Key Factors Influencing Innovation In Government

This paper represents the first step in an effort to answer three questions: If innovation occurred in patterns, (1) What would be the most important factors? (2) What would be the patterns? (3) What would be their implications? Using a multi-disciplinary systems approach, the paper integrates a number of relationships that affect innovation into three principal factors: the individual’s motivation related to the innovation, the culture within the workplace as influenced by its exterior environment, and the challenge presented by an innovation. This paper concludes by arguing that these three factors form patterns of behaviour in government, thereby setting the stage for a subsequent paper that develops a typology for innovation and presents cases illustrating the typology. An hypothesis for further exploration is developed. BACKGROUND How should innovation be conceptualized? This has been an important question for those who attempt to direct, to work within, and to understand organizations. While commonly recognizing that innovation is a mode of organizational change, and can be directed to some extent, philosophy, sociology, political science, social action theories, and systems theory have each had their impact. Such concepts as contextualism, population ecology, organizational life cycles, power i