Building Theory of Organizational Innovation, Change, Fitness and Survival
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abbreviations:PS=Private sector, NPS=Non-profit sector, PSE=Public sector, PSO=public sector organization(s), G°C=Government of Canada, Sask.=Saskatchewan, NB=New Brunswick (Canadian provinces), PCS=Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, PHAC=Public Health Agency of Canada, fed=federal, prov=provincial, orgn=organization, prog=program, prog'g=programming, env=environment, coord'or=coordinator, sec't=secretariat, ad'g=advertising, infrastr=infrastructure, intern=international, empl'ee=employee, dept=department, govt=government, respy=responsibility, priv'd=privatized, prof=professional, para-prof= para-professional, legn=legislation, lg=large, ad=advertisementPrefaceWhile the demography and control factors of organizational mortality and survival have been addressed in the private (for-profit) sector and in the US federal government, there are many areas where it has not been addressed yet. In their theoretical paper on termination of public organizations, Adam, Bauer, Knill and Studinger (2007, p. 228) identify the need for comparative case studies to test theories of organizational termination and also comparisons across countries. Some researchers do not agree. Van de Ven, for example, considers that with ''N-of-1 studies . . . systematic comparative evidence can only be gained through trial-and-error experiments over time'' (Mohrman, 2011, p. 391).This book addresses both the need for more theory and the need for more case studies. It develops grounded theory of organizational mortality and survival based on the experience of nine case studies of innovation in four Canadian governments, and it compares these results to those in the private, non-profit and public sectors.Summarizing types of innovation research, Sandford Borins describes four themes: (1) What is happening at the leading edge of governance and public service, (2) Sustainability of innovations and the innovation life cycle, (3) Diffusion of innovations, and (4) Innovation and organizational performance. Continuous improvement is discussed under this topic (Borins, 2008, pp. 201-5). Borins does not include in his list the fate of the innovation or the impact of the innovation on the organization that innovates as areas of innovation research. While the fate of innovations could potentially be addressed under his second topic, the impact of innovation and change on the organization that innovates is not explicitly addressed.This book considers the fate of innovations and the impact of innovations and change on their organizations, with emphasis on Canada. An innovation can be assumed to affect the choice of individual innovation, choice of kinds of innovations adopted and diffused, and even its organization.As indicated in this book, the choice of innovations in public sector organizations (PSO) is affected by ideology and politics. Since public services are part of the executive arm of most governments, and are directed by elected governments and ministers, it makes sense that ideology and politics should have an influence on PSO. Their influence on PSO has not, however, been discussed much in the public administration literature. In the search for drivers of innovation, the fate of innovations, and the impact of innovations on their organizations, ideology and politics are found in this study to be a major driver of the types of innovations that are adopted over time, the individual innovations chosen and the innovations that survive and those that do not.Surprisingly, the survival rate of organizations that adopt innovations and change is much lower than an adaptation and fitness perspective on innovation would predict. By implication, this study raises the question whether isomorphism (imitation of form) in keeping with the dominant ideology and political direction might be a better survival strategy (at least while the ideology is dominant) than an innovation strategy. Singh, House and Tucker (1986b) demonstrated that isomorphism contributes to the legitimacy of non-profit organizations. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.012 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".