INNOVATION IN NATIONAL

LIBRARIES. ENABLERS AND

OBSTACLES MASTER THESIS 4 NOVEMBER 2013

Hildelies Balk -Pennington de Jongh TiasNimbas Business School Executive Master of Public and Non-Profit Management

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Contents Preface .............................................................................................................................................. 3

Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ 4

I. Introduction and Problem Statement ............................................................................................. 5

I.1.Research Objective ................................................................................................................... 6

I.2 Research Question .................................................................................................................... 6

I.3. Relevance of the Research ....................................................................................................... 6

I.4 For the Reader .......................................................................................................................... 7

II. Method ......................................................................................................................................... 8

II.1 Theoretical approach ............................................................................................................... 8

II.1.1.Literature .......................................................................................................................... 8

II.2 Field testing the model ............................................................................................................ 9

II.3. Scope/limitations of the Research ......................................................................................... 10

II.3.1. Exploratory Research ..................................................................................................... 10

II.3.2. Validity in the light of supra-national research ............................................................... 10

III. Theoretical Exploration of the concept and development of the draft Model .............................. 12

III.1. What is innovation ............................................................................................................... 12

III.1.2. Approach to innovation in the context of this thesis ...................................................... 13

III.2 Organizational innovation from the perspective of management science .............................. 14

III.2.1 Knowledge and organizational learning .......................................................................... 14

III.2.2.Organizational Design .................................................................................................... 14

III.2.3.Processes ....................................................................................................................... 15

III.2.4. Leadership and culture .................................................................................................. 15

III.2.5. Collaboration Capacity .................................................................................................. 16

III.2.6. Preliminary conclusion .................................................................................................. 16

III.3. Public Value theory .............................................................................................................. 16

III.3.1. The Strategic Triangle .................................................................................................... 17

III.3.2.Defining Public Value outcomes ..................................................................................... 17

III.3.3.Maintaining legitimacy in the Authorizing Environment ................................................. 17

III.3.4.Building operational capacity ......................................................................................... 18

III.3.5 Definition ....................................................................................................................... 18

III.4. Innovation in public value perspective ................................................................................. 18

III.4.1. Pressures for learning.................................................................................................... 19

III.4.2. Balancing quality and continuous improvement with innovation ................................... 19

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III.4.3. Co-production with partners ......................................................................................... 19

III.4.4. Alliances and networks .................................................................................................. 19

III.4.5. Co-creation with users .................................................................................................. 20

III.4.6.Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 20

III.5 Draft model .......................................................................................................................... 23

III.5.1. Propositions on delivering public value through innovation ........................................... 23

III.5.2. Factors that determine the operational capacity for the delivery of public value through innovation ............................................................................................................................... 23

IV. Test and review of the draft model ............................................................................................. 27

IV.1. The national library field ...................................................................................................... 27

IV.1. Propositions on delivering public value through innovation ................................................. 28

IV.1.1. Pressures for learning ................................................................................................... 28

IV.1.2. Balancing quality and continuous improvement with innovation................................... 29

IV.1.3. Co-production with partners ......................................................................................... 29

IV.1.4. Alliances and networks ................................................................................................. 29

IV.1.5. Co-creation with users .................................................................................................. 30

IV.2. Factors that determine the operational capacity for the delivery of public value through innovation ................................................................................................................................... 30

IV.2.1. Leadership and culture.................................................................................................. 31

IV.2.2. Processes ...................................................................................................................... 32

IV.2.3. Knowledge and organizational learning ......................................................................... 33

IV.2.4. Organizational design .................................................................................................... 34

IV.2.5.Collaboration Capacity ................................................................................................... 34

IV.2.6. General usability/applicability of the model .................................................................. 35

V. Definite model ............................................................................................................................ 36

VI. Conclusion and recommendations .............................................................................................. 40

VI.1.Answering the research question .......................................................................................... 40

VI.2 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 41

VI.3 Recommendations/Next steps .............................................................................................. 43

VII. Discussion and reflection ........................................................................................................... 44

VII.1 Reflection ............................................................................................................................ 44

VIII. Literature ................................................................................................................................. 46

Appendix: Report of Field testing the draft model (separate document) .......................................... 49

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Preface This thesis was written to conclude the Executive Master Public and Non-Profit Management (MPM) at TiasNimbas business school in Tilburg (NL). Following this very intensive one year post-academic course has been a valuable experience. Both the curriculum and the high level of the teaching provided a deep understanding of leadership and strategy of a public organization. Perhaps even more valuable was exchanging ideas and practice with my fellow students on public and non-profit management in different organizations.

Finishing this course would not have been possible without the support of a great many people:

First of all I must thank the directors of the National Library of the Netherlands (KB), who generously granted me the opportunity to follow this Executive Master, and encouraged me throughout the process. I must also thank my colleagues in the KB and in the National Library community, not only for being the willing subjects of surveys and interviews, and the patient listeners to my frequent allusions to my new found wisdom (they must be so tired of hearing ‘At TiasNimbas they say…’) but also for their understanding for my frequent absences and postponing all kinds of things ‘until after my thesis is finished’. In particular the members of my Research team deserve recognition and gratitude for their support.

I would never have completed the course without the unwavering support and encouragement of my dearest husband Chance Pennington de Jongh, who stimulated me to take the course, was my sparring partner all along and never grudged me all the time spent on the thesis, and my wonderful daughters Roos, Charlie and Jet van Genuchten, who cheered me on all through, respectively, their first steps in professional life and their own master and bachelor graduations.

Many thanks go of course to the teachers and staff of TiasNimbas, in particular to my thesis counsellor Dr. E. van Hout, who never dampened my enthusiasm, but encouraged me to explore the research question further and deeper than I might have done by myself and helped shape the thesis with his valuable observations, and the academic director Prof.dr.Ir.G.M. van Dijk whose comments on the thesis were stimulating and to the point. I also thank my co-readers, Dr. A.L. Beetsma, and Ing. E.H. Torn Broers for their willingness to read and question me on the thesis in the exam.

And finally, a special word of thanks must go to the pepclub: Annette Beetsma, Guus de Rijk and Jacomijn bij de Vaate, fellow travellers within the class of MPM 16, who supported each other writing the thesis by sharing all the difficulties surrounding writing a thesis next to having a full time job, a family and a social life as well. Our stream of e-mails sharing misery on procrastination (SOG in Dutch), time spent away from loved ones and loss of physical fitness were a great comfort and really pulled me through.

