Rethinking the effect of risk aversion on the benefits of serviceinnovations in public administration agencies
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Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
elsevier
Abstract
tThis study applies a holistic approach grounded in configurational theory to a sample of 2505 innova-tive public administration agencies in Europe to explore the effect of organizational risk aversion on thebenefits from service innovations. The analyses, using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA),identify several combinations of strategies (varying by the agency size and the novelty of innovation) thatmanagers in risk-averse agencies can use to work effectively around the risks of innovating. The findingsshow that the managers of both high and low risk-averse agencies can achieve high benefits from theirinnovation efforts, but their strategizing behaviors differ. An integrated strategy that combines collab-oration, complementary process and communication innovations, and an active management strategyto support innovation is the most effective method for ‘low-risk-averse’ small agencies and ‘high-risk-averse’ larger agencies to obtain high benefits from either novel or incremental service innovations. Ourresults point to the need to rethink the conventional assumption that a culture of risk aversion in publicsector agencies is a cause of management ineffectiveness and a stumbling block to innovation success.
Description
practical
Keywords
Risk aversionPublic, servicesService, innovationsInnovation, benefitsStrategiesConfigurational, theorya
Citation
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2017.03.009