Innovative Work Behaviour. How managers ensure the implementation of innovation in public service organizations.

For many public organizations innovation has become a widely recognized approach for changing and developing the organization. However, for innovation to become effective it must be implemented. The implementation of... [ view full abstract ]

For many public organizations innovation has become a widely recognized approach for changing and developing the organization. However, for innovation to become effective it must be implemented. The implementation of innovation is important at all organizational levels – it encompasses the behaviour of both managers and employees. In order to ensure the implementation of innovation, public managers must pay close attention to the behaviour of the employees. This paper focuses on how and to which extend innovation is implemented into public service organizations, by examining the innovative work behaviour of the employees in a particular empirical setting.

Innovative work behaviour has become an important concept in the literature on innovation. Theories on managing change and innovation in public service organizations would suggest that managers have several possibilities when ensuring the implementation of innovation. There is, however, still a gap (both empirical and theoretical) in the literature on how managers can contribute to and strengthen the employees’ innovative work behaviour in public service organizations.

Therefore, we focus on the following research questions. Which management strategies are public managers using in order to create more innovative work behaviour? How do public managers create an innovative climate in the organization which affects the innovative work behaviour positively?

In this paper we examine the implementation of innovation in a large Danish municipality. A single department (Department for Children and Young people) was chosen to minimize the contextual variation. The paper builds on a mixed methods approach using qualitative interviews and a survey distributed to more than 2300 managers and employees. This design presents a unique opportunity to conduct a multi-level analysis of the possibilities for managers at different organizational levels to affect the implementation of innovation through the innovative work behaviour of the employees.