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Studies of subjective well-being (SWB) have increased in recent years. However, there is limited information on how employment in the public sector affects SWB. Using representative World Values Survey (WVS) data from Kazakhstan, this study analyzes how working in the public sector affects SWB and whether financial satisfaction mediates this relationship. The findings demonstrate that although a positive relationship exists between working in the public sector and financial satisfaction, working in the public sector does not affect SWB. In other words, public sector employment does not matter for SWB, although it matters for financial satisfaction. These findings offer insights into studies of SWB, particularly for less studied contexts, such as Central Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has affected the public sector significantly. However, since it is a recent event, its impact on employee productivity, especially the individual and organisational outcomes, is not well-studied. Using the 2020 data from the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC, n = 96,690), this study analyzes how the Australian Public Service (APS)'s changed working methods during COVID-19, especially the effect of five practices, has affected employee productivity. Findings suggest that team adaption, team effort, and organisational adaptation are positively associated with employee productivity, whereas managerial support and proactiveness are negatively associated with employee productivity. Interestingly, while the team effort has significantly enhanced the perceived productivity of employees, the proactiveness of the organisation to maintain new working methods led to a negative impact on productivity. This is surprising and indicative of the positive and negative impacts of the pandemic on employee productivity. A crucial implication of these findings is that intra-organisational responses to COVID-19, including at the team level and managerial level, have affected employee productivity in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing research into public sector innovation, there remains a need for more theory and evidence about the sources (actors) and outcomes (benefits) of innovation. Thus, this study examines the effects of four important sources of innovation (government, organizational leaders, employee workgroup, and members of the public) on the perceived organizational benefits of innovation in the public sector. Using survey data from the Australian Public Service (n = 3,775), the findings suggest that bottom-up innovations, particularly ideas emanating from the employee workgroup, are crucial for bringing about positive effects (as measured by decreasing costs, improving processes, and increasing service quality). In contrast, ideas emanating from organizational leaders are negatively associated with organizational benefits. Nevertheless, high-quality leadership moderates the adverse effects of top-down innovations. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings, as well as future research directions for the study of public sector innovation, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyse the role of national context in public sector innovation. Whilst there is a growing literature on innovation types in the public sector, prior studies have analysed data from a single country. Consequently, there is an incomplete understanding of the national context. Our comparative study examines 108 innovations from Italy, Japan and Turkey. The first stage of our empirical evidence uncovers a divergent configuration of innovation types. Further analysis of how national context was constructed by the innovators allows us to provide evidence for a national-context framework for public sector innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research utilising self‐determination theory (SDT) and, in particular, the concept of need satisfaction in public organisations has been increasing in recent years. At the same time, most studies are using insights from SDT, and are not really testing them. In fact, we still have limited knowledge on the outcomes of need satisfaction for civil servants. In this study, we aim to understand how need satisfaction affects the intrinsic motivation of civil servants, as well as their intention to leave the organisation in which they currently work. Using original data from 580 civil servants in Bhutan, this study finds that need satisfaction matters for intrinsic motivation and turnover intention. More specifically, this study finds that while need satisfaction has a positive effect on intrinsic motivation, it has a negative effect on turnover intention. Intrinsic motivation also mediates this relationship. To reduce turnover intention, policymakers may need to enhance public sector employees' need satisfaction and their intrinsic motivation. These findings are consistent with Bhutan's context, in which happiness and human connection and fulfilment are more important than economic values. Points for practitioners: Civil servants of Bhutan whose needs are satisfied are more likely to be intrinsically motivated and less likely to express an intention to quit their jobs.To reduce turnover intention, policymakers may need to enhance public sector employees' need satisfaction and their intrinsic motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborations between actors from different sectors (governments, firms, nonprofit organizations, universities, and other societal groups) have been promoted or mandated with increasing frequency to spur more innovative activities. This article argues that there is an essential gap in evaluating the issues of these collaborative arrangements on innovation and a need to theorize the costs of these arrangements systematically. This article identifies three implicit assumptions in current research that prevent a sound analysis of the costs of collaborative innovation and advances a new cost theory based on the integration of studies from several research fields and explanations provided by three main economic theories: transaction cost economics, game theory, and the knowledge-based view. In particular, four overarching factors are posited to impact the effectiveness of collaboration for innovation: governance (the number of collaborators and the hierarchical relationships among them); compactness (the degree of relationship formality that binds collaborators together); reliability (the quality of the relationships); and institutionalization (the extent to which the relationships have been pre-established