“Creative bureaucracy festival”: how important is innovation in public administration education?

Year 2019, Issue: 46, 289 - 311, 30.06.2019

Hande Tek Turan

Abstract

As everything around us is changing, in an increasingly interconnected environment, the field of public administration and public administration education cannot be away from the need to innovate and improve. Public administration education is affected by various reasons in Turkey and the world. These reasons are the structure of public administration and politics in the country, the higher education system in the country, and the public personnel policy. Advances in technology, the rapid spread of information along with the use of technology, and most importantly, the way we access and share information, appear as other factors affecting the public administration education.
In an era of rapid change, while essential public services are not likely to disappear any time soon, how their administrative functions are carried out and evaluated is expected to change considerably. Public administration makes use of several other disciplines such as organizational behavior and theory, finances, human resources, politics, law, and even ethics and philosophy. At this point, the paper underlines that the courses regarding innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and information technologies, etc should be part of the public administration education, along with the courses from political science, business science, economics, public policy and analysis, history, sociology.
Innovation is not limited to making a concrete invention only in the technological sense, and not only companies make innovation. Examples such as renewing the organizational structure of an institution private or public, re-designing processes in their services provided and changing approaches in their decision-making processes could be subjects of innovation. Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any organization. Public sector entities also innovate by introducing new approaches to provide quality public services and better respond to society’s needs. However, innovation in the public sector is hard to achieve. Because innovation also needs adaption (to context) and flexibility (of execution). Silo-based and vertical administrations are not at ease with the practice of experimentation to foster more collaborative ways of working. So, the concept of innovation in the public sector has been mentioned in the literature within the framework of NPM as a result of the analysis of successful private sector practices after the 1980s. Scholars and practitioners have become increasingly interested in innovation in the public sector. Many embrace the idea that innovation can contribute to improving the quality of public services as well as enhancing the problem‐solving capacity of governmental organizations in dealing with societal challenges. Frequently, public sector innovation is linked to reform movements such as new public management, electronic government, the change from government to governance and, most recently, to the discussions on the retreating role of government in a ‘Big Society’.
The new concept concerning the capacity for innovation of public administration reflects the synergy between the traditional instruments of administrative innovation (planning, strategy, etc) and the modern ones (information and communication technologies -ICT, e-governance, knowledge management in public administration). Today, the public sector has to innovate itself if it wants to raise its efficiency, to provide solutions for societal challenges and to meet the increasing demands from businesses and citizens in a rapidly changing and technologically evolving environment. As the definition of innovation in the public sector is often quite broad, innovation types are often specified. The type of innovation can be a product, a process, an organizational innovation, or an innovation on communication. Based on a review of the innovation literature, there are four innovation types: process innovation -including administrative process innovation, technological process innovation, product or service innovation, and conceptual innovation.
Successful public institutions will be more flexible, adapting to the one constant of the new technologically advanced age: innovate and change itself. Government’s digital era, the public sector, public institutions will re-imagine their services and continually innovate the way they engage with citizens, primary beneficiaries of public services.
As a result, public sector leaders and employees are the main drivers of innovation in the public sector. This situation is also directly related to education as today’s ideal public administration professional is tech-savvy, communicative, globally minded, and efficiency driven. So, it is vital to include courses such as innovation, leadership, entrepreneurship, information technologies, etc in the academic programs so that public employees and public sector leaders are open to the idea of innovation and, more importantly, they have the competence to benefit from the potential of technological innovations.
Concluding, public sector innovation is an essential issue on the agenda of policymakers and academics when discussing the role of government in dealing with “wicked problems” in an age of austerity. It is often considered to be a “magic concept”. In this study, the place of innovation in the public sector and its importance in public administration education will be examined.

Keywords

Public Administration, Ahi, Administration, Commerce, Labour

“Yaratıcı bürokrasi festivali”: Kamu yönetimi eğitiminde inovasyonun önemi

Abstract

Çevremizdeki her şey olağanüstü bir hızla değişmekte, kamu yönetimi alanı ve kamu yönetimi eğitimi bu yenilik ve değişim ihtiyacından uzak kalamamaktadır. Kamu yönetimi eğitimi ve alanda karşılaşılan sorunlar, Türkiye’de ve Dünyada çeşitli sebeplerle etkilenmektedir. Bu sebepler arasında, kamu yönetiminin ve siyasetin o ülkedeki yapısı, kamu yönetimi disiplininin durumu, ülkedeki yükseköğrenim sistemi, kamu personel politikası bulunmaktadır. Bu dinamiklere ek olarak, teknolojideki ilerlemeler, teknolojinin kullanımı ile birlikte bilginin hızla yayılması, dolayısıyla bilgiye ulaşma ve bilgiyi paylaşma biçiminin değişmesi de kamu yönetimi eğitimini etkileyen diğer unsurlar olarak belirmektedir.  
İçinde bulunduğumuz bu dijital çağda, önemli kamu hizmetlerinin yakın zamanda ortadan kaybolması pek mümkün olmasa da kamunun yönetimsel işlevini nasıl gerçekleştireceği ve yönlendireceği ciddi oranda değişecektir. Bildiri, kamu yönetimi eğitiminde, disiplinin geleneksel olarak beslendiği siyaset bilimi, işletme, ekonomi, kamu politikası ve analizi, tarih, sosyoloji gibi diğer disiplinlerden derslerin yanı sıra başta inovasyon olmak üzere, bilgi teknolojilerindeki değişim dönüşüm ile ilgili derslerin de kamu yönetimi eğitiminin bir parçası olması gerektiğinin altını çizmektedir.  
İnovasyon, sadece teknolojik anlamda somut bir icat yapmakla sınırlı değildir; yenilik yapan da sadece şirketler değildir. Bir kurumun organizasyon yapısını daha verimli biçimde yenilemesi, hizmetlerdeki süreçlerin yeniden dizaynı, karar alma süreçlerindeki yaklaşımların değiştirilmesi gibi örnekler, inovasyonun konusu içine girebilmektedir. Kamu sektörü kuruluşları da kaliteli kamu hizmetleri sağlamak ve toplumun ihtiyaçlarına daha iyi cevap verebilmek için yenilikler yapmaktadır. Kamuda inovasyon kavramı 1980’lerden sonra başarılı özel sektör uygulamalarının analizi sonucunda “Yeni Kamu Yönetimi” anlayışı çerçevesinde literatüre yerleşmiştir. Çalışmada, inovasyon kavramının kamu sektöründeki yeri ile kamu yönetimi eğitimindeki önemi irdelenecektir.

Keywords

İnovasyon, Kamu Sektörü, Yeni Kamu Yönetimi, Kamu Yönetimi Eğitimi, Kamu Yönetimi

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