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Abstract National libraries are public institutions that collect and preserve the cultural heritage (both on paper and digital) of their country. In recent years, national libraries have been operating in an increasingly volatile and dynamic environment. They have been confronted with the challenges and opportunities of big data, e-science and digital scholarship; changes in user behavior and expectations, changes (meaning most often less favorable conditions) in funding regime and a changing market where private parties (companies but also users) start offering services that used to be the monopoly of libraries, such as lending e-books or offering scholarly browse and search facilities. In order to continue to deliver value to the public in this environment, these institutions face the need to constantly innovate their products and services, their working processes and perhaps even their role in society. But what is successful innovation in this context? And how do national libraries cope with meeting the demands of this innovation? What seems to work, and what are the barriers? This thesis offers a view on enablers and obstacles for innovation that combines theory and practice for innovation in a public sector setting, answering the central research question: ‘What factors determine the organizational capacity for successful innovation in a national library?’ On the basis of an exploration of two different strands of theory: innovation theory and public sector theory, a synthesized view on innovation in public value perspective is proposed. This is the basis of a draft model to assess the capacity of a national library to deliver public value through innovation. The model consists of a definition, five propositions and 42 enabling factors, grouped in five clusters according to the five major research streams on innovation: Organizational learning and knowledge creation; Organizational design; Processes; Leadership and culture and Collaboration Capacity. The draft model has been tested for relevance in an explorative, mainly qualitative manner in the field of national libraries, first in a focus group discussion and then in six structured interviews with a modest quantitative element. The outcome of this field testing is a tentative definite model of enabling factors, ranked for relevance, illustrated with examples from the field, that offers potential for maturing into an instrument for self-assessment of the innovation capacity in a library and a tool to share innovation practice among peer organizations. The research also yielded tentative answers to the question: ‘what seems to work in library innovation, and what does not?’ The cluster Leadership and Culture came out of the research as being both the most crucial enabler and the biggest obstacle to innovation, whereas Organizational Design was considered least crucial, as something you can easily work around. The comments and practices shared around the cluster Knowledge indicated that this is where innovation really happens, as soon as the right conditions are set. One of these conditions appears to be the making clear choices in the innovation Process, and cutting services if needed. In the area of Collaboration, an important factor in library innovation in partnerships, networks and alliances is the selection of the right partner(s). The added value of the exploration lies in the examples shared on how these factors work out in practice. It is recommended to continue this sharing through different channels, such as conferences and a blog that has been set up for this.

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I. Introduction and Problem Statement National libraries are singular institutions in that there is generally only one of them in each country. These institutions are often at the forefront in their country in the adaptation to technological and societal change, for instance leading national programs for the digitization, digital preservation and online accessibility of cultural heritage, and building a national digital library.

In recent years, national libraries have been operating in an increasingly volatile and dynamic environment. They have been confronted with the challenges and opportunities of new technologies; big data; e-science and digital scholarship; changes in user behavior and expectations, changes (meaning most often less favorable conditions) in funding regime and a changing market where private parties (companies but also users) start offering services that used to be the monopoly of libraries, such as lending e-books or offering scholarly browse and search facilities (cf Brindley, 2006 and Reflection Group On Bringing Europe’s & Cultural Heritage Online, 2011). 1 And there’s more to come. The recently published Trend Report of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) forecasts disruptions as a consequence of new forms of online education, challenges to the boundaries of privacy and data protection and a new role for citizens in ‘hyper connected societies’ (IFLA, 2013). In order to continue to deliver value to the public in this environment, national libraries face the need to continuously innovate their products and services, their working processes and perhaps even their role in society.

But what is successful innovation in this context? And how should national libraries cope with meeting the demands of this innovation? What seems to work, and what are the barriers?

Library innovation is a subject much debated in the field of library and information science but there has been little research in how (national) libraries actually deal with innovation. The majority of the literature on library innovation reports on new services offered or new systems being used, without much attention for what this means for the organization. Recently there has been more attention to the practice of innovation in libraries, for example the recent special issue of the Journal of Library Administration, that describes organizational implications of digital scholarship for libraries (Nowviskie, 2013; Posner, 2013; Rockenbach, 2013; Sula, 2013; Vandegrift & Varner, 2013; Vershbow, 2013; Vinopal & McCormick, 2013). A few studies have looked at organizational aspects of library innovation from a predominantly theoretical perspective ( cf Dalbello, 2008, 2009, Jantz, 2011,2012).

What is lacking is a perspective on enablers for innovation in national library that combines theory and practice. In this master thesis I hope to make a modest start on building such a perspective.

1 A complete overview of documentation of national libraries, including current activities and future plans, can be found through the portal of The European Library: http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/discover/contributors; as an example of a library in transition could serve the National Library of the Netherlands: http://www.kb.nl/en/organization-and-policy and http://www.kb.nl/en/research. URLS retrieved on 3 november 2011

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I.1.Research Objective The objective of my research is to produce a skeleton model to assess the innovation capacity of a national library. This model will consist of

• a set of propositions on concepts of innovation in the perspective of a national library • a list of factors that determine capacity for successful innovation in a national library, • with a ranking in order of importance • illustrated with real-life examples

A secondary objective, that goes beyond the scope of the master thesis, is to stimulate the sharing of good practice in innovation among national libraries. For this a blog has been set that is already in use (Balk, 2013).

I.2 Research Question This leads to the following research question:

What factors determine the organizational capacity for successful innovation in a national library?

The research will focus on organizational factors. This leads to the first Sub Question:

1. What is innovation in the context of the organization?

Most of the (empirical) research into innovation and how organizations manage this process has been done in the context of the private sector. A national library, however, is a public institution and as such may be subject to other forces and have different motives for innovation than a private company. This leads to the second Sub Question:

2. What is innovation in the perspective of a public institution?

Then we turn to literature to find enablers and obstacles for innovation, to answer the third Sub Question:

3. What factors determine the capacity for innovation?

And then these factors need to be assessed for relevance in a public sector setting. This is done in the area of the public sector from which the research question was generated: the national library field. This is the last Sub Question:

4. Are these factors relevant to innovation in national libraries (as public sector institutions)?

I.3. Relevance of the Research Within the limited scope of this master thesis the research contributes to the theoretical discussion in the field of public sector theory, by proposing a synthesized view on innovation from the different angles of management science and public value perspective, and adding some very modest empirical evidence of the validity of this perspective. Within the field of national libraries, the research contributes by offering a model to assess the innovation capacity in a library, and starting a sharing of good practice on enablers and obstacles for innovation.

