Fostering an innovative climate in public organizations: Exploring the role of strategic leadership

This study argues that the role of innovation in public sector organizations seems ambiguous. On the one hand, innovation is acknowledged as a core activity for public organizations, because, as previous studies have shown innovation is crucial for their success. On the other hand, public organizations are not known for their innovative capacity. This study centers on the role strategic leadership plays in fostering an innovative climate in a public organization and, by doing so, in contributing to its innovative capacity. We conducted semi-structured interviews with top managers of a public organization to explore whether and how they affect, intentionally or not, the innovative climate through their leadership activities. Preliminary findings show that freedom, risk-taking behavior and intrinsic motivation are important dimensions of an innovative climate in public organizations. Moreover, top managers aim to foster an innovative climate by giving employees trust and encourage them to develop new ideas. However, although top managers acknowledge that bottom-up initiatives are important for innovation, they promote top-down mechanisms to control and supervise employees.