TY - JOUR
T1 - Innovating and optimizing in public organizations: does more become less?
AU - Gieske, Hanneke
AU - George, Bert
AU - van Meerkerk, Ingmar
AU - van Buuren, Arwin
PY - 2019/9/3
Y1 - 2019/9/3
N2 - To enhance public service performance (PSP), public organizations are challenged to
optimize and innovate their processes, techniques, policies and services. But can
public organizations go too far when innovating and optimizing? Based on survey
data from Dutch water authorities, we show that optimization initially contributes
more to PSP than innovation, but its contribution is curvilinear: the impact of
optimization becomes smaller the more optimization is conducted. The relation
between innovation and PSP is, however, linear. Based on additional qualitative
data, we show that ambidextrous water authorities run less risk of over-optimizing
and use integrative strategies to deal with innovation-optimization tensions.
AB - To enhance public service performance (PSP), public organizations are challenged to
optimize and innovate their processes, techniques, policies and services. But can
public organizations go too far when innovating and optimizing? Based on survey
data from Dutch water authorities, we show that optimization initially contributes
more to PSP than innovation, but its contribution is curvilinear: the impact of
optimization becomes smaller the more optimization is conducted. The relation
between innovation and PSP is, however, linear. Based on additional qualitative
data, we show that ambidextrous water authorities run less risk of over-optimizing
and use integrative strategies to deal with innovation-optimization tensions.
U2 - 10.1080/14719037.2019.1588356
DO - 10.1080/14719037.2019.1588356
M3 - Article
ER -