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I.4 For the Reader The research method will be discussed in section II. Then follows a theoretical exploration of the research question from the different perspectives of innovation theory (sub question 1) and public value theory (sub question 2) in section III. This section concludes with a draft model for defining the innovation capacity of an organization (sub question 3) . The results of field-testing this model in national libraries (sub question 4) are discussed in the next section (IV) . After this the definite model is proposed (section V), followed by the conclusion (section VI) and a discussion of results (section VII). Background information on the field of national libraries and an extensive report of testing the model in this field can be found in the appendix.

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II. Method The model will be built as follows:

On the basis of an of a study of literature a draft model is proposed. This draft model is the subject of an exploratory, qualitative research among managers and professionals of national libraries. This will result in the adaptation and refinement of the model.

Chapter II.1 deals with the theoretical approach used and chapter II.2 with the design of the empirical research. In chapter II.3 I go into the scope and limitations of the research.

II.1 Theoretical approach The purpose of my research is to study organizational innovation in a public sector setting. This setting and its consequences for the concept of innovation are best studied from the field of public sector theory. However, most of the (empirical) research into innovation and how organizations manage this process has been done in the context of the private sector, as the management sciences are primarily concerned with making a business more effective in all possible facets. From this follows that theories on innovation capacity have been best conceptualized and empirically researched in this field.

For a balanced perspective on innovation in the public sector the two fields need to be combined. The approach taken to innovation in this thesis is therefore:

• the primary focus for the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of innovation are the management sciences (III.2) • the public sector perspective will be leading in the ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘with what

constrictions’ of innovation (III.3)

In chapter III.4. the prevailing concepts of public sector theory will be juxtaposed with the most prominent concepts of organizational innovation theory. This provides a synthesized view of public value perspective on innovation that will be expressed in six propositions and a set of factors that support the delivery of innovation in a public sector setting in III.5.

II.1.1.Literature From preliminary reading it became clear that the enablers and obstacles for innovation can be found in many elements of the organization, and that they are often interdependent. For that reason I did not want to limit myself to one theory or stream of thought. For the choice of literature, I first focused on recent academic publications that would give a most complete overview of innovation research. An important criterion for this academic literature was that it should indicate theories and factors that have been tested in empirical research. I consulted four recent articles that together gave a good overview of determinant factors in organizational innovation (Lam, 2005 Crossan & Apaydin, 2010, Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011; West & Bogers, 2013,). On the basis of this I studied a number of influential innovation theories more in depth (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, (Teece ,2007, 2012 , Chesbrough, 2003,Von Hippel, 2005, Mintzberg, 1979, Tushman & O Reilly 1996, 1999)

For the public sector theory I have chosen the currently most widely accepted approach of Public Value. The Public Value perspective is based on the standard works of Moore (1995) and the volume of studies in public value theory of Benington & Moore (2011), in particular the article of Hartley

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(2011) in this book. In addition I consulted the comprehensive overview of Knowledge and organizational learning in the public sector of Rashman, Withers, & Hartley (2009).

Finally, as innovation is often driven by technology, I consulted the work of Perez for the influence of the dynamics of technological revolutions on society (Perez, 2002) Two recent technology watch reports gave information and insights in the current technological challenges. (Davies, Fidler, & Gorbis, 2011; McKinsey & Company, 2013)

II.2 Field testing the model The theoretical exploration of section III results in a draft model that consists of

• a set of propositions on concepts of innovation in the perspective of a national library • a list of factors that determine capacity for successful innovation in a national library

clustered in five groups according to the streams discussed in the theoretical exploration

This model has been the subject of qualitative, exploratory research within the public sector area that generated the research question: the field of national libraries, with the following objectives:

• To evaluate the fitness of the model for assessing the organizational capacity of a national library, and to adapt it on the basis of the comments

• To illustrate the model with examples from the practice in the libraries

This empirical research consisted of a meeting with a focus group of 15 library professionals and structured interviews with six managers from four different national libraries across Europe. The method was as follows:

1. A structured interview was prepared that mirrors the draft model, which in its turn mirrors the theoretical exploration.

2. The questions are in a fixed order, and include two ‘closed elements’: a ranking for relevance of clusters of factors on four criteria, and a ranking of all factors for relevance. This makes the results ‘quantifiable’ at a (very) small scale.

3. This interview was first tried out in a focus group of 15 library professionals from across Europe. They were asked for a first round of feedback on the concepts proposed and consulted in particular on the form and the approach of the interview. This resulted in valuable adaptations of this instrument.

4. After that, six representatives of four national libraries took the interview. 5. The respondents were asked not to reflect on the concepts in a general way, but to answer

in relation to specific innovations in their institution. They were talked through all factors, with room for comments and examples for each of the questions. To ensure that the respondents could speak freely, they are cited anonymously. As the interviews concerned only four institutions, the names of the institutions were omitted from the reports and examples have been generalized.

6. The interviews were recorded and fully transcribed and will be preserved by the author. 7. The quantified results of the six interviews, illustrated with a few salient comments, are

presented in section IV and lead to the adapted, definite model in section V. 8. The protocol and an aggregated report of examples and comments given in the interviews,

have been included in the Report on field testing in the appendix to this thesis.

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II.3. Scope/limitations of the Research Two topics need to be addressed here: the exploratory nature of the research and the fact that it involved respondents from different countries.

II.3.1. Exploratory Research Exploratory research is ‘a methodological approach that is primarily concerned with discovery and with generating or building theory’ (Davies, 2006). According to Davies, the exploratory researcher ‘will be flexible and pragmatic yet will engage in a broad and thorough form of research […] They are concerned with the development of theory form data in a process of continuous discovery.’

In this thesis, the exploration is used to generate theory of organizational innovation in the public sector in a very modest way by drawing concepts from management literature, combining them with public sector theory into a model and testing this model in a public sector setting, namely the field of national libraries. In the limited context for this thesis the empirical findings can of course not be judged as much more than illustrations of these concepts.

Because of its open, qualitative character, exploratory research can end in results that are ‘messy, vague and inconclusive’ (Davies, 2006). To mitigate that risk, the research was carried out in a methodical manner as described in II.2. Still, within the limited scope of the research, findings may still be said to be inconclusive but I expect they are at least fully transparent and verifiable.

