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Innovation, voice, and hierarchy in the public sector: Evidence from Ghana's civil service
Author(s) -
Williams Martin J.,
YecaloTecle Liah
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/gove.12472
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , hostility , government (linguistics) , hierarchy , public sector , public relations , public service , service (business) , constraint (computer aided design) , resistance (ecology) , sociology , qualitative property , political science , business , marketing , psychology , social psychology , politics , engineering , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , law , biology , mechanical engineering , machine learning , computer science
Research on innovation in government often focuses on ideas introduced by senior leaders or managers, but ideas from public servants themselves are an important and underexplored channel for improving performance in government bureaucracies. We provide new evidence on the potential for bottom‐up work process innovation, using data from 744 individual and team innovation plans and 51 qualitative interviews in Ghana's civil service. In contrast to common negative stereotypes of developing country bureaucrats, most officials do have meaningful ideas for improving performance. However, the overwhelming constraint to voicing these ideas is hostility by supervisors to new ideas from their subordinates. We argue that this anecdotally common yet understudied behavior is consistent with theories of psychological attachment to hierarchy rather than alternative theories rooted in material, structural, or cultural resistance to employee voice and innovation. We discuss implications for bottom‐up work process innovation in government and interventions to promote it.