Innovation in local government: Identifying factors contributing to innovative efforts from six comparative case studies

This study explores the influence of a variety of factors on innovation in small local government jurisdictions, and presents an exploration of the role played and the key attributes of local government public administrators in the policy and/or innovation process. Because there is an expectation for innovative efforts across all levels of government, it is important to discover what may contribute to the innovation process in the large number of small local government jurisdictions present in the American setting.; No single variable was identified as dominating the innovation process. Instead, a number of variables were found to be at work and tended to be specific to individual sites and not the innovation process exclusively. The presence of a pending crisis or perceived serious gap between performance and expectations was noted for all three sites where innovation was identified. Another factor was also likely a major condition favoring innovations. Gaining the support of key decision makers for the innovation was a consistent concern among public administrators across all innovations identified. The activities of the public administrators associated with the policy process in general, and the identified innovations considered specifically, point to the criticality of this need for knowing how to build broad support for change among respected power figures. Finally, if a very conservative political ideology is dominant among key decision makers, the adoption and implementation of any given innovation is probably unlikely to occur.