II.3.2. Validity in the light of supra-national research As stated in the first section of this thesis, national libraries have no peer institutions in their countries. The field of national libraries can therefore only be studied at supra-national level. For my thesis I have limited myself to a number of European libraries with comparable tasks and value. (see Appendix: Report on Field testing). This field is represented as follows:

The 15 members of the focus group came from libraries in ten countries across western, southern eastern and middle Europe.

For the more in depth individual interviews, representatives of four national libraries were chosen. Together they represent a small cross section of national libraries in Europe:

• in size: two small to medium sized national libraries; one medium sized national library and one of the large, leading national libraries in the world.

• in geographical spread: two from western Europe, one from Scandinavia and one from middle Europe.

I am well aware that discussing concepts in a ‘cross-cultural’ setting can pose problems of validity. I argue that this does not apply here, for three reasons:

1. The aim was not to evaluate the capacity for innovation of individual libraries, nor compare them in any way. The aim was only to discuss the relevance of the factors with them

2. Still, the concepts discussed might be understood differently by people with a different cultural background. This risk is mitigated by the fact that the European national libraries form a closely interconnected network: they are united in organizations such as CENL,

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cooperate in building digital platforms such as The European Library (“The European Library,” n.d.); collaborate in many R&D projects and share expertise in centers of competence. The members of the focus group and the respondents in the interviews as well as the interviewer are part of a group of ‘virtual colleagues’ who work closely together and meet on a regular basis, so it can be argued that they speak a common language when it comes to library innovation.

3. To mitigate any misunderstanding about the concepts that might occur, I talked both the focus group and the respondents of the interviews through all concepts, checking understanding and correcting misperceptions before proceeding with the discussions.

On the basis of these arguments, it can be concluded that, although the scope is too small to be truly representative, the empirical research such as it is, is valid.

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III. Theoretical Exploration of the concept and development of the draft Model This section deals with the theoretical exploration of the concept of innovation and the factors that enable innovation in an organization in general and in a public institution in particular. But first we must address the question what we mean by innovation: what it is and what it is not, and how it will be approached in the context of this thesis.

III.1. What is innovation First we must distinguish the concept of innovation from some other concepts that are related and play an important role in the process, but by itself are not innovation:

Not innovation

• Invention: inventions, new ideas and technical advances in the State of the Art may be strong drivers of innovation but they only become innovation when they are put into practice (new products, new ways of working) and change the organization, the market and/or society (Hartley, 2011).

• Knowledge: in both academic literature and practical ‘how-to’ books , the concepts of knowledge and knowledge generation (R&D) are often conflated with the concept of innovation (West & Bogers, 2013). Indeed, in defining the innovative capacity of an organization, knowledge creation and organizational learning play a crucial role (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, Rashman, Withers, & Hartley, 2009, Lam, 2006). But they are not in themselves innovation.

• Continuous improvement: the gradual ‘fine-tuning’ of products and processes may in the long run lead to the renewal of products and different ways of working, but innovation has a more disruptive aspect: there is always some form of step-change, a clear discontinuity with past practices within a short period of time (Hartley 2011).

What is innovation?

The use of the term ‘innovation’, relating to a more or less radical change in products and markets originates with the economist Joseph Schumpeter. He observed that the most significant advances in economies are often accompanied by ‘a process of creative destruction in which new combinations of existing resources are achieved’ (Schumpeter, 1947) and called this process ‘innovation’. This definition is still valid to emphasize the radical, step-change character of innovation as opposed to improvement or incremental change. Since then the concept of innovation has evolved, both as the result of research into the processes of innovation, and in reaction to new societal and technological changes. The main shift in focus has been from innovation as an activity undertaken by organizations in isolation, towards a more open process of innovation: with users and suppliers, with competitors and in partnerships between firms and universities (e.g. Von Hippel, 2005). In 2003, Chesbrough coined the term ‘open innovation’ for this paradigm shift (Chesbrough, 2003).

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Innovation can be viewed both as an outcome and as a process (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010). The outcomes are new products and services, a new market approach, a new way of working. The process involves the organization producing innovation as an outcome and the organization adapting to innovation. In the literature on innovation these two views are often mixed. For the purpose of identifying factors that determine the capacity of an organization for innovation we will focus as much as possible on the process side of innovation. This is generally called organizational innovation: defined as ‘the creation or adoption of an idea or behaviour new to the organization’ (Lam, 2006). The novelty pursued should add value in economic and/or social spheres (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010). This leads to the provisional definition of organizational innovation that will guide us through the next chapters:

Innovation is the creation or adoption of a value-added idea or behaviour new to the organization.

III.1.2. Approach to innovation in the context of this thesis As argued in II. 1, the motivation, parameters and conditions for innovation in a public institute such as a national library have their own dynamics that are different from the private sector, and are best studied from the field of public sector theory. The factors that determine whether an organization is successful in the innovation process, on the other hand, have been most thoroughly conceptualized and empirically researched in the private sector field, and can best be studied from the management sciences. It can also be argued that the majority of enablers for innovation found, e.g. ‘tolerance to ambiguity’ of leaders, or ‘partnership capacity’ of the organization, are applicable across sectors, as they are concerned with the basic behavior and competencies of people.

For a balanced perspective on innovation in the public sector the two fields need to be combined. The approach taken to innovation in this thesis is therefore:

• the primary focus for the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of innovation are the management sciences • the public sector perspective will be leading in the ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘with what

constrictions’ of innovation

In the following chapter these two angles will be approached as follows:

• Theories on organizational capacity for innovation drawn from the management sciences will be discussed in chapter III. 2;

• The motives and parameters of innovation taken from public sector theory will be discussed in chapter III.3;

• In chapter III.4. the prevailing concepts of public sector theory will be juxtaposed with the most prominent concepts of organizational innovation theory. This provides a synthesized view of public value perspective on innovation that will be expressed in a definition and five propositions on the delivery of public value through innovation;

• This section concludes in III.5 with a draft model for assessing the innovation capacity of a national library as a public institution. The model consists of a definition and five propositions on delivering public value through innovation, with five clusters of factors that enable this delivery.

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III.2 Organizational innovation from the perspective of management science This chapter broadly explores the research literature on organizational innovation. This will lead to a selection of prevailing innovation theories that provide enablers and obstacles for innovation. In III.5 these determining factors will be applied to the delivery of public value through innovation.

Theory on organizational innovation is fed by a number of different, overlapping streams of research. The main streams are the theories around Organizational learning and knowledge creation; Organizational design; Processes; Leadership and culture and Collaboration Capacity.

