Understanding innovation in local government: Evidence from an Italian case study

Innovation is considered to be a key to success in both private and public sector organizations and has been studied for a long time. In the broad sense, innovation has been defined as the process by which new products or... [ view full abstract ]

Innovation is considered to be a key to success in both private and public sector organizations and has been studied for a long time. In the broad sense, innovation has been defined as the process by which new products or techniques are introduced by an individual or a social entity. Following this definition, authors have proposed to distinguish between innovations that affect the development of a new product or technology and those that change the organization’s rules, structures, roles and processes. On this issue, several studies have concentrated on the characteristics of people and organizations which affect innovation.
However, while there is a large literature on how innovations occur in organizations, there is still much to know about what makes some public administrations more innovative than others. In particular, the diffusion of innovations among governments in different political and institutional settings has been much less studied than diffusion among organizations more broadly. This issue also raises the question of how important is politics in government innovation.
This paper analyze a case of innovation in Italian local government that has been recognized by Italian innovation awards in order to shed light on how innovation occurs and can be developed in a context of several constraints. An exploratory case study approach is used in order to identify relevant patterns of innovation within the organization and the related influencing factors conducting to the success. Since the study is aimed to give value in a comparative perspective in the first phase specific criteria will be set in order to favor prospective comparison with other international cases. The case analysis will based on desk analysis and semi-structured interviews with key actors.

Keywords: innovation; local government; leadership; public management