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Part I
Introduction
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Chapter 1
Change and innovation in public service organizations
Planned and emergent phenomena
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter you should:
be clear about the approach of this text and its structure;
understand the difference both between innovation and change and between planned and emergent phenomena; and
have developed clear objectives for your own learning.
KEY POINTS OF THIS CHAPTER
The nature of public services, and of public service organizations (PSOs), have changed substantially around the world over the past twenty years. This has been a result in part of the increasingly volatile societal and political environment that they exist in and in part of the growing scarcity of public resources.
This changing environment has made it increasingly important for public service managers to engage in the management of change and innovation – and to be clear about the difference between these two phenomena.
Change and innovation can also be both planned and emergent phenomena – and again these two variants require different approaches to their management.
KEY TERMS
New Public Management (NPM) – an approach to managing public services that prioritizes managerial, as opposed to professional, skills and which includes resource and performance management at its heart.
Change – the gradual improvement and/or development of the existing services provided by a PSO and/or their organizational context. It represents continuity with the past.
Innovation – the introduction of new elements into a public service – in the form of new knowledge, a new organization, and/or new management or processual skills. It represents discontinuity with the past.
Planned phenomena – events that PSO managers can foresee and make strategic or tactical contingencies for.
Emergent phenomena – events that PSO managers cannot foresee and which arise because of unexpected changes in the environment.
Discontinuity – a characteristic that differentiates innovation from change and that represents a break from prior or existing service configurations and/or professional skills.
CHANGE AND INNOVATION IN PUBLIC SERVICES AND IN PUBLIC SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS
For much of the last century, public service organizations (PSOs) were the embodiment of stability. Invariably integrated as part of government as a whole, these organizations were classical Weberian hierarchical bureaucracies. The organizational emphasis was upon incremental growth and development and upon a planned approach to the administration of public services.
However, as the twentieth century drew to a close, this picture began to change. These classical public service bureaucracies had been well suited to a stable and slow-changing environment. A range of factors in the late twentieth century, though, conspired to change this environment. These factors are analysed in more detail in Chapter 2. However, the key changes included:
global economic changes which meant that PSOs could no longer rely upon steady incremental growth, and had instead to focus on the efficient and effective use of increasingly scarce resources;
a consequent growth of a managerial, rather than administrative, approach to the provision of public services, often called the
New Public Management, or
NPM (McLaughlin
et al. 2002);
demographic changes, particularly the ageing of the population in most countries;
changes in expectations as citizens became more sophisticated, requiring greater focus on choice and quality in the provision of public services; and
political changes, which marked a paradigmatic change against the hegemony of the state in meeting expressed public needs and towards more complex approaches which increasingly required the governance of multiple relationships between service providers.
These factors led to a change in nature of public services provision. Far from this role being the assumed priority of the state, it became increasingly a task undertaken by a range of organizations in what has become known as the plural state (Osborne and McLaughlin 2002). This comprises a range of PSOs from the government, non-profit and business sectors that need to collaborate in the provision of public services. The evolution of this plural state has also seen a shift, first from the administration of public services to their management – and then from their management to their governance, where the governance of plural relationships has become the central task for the provision of effective public services (Kickert et al. 1997).
All these developments have put a premium upon the skills of managing change and innovation in public services.
Change and innovation in public services
Change and innovation are over-lapping phenomena. However, it is important from the outset to be clear about where they converge and where they diverge – as well as their impact upon the management and delivery of public services (Box 1.1).
Change is a broad phenomenon that involves the growth and/or development of one or more of a number of elements of a public service. These include:
the design of the service;
the structure of PSOs providing it;
the management or administration of these PSOs; and/or
the skills required to provide and manage the public service.
By contrast, innovation is a specific form of change. Its nature is explored in more detail in Chapter 7. Put simply, however, innovation is discontinuous change.
Rather than representing continuity with the recent past it represents a break with the past. What had been acceptable or adequate for the provision of public services in the past will no longer be so – their provision will require new structures or skills that mark a break with this past experience. This discontinuity might involve the creation of a new organization, the meeting of a newly established need
(such as HIV/AIDS in the 198...