III.2.1 Knowledge and organizational learning This stream studies innovation as a process of organizational learning and knowledge creation. It has its roots in cognitive psychology and of the five approaches, this is the one most firmly based on empirical research (Lam, 2005). In this stream innovation is studied as a process of bringing new, problem-solving, ideas that are not consistent with current practice, into use (Lam, 2005).

To effectively exploit new ideas, the organization must be able to turn tacit knowledge (knowledge that is implicit in how things are done) into explicit knowledge: new products and services (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). For the sharing and exploitation of knowledge, many authors have stressed the important role of communities of practice that share experience and learn by working together (Lam, 2005, e.g. Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995 ). This cumulative learning allows the organization to build up ‘core competences’ that can become a major strength (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990).

There is a downside to a strong focus on core competence: it can be a barrier to innovation. Empirical research has demonstrated that innovation often comes from sources outside the organization (e.g. Von Hippel 2005). To effectively leverage outside knowledge, an organization must be able to open up its innovation process and innovate in networks and partnerships (Von Hippel, 2005, Chesbrough, 2003, Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, & West, 2006). Organizations that are too much focused on their smooth internal processes for knowledge sharing and building, may fall into the ‘competence trap’ and may suddenly lag behind in innovation (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, & West, 2006, West & Bogers, 2013).

An organization should therefore develop ‘Dynamic Capabilities’: having both strong internal mechanisms for exploiting existing competencies and the ability to re-configure its competencies to seize opportunities in a dynamic environment (Teece, 2007, 2012).

III.2.2.Organizational Design The oldest and still largest stream looks (primarily) at the relationship between organizational structural forms and innovativeness (Lam, 2005). The basis for much of the current thinking in this field is laid by the work of Mintzberg (1979), who defined five different structures for organizations, dependent on their goals and the environment they operate in. In this view, the hierarchically ordered machine bureaucracy is the best form for well established companies in stable environments but this form renders them unable to quickly adapt to new circumstances. In a fast changing environment, the best form is a loosely coupled organisation of teams that assemble in an ad hoc way dependent on the (market) needs of the moment, the so called adhocracy. (Mintzberg 1979). The adhocracy is still widely considered as the organizational form most conducive to (adapt to) innovation. Pure adhocracies are mainly found in high tech environments with many start-up firms, where expertise is highly valued and where there is a premium on entrepreneurship, such as

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Silicon Valley. But observation of this type of firms over the longer period shows that the more successful firms will after a certain period always resort to a form of bureaucracy to guarantee cohesion, knowledge sharing and stability (Lam, 2005).

Research in innovation currently tends towards favoring hybrid structural forms that combine both the fluid, flexible nature of the entrepreneurial start up with the more stable, cohesive aspects of the bureaucracy, throughout the entire organization. In this form, adhocracy is still the best form to either produce or to adapt to innovation, but it should be limited to sub units engaged in creative work, who have the capacity and authority to engage with the organization at large (Lam, 2005, Tushman & O’Reilly, 1999). This type of adhocracy, sometimes dubbed ‘skunk works’ (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1999) , has very recently been advocated in the library community as one of the solutions to deal with the current wave of innovation (Nowviskie, 2013).

III.2.3.Processes In this third strand of research innovation is studied as the capacity of the organization to respond to changes in the environment and to influence and shape it (Lam, 2005). This literature is concerned with the processes underlying the creation of new organizational forms. An influential theory in this stream of thought is the so-called ‘punctuated equilibrium’ model that proposes that organizations evolve through cycles of long periods of inertia or very slow change, punctuated by sudden outbursts of disruptive transformation, after which the organization continues to exist in a new form and sinks back into inertia until the next disruption (Lam 2005). This pattern is understood to be driven by the cycle of technology innovations that is described by several authors (cf Perez, 2002). To survive in this cycle, an organization must be ‘ambidextrous’ : capable of coping with both evolutionary and revolutionary technological changes (Tushman and O’Reilly 1996): it manages continuity in periods of relative quiet and is also able to deal with sudden, disruptive changes in the environment. The possibility of successfully combining these twin processes has empirical evidence in research in high tech industry (Lam 2005). This stream is also concerned with the study of systems and tools for managing these processes in a formal way (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010). There seems to be good evidence of the effectiveness of project management tools for managing both innovation with external partners (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) and the implementation and bringing to market of new tools (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010).

III.2.4. Leadership and culture Although closely related to the streams of knowledge and change processes, the role of leadership and culture in organizational innovation has become a distinct field of study. Research in the private sector points to a significant influence of executives on innovation (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010; Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011; West & Bogers, 2013). Both the CEO and other management layers need to actively guide and support innovation as well as create the conditions for the implementation of new products and ways of working. The dynamic capabilities and the ambidextrous organization theories stress the importance of leadership competencies, in particular tolerance to ambiguity and uncertainty (Tushman & O Reilly, 1996; Teece, 2007;Teece, 2012). A study among CEO’s of companies that innovate successfully indicates that mere facilitation of the process is not enough: to

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innovate successfully, the leader should be an inventor and experimenter himself (Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, 2009).

As executives and managers have a crucial influence on the organizational culture (standards, values and behavior) , this field is very often researched in connection with leadership (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010, Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011). Research points to the importance of an innovation climate that encourages risk taking, fosters openness and curiosity and the ability for adaptive, non rule-based thinking (Tushman & O Reilly, 1996; Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011; West & Bogers, 2013; Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, 2009).

III.2.5. Collaboration Capacity The youngest stream of research studies capacities for partnership, networking and collaboration. This stream is related to the field of knowledge but has emerged as a separate field of study in the last ten years in connection with ‘open’ and ‘user’ innovation theories. Research indicates that innovating in open networks and relationships with many different partners requires a number of special competencies at the level of the organization as well as the individual, such as having a good process for selecting partners and personal networking skills (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011; West & Bogers, 2013).

Collaboration capacity at an individual level is also particularly relevant in relation to the trends of new media, new forms of production and global connection that are predicted to shape the workplace within ten years (Davies, Fidler, & Gorbis, 2011). The ‘future skills’ encompass, among others, the capability to cooperate effectively with people one may never meet face to face (virtual collaboration).

Each of these streams produces literature on enablers and obstacles for innovation. These factors are listed in detail in chapter III. 5.

