Networked innovation: the role of organizational culture and collaborative red tape

Networked innovation is increasingly put forward as a solution for the many wicked problems our society faces today. Governments increasingly collaborate with external stakeholders such as businesses, non-profit organizations, interest groups and citizens; since this can provide a wide area of new and different ideas on the generation of policies and services, and their implementation. Therefore, the interest in drivers and barriers for collaborative innovation has grown steadily. Various studies have pointed out the (potential) importance of both organizational culture and red tape in this respect (Sørensen and Torfing, 2011; Cinar, Trott and Simms, 2019; Lopes and Farias, 2020). Yet most findings so far are gathered in public sector innovation context in general and remain untested in the context of networked innovation specifically. The aim of this study is to remedy this. Studies into public sector innovation in general, show that organizational culture has an effect on an organization’s ability to innovate; and show that the presence of a developmental culture is especially beneficial (Tian et al., 2018). Knowledge about the specific effects of other types of organizational culture remain largely unclear. Furthermore, studies have found that red tape (Bozeman, 1993), negatively affects both innovation and collaboration (Ljungholm, 2014; van Acker, Wynen & Op de Beeck, 2018). Yet such research concentrates largely on the measurement of general red tape or human resources red tape, while it can be assumed that red tape in specific other dimensions (e.g. rules that govern project partner section…) is more relevant within the context of networked innovation (Pandey & Moynihan, 2005). Lastly, little is known about the interrelationship between red tape and organizational culture (George, Pandey et al., 2020) and networked innovation outcomes. Yet the finding that a developmental culture can mediate the effects of red tape in other contexts (Pandey & Moynihan, 2005; Bozeman, 2012) raises the question whether other types of organizational culture can mediate the effects of red tape as well. This encourages to test the interrelationship of these variables in a networked innovation context. With the currently available research in mind, the goal of this study is threefold. Firstly, this research wants to examine the effects of each of the four types of organizational culture on networked innovation. Secondly, the goal is to test if burdensome rules and procedures with regard to external collaborations (collaboration red tape) affect networked innovation outcomes. Lastly, this research aims to explore the interrelationship between red tape, organizational culture and networked innovation outcomes. In order to answer these questions, a survey was launched among managers at the top three levels of the Belgian federal and Flemish administration (n=920), in which networked innovation outcomes are measured in terms of amount of collaboration for innovation, collaborative innovations tested and implemented. The paper will present and discuss the findings from this survey research.