of bureaucracy can be done by setting rules and creating new organizational structure (Albury, 2005, p.53). Many public firms experience redundant bureaucratic procedures referred to as red tape and regulatory requirements that disrupt innovations. Evans, (2010, p.11) argued that many rules or regulations do not guarantee better control since they cannot replace competence, character and common sense. To reduce the red tape or bureaucracy, reviewing and changing existing is needed so as to incorporate innovation. Bureaucracy is also known for tall, complex and rigid organizational structure. Such arrangements slow the operation and communication within an organization. With innovative culture, Hartley (2005, p.30) asserted that managers set up flexible structures geared which can adapt and respond rapidly to the external influences and factors. Matrix structure is highly encouraged because it eliminates many middle level managers hence increases the speed of decision making and flow of information from top to down level of the organization. Innovative culture also emphasize on forming teams to carry out various projects (Considine, Lewis & Alexander (2009, p.43). Teams are important because members normally come up with new ideas which can be improved and implemented by the whole project team. Citizen-centered culture should highly be encouraged to enhanced innovation (Evans, et al., 2012a). It is the citizens who know what they want and without consulting them, the public will be operating in futility. In this age of good governance, engagement of citizens in policy and service delivery is vital to the attainment of the social progress. When public participation is allowed, the project is localized and the citizens feel they own it (Australian National Audit Office, 2010). Furthermore, doubts of corruption are often removed innovation project where citizen participation is encouraged. Media and opposition parties should also be allowed to citizen engagement to ask questions about the innovation. Public participation session enables the citizens to raise questions such as resources needed, the length of the innovation and how they stand a chance to benefit (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Art, 2010). This act of public accountability reduces criticism during operation and allows the project to run into conclusion (Evans, 2012a). Rewards and incentive for innovative employees is vital to innovation in public sector. According to Osborne and Brown (2005, p. 103) rewards and incentive shows management support towards innovation. An employee who is motivated feels valued and works ensuring performance improvement. Leadership style plays an important role in creating rewards and incentive to innovators (Australian National Audit Office, 2010). Hiring transformative leaders from the private sector to work in public sector is critical to innovation enhancement. Therefore, as much as a Trump move to hire Rex Tillerson to head state secretary office has been criticized, it is good for public sector. Conclusion The objective if this report was to analyze various factors that remain an obstacle to innovation in public sector and advice on how to address them to encourage change. Some of the discussed obstacles to innovation includes the monopoly of public organization, bureaucracy, few rewards and incentives, availability of technology but constraining organizational culture and cultural set up, poor skills and resource dependency and poor planning. The situation has made public companies to lag behind in terms of the development thus affecting the general public. To help reduce the obstacle that emerges, the paper recommends that elimination of monopoly, bureaucracy, training and public participation among others. However, the transformative style of leadership in the public sector remains the best bet to making the organizations compete with the private sector in terms of innovation. References Albury, D. (2005). Fostering innovation in public services. Public Money and Management, 25 (1), 51-56. Australian National Audit Office. (2009). Better Practice Guide – Innovation in the Public Sector. Retrieved 11th April 2017 from http://www.apo.org.au/research/innovation-public-sector-better-practice-guide Australian National Audit Office. (2010). Public Sector Innovation – detailed case study material from agencies. Supplement to the ANAO’s Better Practice Guide. Australian Government. (2017). Public Sector Innovation Toolkit. Retrieved 11 April 2017 from http://innovation.govspace.gov.au/ Bason, C. (2010). Leading public sector innovation. Bristol, Policy Press. Borins, S. (2002). Leadership and innovation in the public sector. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 23(8), 467-476. 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