III.2.6. Preliminary conclusion A preliminary conclusion on the basis of the literature discussed above is that innovation requires

• Sharing of knowledge within the organization and in communities of practice • Leveraging external knowledge of both users and suppliers in open networks • And the ability to balance two different, often opposing approaches:

o The fostering of competencies with continuous renewal of skills and knowledge to adapt to the implementation of radically new ideas;

o The stability of the bureaucratic structure with elements of adhocracy o Managing the paradoxical processes of continuity and rapid change.

III.3. Public Value theory After having explored the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of innovation in the field of management sciences, we now turn to organizational innovation in a public sector setting. From the field of public sector theory I have chosen the currently most widely accepted approach of Public Value. In this chapter I will discuss the major concepts of this perspective to gain an insights into the potential motives and parameters for innovation in the public sector. This forms the basis for the juxtaposition of the concepts of public value and innovation theory in the next chapter.

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III.3.1. The Strategic Triangle The concept of Public Value was developed in the circle of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, in reaction to the concepts of the business-oriented New Public Management (NPM) that have governed public institutions in both Europe and the US from the 1980’s onward. In 1995 Mark Moore, professor Non-profit Organizations at this school, published Creating Public Value, (Moore, 1995).

In his book Moore demonstrates that public institutions have a fundamentally different value proposition than private companies, and should not focus on just delivering outputs (numbers of products, actions, client-contacts etc.) but rather aim for adding value to society. Moore’s ideas have found great following, first in Anglo Saxon countries, and recently also across Europe. In 2010, research into 15 years of the application of Public Value concepts was summarized in a collection of articles that represent the state of the art in the Public Value perspective (Benington & Moore, 2011). This publication forms the basis of the discussion of public value concepts in this chapter.

Public value is delivered within a framework that combines three different but interdependent processes: the Strategic triangle.

Fig 1. The strategic Triangle of Public Value (Benington & Moore, 2011)

III.3.2.Defining Public Value outcomes. Public value is composed of two elements: what the public values and what adds value to the public sphere. A public institution first defines what are the desired outcomes of its actions on society, e.g. increasing safety, decreasing unemployment rates or raising the level of education. This outcome is achieved in the interaction with the public. By using the products and services offered to them they help produce the desired outcome. For this to happen, these products must meet the needs of the clients or users. Once the outcomes are clear, they are translated into specific outputs that can be monitored. But these outputs should always be evaluated in relation to the public value outcome.

III.3.3.Maintaining legitimacy in the Authorizing Environment. The cornerstone of delivering public value is the authorization of the environment. A public institution operates in a complex field of influences: politics; the government that funds the institution; other funding bodies; public or private partner organizations that supply or request services; other public institutions that operate in the same or neighboring fields (and may compete for the same funding and/or clients); organizations that represent clients or other interests; the press and public opinion; society at large. In this complex setting, dubbed by Moore the authorizing environment, a public institute finds the

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legitimacy for its actions. To operate effectively, the public organization ensures that it stays closely aligned to the configuration in this environment.

III.3.4.Building operational capacity. This means mobilizing all resources needed for the delivery of public value: financial, technical, organizational, and human resources. It is one of the great challenges of public management to balance the delivery of outcomes and the continued legitimacy with the operational capacity of the organization.

III.3.5 Definition The public value perspective can be added to the definition of innovation as follows:

Successful innovation in a public institution is: the creation or adoption of an idea or behaviour new to the organization with continued and/or added public value as outcome.

III.4. Innovation in public value perspective In this chapter, innovation theory and public value theory are synthesized into a view on innovation from public value perspective.

As argued above, the delivery of public value is dependent on the legitimacy found in the environment of the institution. Changes in the environment must inevitably lead to changes in the service of the institution. This means that in stable conditions of relatively little change, a public institution is already under pressure to continuously learn and improve (Rashman, Withers, & Hartley, 2009, Hartley, 2011). The current environment is dynamic rather than stable and calls for more radical change in the form of innovation of services and ways of working.

Research shows that it is not easy to deliver public value through innovation (Hartley, 2011). To begin with, there is generally little patience in the environment with any disruption in service caused by the innovation process. A continued high quality, including improvement of running services, is expected at all times. In order to deliver public value, a public institution needs therefore to be able to foster continuous quality and improvement of service as well as radical innovation in parts (Hartley, 2011). Innovation concepts related to balancing two opposing approaches appear particularly relevant in public value perspective: a hybrid structure (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1999); combining the fostering of competencies with continuous renewal of skills and knowledge (Teece, 2007, 2012) and managing the paradoxical processes of continuity and rapid change(Tushman and O’Reilly 1996) .

Secondly, the innovation itself may fail entirely due to lack of the operational capacity of the organization, resulting at best in wasting public money and at worst in a decrease in the level of service. Lastly, the innovation may lead to a new service that is not valued by the users; or, as happens more often, is valued by a group of users as a nice-to-have, but does not actually add value to the public sphere (Hartley, 2011).

There are several ways to mitigate the risk that innovation adds no value or even detracts from value: through learning, by paying careful attention to the process, by co-production with others, by forming alliances and by co-creating with users.

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III.4.1. Pressures for learning Public organizations are in a position to learn and share knowledge even better than private companies, as there are no barriers of IP or trade secrets that prohibit sharing. Also, it is their imperative to share knowledge in communities of practice, so as to add value to the public sphere (Rashman, Withers, & Hartley, 2009). This can be related to concepts from innovation theory around the sharing of knowledge within the organization and in communities of practice (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). One important aspect of learning tends to be rather under-valued in public institutions: learning from failure (Hartley, 2011). Failed innovation efforts in the public sector are often seen as sources of scandal that are best quickly forgotten. Private companies tend to take failed attempts to innovate in their stride, and use them to learn lessons for future innovations. Hartley (2011) suggests that public institutions should follow their example.

III.4.2. Balancing quality and continuous improvement with innovation Close attention to all stages of the process of innovation is crucial in the public sphere. Since it involves so many stakeholders, innovation in the public sphere often lacks a clear definition of goals and benefits. The innovation process should include careful analysis prior to action, predicting risks as far as possible, making sure that innovations are developed in cost effective ways, and building in reviews at several stages to inform choices and encourage learning (Rashman, Withers, & Hartley, 2009,Hartley, 2011). The UK government has developed a number of best practice project- and programme management methods for this that have been implemented in many public organizations (PRINCE 2, MSP). Perhaps even more importantly, the balance between continuous improvement and innovation has to be managed carefully during the entire process (Hartley, 2011). The dynamic capabilities theory offers a number of instruments to manage this process (Teece, 2007, 2012).

