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LIMITS ON INNOVATIVENESS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT: EXAMINING CAPACITY, COMPLEXITY, AND DYNAMISM IN ORGANIZATIONAL TASK ENVIRONMENTS
Author(s) -
WALKER RICHARD M.,
BERRY FRANCES S.,
AVELLANEDA CLAUDIA N.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/padm.12159
Subject(s) - dynamism , task (project management) , politics , business , government (linguistics) , local government , service (business) , industrial organization , marketing , economics , political science , management , public administration , philosophy , physics , law , linguistics , quantum mechanics
Theory and evidence on the diffusion and antecedents of innovation in public organizations demonstrate that organizations respond to their environment and react by being more or less innovative. However, questions about the limits of responses to organizational task environments remain unexplored: in short, what is the appropriate level of environmental capacity and when does the environment become too complex or dynamic for innovation to occur? This study examines non‐linear capacity, complexity, and dynamic environments in an archival panel of 405 English local governments using primary and secondary data from a number of sources. Findings indicate that non‐linearities effect perceived innovativeness in relation to political and social capacity, and political dynamism in an inverted U shape, and in a U shape for community capacity. The implications of these findings for the study of public service innovation are considered.