Managerial innovations in central government: not wrong, but hard to explain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of managerial innovations in the public sector, identifying the reasons why their uptake and use may fail.Design/methodology/approach – The problem is investigated empirically through a case study approach. The change processes resulting from the adoption of two managerial innovations within the same Italian Central Government Institution are illustrated in detail.Findings – Both cases represent a failure in the adoption and use of managerial innovations, attributable to a complex interplay of external and organisational forces. The empirical investigation points out the relevancy of individuals' actions and choices. The real explanation for the failure of both projects in fact seems to be key individuals' inability: first to “make sense” of what the innovation was about and second to communicate this “sense” throughout the organisation.Research limitations/implications – The findings are based on data from the Italian Central Government, and ...

[1]  C. Hood.  The “new public management” in the 1980s: Variations on a theme , 1995 .

[2]  C. Hood.  A PUBLIC MANAGEMENT FOR ALL SEASONS , 1991 .

[3]  Mathew Tsamenyi,et al.  Changes in accounting and financial information system in a Spanish electricity company: A new institutional theory analysis , 2006 .

[4]  Jean Hartley,et al.  Case study research , 2004 .

[5]  C. Hardy.  Understanding Power: Bringing about Strategic Change , 1996 .

[6]  W. Powell,et al.  The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields , 1983 .

[7]  Irvine Lapsley,et al.  The NPM Agenda: Back to the Future , 2008 .

[8]  E. Vaara.  Post - acquisition integration as sensemaking: Glimpses of ambiguity , 2003 .

[9]  Andy Adcroft,et al.  The (un)intended outcome of public sector performance measurement , 2005 .

[10]  M. Lounsbury.  Institutional Rationality and Practice Variation: New Directions in the Institutional Analysis of Practice , 2007 .

[11]  C. Oliver.  STRATEGIC RESPONSES TO INSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES , 1991 .

[12]  Sven Modell,et al.  A process (re)turn?: Path dependencies, institutions and performance management in Swedish central government , 2007 .

[13]  Edward J. Zajac,et al.  Substance and Symbolism in CEOs' Long-Term Incentive Plans , 1994 .

[14]  Silvia Dorado,et al.  Institutional Entrepreneurship, Partaking, and Convening , 2005 .

[15]  G. Jan van Helden,et al.  Researching Public Sector Transformation: The Role of Management Accounting , 2005 .

[16]  Juhani Vaivio,et al.  Qualitative management accounting research: rationale, pitfalls and potential , 2008 .

[17]  Bruce G. Carruthers,et al.  Accounting, ambiguity, and the new institutionalism , 1995 .

[18]  R. Greenwood,et al.  Understanding Radical Organizational Change: Bringing Together the Old and the New Institutionalism , 1996 .

[19]  Trevor A. Williams,et al.  Top‐down organizational change in an Australian Government agency , 2008 .

[20]  Giovanni Valotti,et al.  Public management reform in Italy: explaining the implementation gap , 2008 .

[21]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[22]  M. Weggeman.  Sensemaking in organisations , 1996 .

[23]  Stephen P. Osborne,et al.  Lessons from the health sector for public management , 2002 .

[24]  Dennis A. Gioia,et al.  Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation , 1991 .

[25]  W. Powell,et al.  The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis , 1993 .

[26]  Linda Rouleau,et al.  Micro-Practices of Strategic Sensemaking and Sensegiving: How Middle Managers Interpret and Sell Change Every Day , 2005 .

[27]  Christopher Pollitt,et al.  CLARIFYING CONVERGENCE. Striking similarities and durable differences in public management reform , 2001 .

[28]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[29]  W. Seal,et al.  Management accounting and corporate governance: An institutional interpretation of the agency problem , 2006 .

[30]  Michael D. Shields,et al.  Budgeting Research: Three Theoretical Perspectives and Criteria for Selective Integration , 2003 .

[31]  Sven Modell,et al.  Performance measurement and institutional processes: a study of managerial responses to public sector reform , 2001 .

[32]  Raymond Saner,et al.  Beyond New Public Management. Answering the Claims of both Politics and Society , 2005 .

[33]  Ramón Valle-Cabrera,et al.  Reconciling institutional theory with organizational theories , 2006 .

[34]  A. Kouzmin,et al.  Managerialism : something old, something borrowed, little new economic prescription versus effective organizational change in public agencies , 1998 .