Networks, Innovation and Public Policy: Politicians, Bureaucrats and the Pathways to Change Inside Government

Mark Considine, Jenny Lewis and Damon Alexander Networks, Innovation and Public Policy: Politicians, Bureaucrats and the Pathways to Change inside Government Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009Reviewed by Robyn KeastHaving wrung the most from workforce and workplace productivity initiaitves, innovation has come to the fore as a key goal and directive for public sector organisations to become more efficient. This clarion call for innovation can be heard all around the world, with public services everywhere taking up the message to develop better, smarter, novel, more innovative processes, programs and policies. In the current push for innovation, networks are considered to be a superior vehicle through which collective knowledge can be shared and leveraged; replacing or at least supplementing the role function previously provided by inventive leaders.While a number of studies (for example, Ferlie et al, 1984, Osborne, 1998; Damanpour, Walker and Avellanda, 2009; Walker, Jeans and Rowlands, 2001; Osborne and Brown 2005) have been undertaken to better understand and enhance innovation within the public arena, they have largely overlooked the detailed functioning of networks as innovation drivers or creators. This study by Considine et al. (2009) which examined the norms, practices and structures of innovation networks within the Australian public sector, represents a comparatively rare effort to interrogate this phenomenon and, in so doing, expand understandings of what constitutes and facilitates innovations through government-based networks.The book provides a timely departure from standard, single dimensional approaches through two means. First it synthesises governmental innovation with social network literature and concepts to account for the impact of institutionalised roles and rules on the interpersonal network at play in the innovation process. Second, the authors expertly draw upon and thread social network analysis maps and metrics throughout the text to transform abstract metaphors of innovation networks into more concrete examples, thus highlighting the varying patterns of relationship, exchange and structures in place and functioning within and across the public sectors. Social network analysis (SNA) is an empirical approach that uncovers the hidden topology of exchange patterns that occur between people and entities.Drawing on a substantial data set (qualitative and SNA) collected across eleven diverse municipalities in Victoria, Australia, the authors provide detailed and nuanced insights into the ways in which people and process interact to create innovation and innovation spaces. Therefore, while the introductory chapters, which provide the conceptual, theoretical and methodological foundations to the book, are instructive, the primary intellectual contribution is contained within the latter chapters. A deeper discussion and critique of the underpinning assumptions of how networks create innovation would provide a stronger argumentation in this preliminary section.In Chapter Four the authors set out the background or context within which innovation takes place - the preconditions. It also tracks the flows of information and advice-seeking that occurs between government actors, demonstrating the different network structures that abound as well as the different positions and roles that key innovators/actors occupy. The results distil a more complex picture of innovation creation than the linear models often presented, limiting the capacity for wholesale prescription of network forms and functions. …

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