Explorative and exploitative innovation and the organizational environment in the public sector

Abstract

Purpose

There are currently no tools to diagnose the extent to which the existing climate in the public institution is suitable for innovation. This paper aims to propose an instrument for measuring the extent to which the environment around teams is conducive to innovation – being original in presenting it in two dimensions: stimulating exploitation (incremental improvement) and stimulating exploration (disruptive innovation). The proposal’s basic framework is a legal instrument from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed methodological approach consisted of an instrument (survey) proposed by the authors to analyze the extent to which the environment around teams is conducive to innovation (types and depths of innovations stimulated) using an analytical framework based on academic literature and the Declaration on Public Sector Innovation (OECD, 2019). This methodological approach was applied to a Brazilian public organization (Special Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil).

Findings

The application of the methodological proposal in the Brazilian public organization showed the potential of the instruments used to diagnose the types and depths of innovations stimulated by middle management. The sample analyzed showed satisfactory results in terms of the reliability and convergent validity of the proposed model.

Research limitations/implications

In addition, the analytical framework and methodological procedures proposed in this work make it possible to highlight the positioning of the existing environment in public sector organizations and the respective innovations stimulated by it. There are limitations diagnosed in this study, such as analysis of only one body and one position (one-off); use of part rather than all of the Team Climate Inventory questions (Anderson and West, 1996, 1998); classification of the environment for exploitative or explorative innovations, with several intermediate gradations made up of both types and depths of innovation. However, these limitations are also related to the lack of studies on the facets of innovation in the public sector. It is therefore believed that with further studies, using the proposed instrument, these incentives for innovation and their results – in the public sector – can be better understood.

Practical implications

The research findings indicate that exploitative innovations are being prioritized to the detriment of explorative ones in the agency. Concentrating on already consolidated internal knowledge – without deeply exploring unusual ideas or innovations and/or involving external partnerships is incompatible with the instability of the environment that currently surrounds the public sector.

Social implications

In general, in public institutions, exploitative innovations contribute to the performance of one of the internal processes in the organization, however, their benefits cannot be quantified by the public, e.g. time taken between the start and end of a demand from the end user, time taken to fill in a mandatory declaration, queues for service or digital services offered. This disadvantage makes it difficult for society to promote accountability and monitoring of spending and the benefits of innovations in public bodies.

Originality/value

The analytical framework and survey proposed for the analysis of the extent to which the environment around teams is conducive to innovation (types and depths of innovations stimulated) – in public organizations – seek to offer an original and specific methodological instrument for examining the conditions for explorative and exploitative innovation in the public sector.

Citation

Nadal, J.J. and Vasconcellos Sobrinho, M. (2024), "Explorative and exploitative innovation and the organizational environment in the public sector", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2024-4409