The Persistence of Innovation in Government by Sandford F Borins

Author:Sandford F Borins [Borins, Sandford F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Industries, Public Affairs & Administration, Political Science, American Government, General, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780815725619
Google: hKqeAwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 20724854
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2014-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

Source: Regression analysis performed by author and Elizabeth Lyons.

*p < .1; ** p < .05; ***p < .01.

a. t-statistics are in parentheses.

Duration of the program is positive and significant for transferability and awards, but not for media attention. Using the average duration of the semifinalist programs of 6.6 years, the average values of the transferability index (6.5) and the awards index (3), and their respective coefficients, I calculated elasticities at the means, which were .15 for both. This indicates that the extent of the impact of duration is not large. Innovations that have been in existence longer are slightly more likely to have been transferred and to have received awards. The effect of duration of the program on media attention might be insignificant because media attention for public management innovation has increased in recent years (see earlier discussion, pp. 118–19). There was simply less media attention available for older programs to attract.

Of the five most important achievement variables—operationalized theoretical model, enabled collaboration, educated the public about a problem, initiated a public discussion, and implemented the innovation well—the only one that is positive and significant for all three dependent variables is “operationalized a theoretical model.” To get a measure of the extent of its influence, I compared the impact of a change in “operationalized a theoretical model” from 0 to 1 (that is, a change from not having it to having it) to the average value of each index (6.5 for transferability, 3 for awards, and 2.7 for media), which involves simply dividing the regression coefficient by the mean. The impact was .36 for transferability, .33 for awards, and .30 for media, which indicates that operationalizing a theoretical model has a substantial influence on the three dependent variables. This variable may be significant because innovations based on a theoretical model possess a clear “philosophy” or informing idea that may often be controversial. If nothing else, the theoretical model endows the innovation with a clear identity or profile. This in turn may facilitate transfer, offering adopters a template to adapt and apply to their own situation. For the media, controversy of any sort is an attraction, so a controversial theory or method would make an innovation story that much more appealing. Judging panels are perhaps more likely to be drawn by the spectacle of a theoretical model being put into practice and certainly more likely to have the contextual knowledge to be engaged by any resulting theoretical debates. The variable “implemented the innovation well” is negative and significant once, for the transfer index. The three other achievement variables are never significant.

In contrast to the most important achievement variables, the nine outcome variables provide less clear patterns of influence. “Service is improving” and “program is receiving awards” are both positive and significant for the transfer index, but not for the other two indexes. Informal expressions of stakeholder support is positive and significant for the awards and media indexes, but not for the transfer index. The other outcome variables are never significant. Inspection of

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