by practice). We discuss the importance of leveraging these factors to determine an optimal governance structure that allows collaborating actors to minimize transaction, cooperation, and knowledge costs, and to reward participants proportionally to the cost they bear, in order to foster conditions of reciprocity, fair rates of exchange, and distributive justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only a handful of studies on innovation empirically analyze the links between firm innovation and the sources of that innovative activity of sources of innovation on types of innovation. To fill this gap in the literature, this study provides one of the first tests to identify how important sources of new information (suppliers, customers, other business people in the industry, workers, and university) are associated with types of innovations (product, process, and marketing). Data come from the 2014 National Survey of Business Competitiveness sponsored by the Economic Research Service at the United States Department of Agriculture (n  = 10,952). The results show that innovation ideas emanating from customers, workers, and universities are positively associated with all types of innovations, suggesting that these sources are critical for developing different types of innovation. In particular, universities as a source of innovation activity are especially important. In contrast, other sources, such as suppliers and people in industry do not seem to be as important as a source of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public organizations have long faced pressures to become more innovative and entrepreneurial. This has been accompanied by a shift from traditional bureaucratic structures toward public management networks, both in scholarship and practice. We use the example of the Australian public service and its emphasis on increased networking to examine whether increased networking behavior is associated with greater innovative work behaviors. In developing our theoretical model, we hypothesize that networking activities are positively related to innovative work behaviors but that too few or too many networked actors are negatively associated with innovative work behaviors. Our analysis finds that networking practices are, indeed, associated with greater levels of innovative work behaviors but that they differ between the type of stakeholders public managers engage with. In addition, we find only limited evidence of a curvilinear relationship between these two constructs. The article ends with implications for research and practice. Points for practitioners: Public organizations around the world are under pressure to become more innovative and collaborative. This is especially the case in the Australian public service. One way to achieve innovation is to encourage innovative work behaviors. We find that increased networking by public managers is associated with higher levels of innovative work behaviors. Contrary to our hypotheses, we find limited evidence of a curvilinear relationship between networking and innovative work behaviors, that is, too little or too much networking was not associated with reduced innovative work behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tests the effects of innovation climate on two major employee attitudes, employee job satisfaction and affective commitment, using 2017 Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) data (n = 83,943). The Australian Public Service (APS) is a suitable context because the APS prioritizes and is concerned with both innovative activities and employee attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and affective commitment). To develop hypotheses, this study applies insights from different theories, including perceived organizational support (POS), self-determination theory (SDT), empowerment, employee engagement, and job engagement. The empirical results of the structural equation models (along with robustness checks) demonstrate that innovation climate has a statistically significant and positive effect on both job satisfaction and affective commitment and that job satisfaction positively mediates this relationship. For policy makers, these findings suggest an innovation climate can be an important tool to increase employee job satisfaction and commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States' racial history infrequently defines the representativeness of bureaucracies outside of the United States. This article explores how selective historical memories and insufficiently critical concept importations limit disciplinary understandings. We articulate how policy transfer assumptions, narrow administrative histories, methodological Whiteness, and incomplete considerations of non‐West administration alter our understanding of what is or is not representative bureaucracy. We encourage scholars to recall how concepts like representative bureaucracy may lack exact comparability outside the West and to be open to its potential alteration by contextual circumstances. The implications for further exploration of the representative bureaucracy concept and the challenges for pedagogy are also discussed. Evidence for Practice: West‐derived hegemonic understandings of the public administration discipline limit the development of public administration practice and scholarship outside the West.Insufficient historical and comparative circumspection is a frequent output of West‐based scholars seeking to implement their concepts in non‐West administrations.The discipline and practice of public administration may increase its global dialogues by conversing with non‐West actors and recognizing the limitations of Western data and theories.Like many administrative concepts, the representative bureaucracy concept as developed in the West may not operate similarly in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the effects of senior leadership support and direct supervisor support on public sector innovation, and the degree to which these innovations are internally or externally targeted. Using the 2017 Australian Public Service (APS) survey (n = 79,946), our findings show that leadership support at both levels is positively associated with innovation. Additionally, most innovations are internally targeted, and leadership level does not correlate significantly with the innovation target. Our study contributes to current debates about the drivers and orientation of public sector innovation by unravelling and juxtaposing the effects of leadership at different levels in relation to innovation targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]