What Drives Innovation Among Managers within Public Human Service Agencies?

Background & Purpose: Whether in traditional bureaucratic or market-oriented settings, human service organizations (HSOs) are increasingly expected to innovate. Technological advances, increased competition for funding and accountability demands have underscored the need to innovate to streamline performance (Walker et al., 2004). These pressures have challenged managers to identify how to adapt to changing environments and increase workers’ ability to innovate (Jaskyte, 2010). Yet few studies have examined innovation drivers among public human service managers, and none have examined innovative managerial practice along the spectrum of lower- to upper-level managers. This study analyzed quantitative data from public human service managers to examine the relationship between managerial innovation and three individual-level predictors: (a) responsiveness to change; (b) interest in professional training and development; and (c) perceived helpfulness of evidence-informed practice (EIP) work networks. 

 

Methods: An online survey of executives, middle managers, and supervisors in 11 California county HSOs was conducted in June 2013. From 958 agency staff invited to participate, 497 completed the survey (52% response rate). Regarding the dependent variable, respondents were coded as being innovative in their approach to human service work if they strongly agreed with two statements: “I often search for new ideas to use in my work”; and “I make use of new ideas when people send me interesting information”. For the predictors, responsiveness to organizational change was measured through an additive scale of the number of strategies managers would use if they noticed a major change in the organization (e.g., large increase or decrease in client population). Strategies included surveying coworkers and reviewing agency reports. Interest in professional development was measured as respondents’ interest in attending trainings on EIP and a part-time professional degree program. Regarding helpfulness of EIP work networks, respondents rated on a 5-point Likert scale how helpful they found talking and learning from co-workers with experience in EIP. A binary variable was constructed=1 if the practitioner reported “Strongly Agree” on each statement. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted that controlled for individual socio-demographic factors as well as potential clustering across county agencies. 

Results: Descriptively, 38% of managers were classified as having an innovative approach to their work. Multivariate regression analyses showed that manager innovativeness was significantly associated with two main predictors: Perceived responsiveness to change (OR=1.27, p=0.000) and helpfulness of EIP work networks (OR=1.61, p=0.010). However, socio-demographic factors were not significantly associated with the outcome variable.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that the individual motivational characteristics of responsiveness to organizational change and perceived helpfulness of EIP work networks may play significant roles in promoting an innovative managerial workforce. This study addresses an important question as practitioners’ interest and use of new approaches to their work have been associated with higher uptake of evidence-based practices. Increased innovation within HSOs could be promoted through managerial practices such as job performance measurement tools that include factors shown to be associated with innovation. In addition, managerial efforts could be directed to strengthen communication and resources to support EIP networks within and across work units.