III.4.3. Co-production with partners A public organization can mitigate the risk by developing new products and services together with other organizations and/or private sector suppliers (Hartley, 2011). This increases both cost-effectiveness and the opportunities for learning through sharing good practice. This practice is stimulated by both national governments and the European Commission with funding for specific R&D projects that lead to the production and procurement of innovative tools (cf European Commission, 2012, 2013). This makes adoption of ideas from the open innovation perspective very relevant for the public sector (Von Hippel, 2005, Chesbrough, 2003, Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, & West, 2006).

III.4.4. Alliances and networks Related to co-producing innovation is the formation of long term open collaborative networks and alliances to spread the risk and cost of innovation (Hartley, 2011). In a well-functioning network, all organizations can profit from the innovations in each of the parts. The network also increases the opportunities for inter-organizational learning (Rashman, Withers, & Hartley, 2009). The success of delivering public value in networks and alliances depends on a number of conditions related to the motive (voluntary cooperation or enforced by government), the form of governance, the structure and the commitment of partners (Provan & Kenis, 2008). The relation to open innovation is comparable to II. 4.3.

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III.4.5. Co-creation with users Public value can only be delivered in interaction with the user (Moore, 1995, Benington & Moore, 2011). Thus it makes sense to involve users in innovating the services offered to them (Hartley, 2011).This so-call co-creation with users is comparable to the concept of innovation with users that has emerged in innovation theory (Von Hippel, 2005). Co-creation in public value perspective can take many forms, e.g. crowd-sourcing for improvement of services; implementing or facilitating services developed by users; involving users directly in teams that develop new services and working together with existing communities to deliver or adapt services. Working together with users increases the chances that innovations are relevant to the users, and gives further opportunity for learning.

III.4.6.Conclusion On the basis of the discussion above it can be concluded that there are five innovation related concepts in public value theory. This synthesized perspective can be expressed in a definition (III.3.5) and five propositions on delivering public value through innovation:

0 (definition)Successful innovation in a public institution is: the creation or adoption of an idea or behaviour new to the organization with continued and/or added public value as outcome.

1. A public institution is subject to pressures for learning and innovation which derive from users’ expectations, government and a wide range of stakeholders

2. In order to deliver public value, a public institution needs to be able to foster continuous quality and improvement of service as well as radical innovation in parts

3. The co-production of new systems, services and workflows with partners leads to sharing of innovation risk and adding value to the public sphere

4. Forming (long term) alliances and networks with other institutions to innovate lead to increased legitimacy, sharing knowledge and cost efficient delivery of public value outcomes

5. The co-creation of innovation with users enhances legitimacy and relevancy of outcome and adds to public value

Box 1 Definition and propositions on delivering public value through innovation

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The relationship of public value concepts to the essential concepts of organizational innovation as discussed in chapter III.3.2.6 is visualised in table 1.

Public value perspective

concepts from III.4.6.→

Innovation theory:

concepts of organizational

innovation from III.3.2.6↓

1.Pressure of environment for learning

2.Processes for continuous improvement and innovation simultaneously

3.Co-production to share risk and add value

4.Networks and Alliances for legitimacy, sharing knowledge and cost efficiency

5.Public value co-created with users for increased legitimacy

Sharing of knowledge within

the organization and in

communities of practice

x x x

Leveraging external

knowledge of users and

suppliers in open networks

x x x x

Combining the fostering of core

competencies and implementation of

radically new ideas

x x

Combining stability and

innovation in hybrid structure

x

Managing the opposing forces of

continuity and change

x

Table 1 Relationship of innovation concepts to public value concepts

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The delivery of public value through innovation is dependent on enabling factors. The five streams of research discussed in III.2 each deliver a cluster of enabling factors. The overview in table 2 shows the relationship of the different clusters of factors and the public value propositions they enable.

Definition: Successful innovation in a (national) library is: the creation or adoption of an idea or behaviour new to the organization with continued and/or added public value as outcome.

Streams of research produce 5 Clusters of factors that support delivery →

Propositions on innovation in public

value perspective ↓

Knowledge and learning

design processes Leadership/culture

Collaboration capacity

1 A public institution is subject to pressures for learning and innovation

which derive from users’ expectations, government and a wide range of

stakeholders

x x x

2 In order to deliver public value, a public institution needs to be able to

foster continuous quality and improvement of service as well as

radical innovation in parts

x x x x

3 The co-production of new systems, services and workflows with partners

leads to sharing of innovation risk and adding value to the public sphere

x x x

4 Forming (long term) alliances and networks with other institutions to

innovate lead to increased legitimacy, sharing knowledge and cost efficient

delivery of public value outcomes

x x

5 The co-creation of innovation with users enhances legitimacy and

relevancy of outcome and adds to public value

x x x

Table 2 Relationship between the propositions and the clusters of factors that support the delivery of public value through innovation

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III.5 Draft model In chapter III.4. the prevailing concepts of public sector theory have been juxtaposed with the most prominent concepts of organizational innovation theory. This produced a synthesized view of public value perspective on innovation, expressed in a definition and five propositions on delivering public value through innovation.

On the basis of this theoretical exploration, a tentative draft model for assessing the innovation capacity of a public institution will now be proposed. This model combines the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of innovation of the management sciences with the ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘with what constrictions’ of innovation from the public sector perspective. The model consists of:

1. a set of propositions on delivering public value through innovation, applied to a national library as a public institution to prepare it for field testing (box 2)

2. a list of factors that the determine the operational capacity for this delivery, clustered according to the five research streams discussed in the theoretical exploration. These factors have been chosen from the innovation concepts that are most supportive to the motivations and parameters of the public sector perspective on innovation.

III.5.1. Propositions on delivering public value through innovation Definition: Successful innovation in a (national) library is: the creation or adoption of an idea or behaviour new to the organization with continued and/or added public value as outcome.

1. A national library is subject to pressures for learning and innovation which derive from users’ expectations, government and a wide range of stakeholders

2. In order to deliver public value, a national library needs to be able to foster continuous quality and improvement of service as well as radical innovation in parts

3. The co-production of new library systems, services and workflows with partners leads to sharing of innovation risk and adding value to the public sphere

4. Forming (long term) alliances and networks with other institutions to innovate lead to increased legitimacy, sharing knowledge and cost efficient delivery of public value outcomes

5. The co-creation of innovation with users enhances legitimacy and relevancy of outcome and adds to public value

Box 2 Propositions on delivering public value through innovation, applied to a national library

III.5.2. Factors that determine the operational capacity for the delivery of public value through innovation The concepts that are most supportive to the public value perspective on innovation (III.4.6 and table 1) yield a large number of factors that determine the capacity for innovation. The list in III.5.3. is based on the following literature:

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• The enabling conditions for knowledge creation and sharing from Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)

• The antecedents and barriers for open innovation found by West & Bogers (2013) • The elements of the open innovation maturity framework defined by Enkel, Bell, &

Hogenkamp, (2011) • The microfoundations of the dynamic capabilities of an organization defined by Teece (2007,

2012) • The structural elements of the hybrid organizational design defined by Mintzberg (1979) and

(Tushman & O’Reilly, 1999) • The mechanisms that make the ambidextrous organization work found by Tushman & O

Reilly (1996) • The discovery skills that make up the Innovators DNA of Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen

(2009) • The future work skills of Davies, Fidler, & Gorbis (2011)

Box 3 Literature from which the factors were extracted

A few words on the factors chosen:

• The factors found had different levels of granularity, as they came from different empirical studies. Some – like ‘partnership capacity’ - cover a set of underlying factors; others – like ‘tolerance to failure’- are singular competencies. I have tried as much as possible to merge similar factors into broader entries, without renaming them or changing their meaning.

• As most authors aspire to cover all aspects of the innovation process from their perspective, it will not surprise that these literature often overlaps in a factor. This is visible In the references in the list of factors in III.5.3.

The factors that emerged from the literature are grouped into five clusters that relate to the streams discussed in III.2

III.5.2.1. Knowledge and Organizational learning Knowledge sharing and organizational learning

• Intention: strategy communicated and embraced by all(Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995); innovation goals match strategic objectives (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011)

• Autonomy of professionals (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, Tushman & O Reilly, 1999) • Active role for middle management in exploitation of knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995,

Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • Fluctuation and creative chaos, ‘stretch’ (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995), • Redundancy: overlap in knowledge between units (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) • Requisite variety: diversity of teams (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, Teece 2012) (West & Bogers,

2013, Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • Sharing tacit knowledge: training by doing (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995,Enkel, Bell, &

Hogenkamp, 2011) • Communities of practice (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995)

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• Learning from failure (e.g. post-project reviews) (Teece, 2007) (Teece, 2012)

Specific for exploration and absorption of external knowledge

• Innovation budget, transaction budget (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • ‘Slack’ resources (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • Absorptive capacity for external knowledge: total R&d expenditure plus proportion of

employees with (scientific-technical) graduate education (West & Bogers, 2013) (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011)

• Incentives for innovation such as awards or innovation contests (West & Bogers, 2013) (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011)

• Platforms for sharing, centres for research and innovation that can be shared between partners (Von Hippel, 2005) (West & Bogers, 2013) (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011)

• High performance in the past as a barrier (Tushman & O Reilly, 1996) (West & Bogers, 2013) (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) (Chesbrough, 2003)

• Related syndrome: ‘Not invented here’ as a barrier (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) (West & Bogers, 2013)

III.5.2.2. Organizational Design

• Hierarchical ‘machine’ bureaucracy: barrier (Mintzberg, 1979, West & Bogers, 2013) • Pure adhocracy: only fit for Silicon Valley (Lam, 2005) • Mix of adhocracy and buraucracy , ‘Hybrid’ organization e.g. ‘skunkworks’: seperate units

that innovate outside regular (IT) infrastructure and workflow but foster strong (informal) ties throughout organization to channel integration. Freedom to develop new ideas plus good process for technology transfer. (Mintzberg, 1979,Tushman & O’Reilly, 1999)

III.5.2.3. Processes

• Best practice project management (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • portfolio management; making clear choices, ‘not doing everything’ (Tushman & O Reilly,

1996) (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • change routines, e.g. for technology transfer and new product development (Teece

2007,2012) (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • continuous asset orchestration and renewal, use of analytical methodologies (e.g.

investment choices) (Teece 2007,2012) • continuous redesign of routines (Teece 2007,2012)

III.5.2.4. Leadership and Culture Leadership

• ability to deal with complex authorizing environment (Benington & Moore, 2011) • can steer both stability and radical change (Teece, 2007) (Teece, 2012) (Tushman & O Reilly,

1996); • calibrate sensing and seizing of opportunities (entrepreneurial) with transformation

(routines) (Teece 2007,2012)

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• tolerance to ambiguity and uncertainty; (Teece, 2012) (Teece, 2007) • independence, unconventionality; (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • supportive of innovation: ‘champions’; ‘walking the walk’ (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) (Enkel,

Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • leaders not only supportive but ‘inventors’ themselves (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • diversity of top management team (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1999)

Culture (fostered by leadership) :

• Inventiveness, openness, curiosity (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • Trust, collaboration (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011) • Encouragement of risk-taking (West & Bogers, 2013) • tolerance to failure (Tushman & O Reilly, 1996) • novel and adaptive thinking (beyond rule-based) (Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, 2009)

III.5.2.5. Collaboration Capacity Capacities for co-production and co-creation of innovation

• Partnership capacity : commitment and trust between partners; having a reputation as a trustworthy partner, selecting the right partner; making clear agreements and define clear targets; train employees to work with partners; ability to manage alliances (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011)

• Networking capacities: Social intelligence; Cross-cultural competency; curiosity (Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp, 2011)

• Understanding user communities (e.g. open source, digital humanities) (Von Hippel, 2005) • Virtual collaboration skills (West & Bogers, 2013) (Davies, Fidler, & Gorbis, 2011) • Type of collaborator: boundary spanners (West & Bogers, 2013)

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IV. Test and review of the draft model The model developed on the basis of the theoretical framework in section III has been field tested within the public sector area that generated the research question: the field of national libraries. This explorative research, limited by the constraints described in II.3, consisted of a meeting with a focus group of 15 library professionals and structured interviews with six managers from four different national libraries across Europe. A Report of the test and results is given in the appendix. In this section, we will first briefly sketch the background of national libraries and their challenges and constraints in innovations. After that we will discuss the results of testing the propositions on delivering public value through innovation (IV.1) Finally , the results of testing the factors enabling innovation in a public value perspective will be discussed (IV.2).

IV.1. The national library field There are three broad types of libraries: public libraries, that operate at local level throughout a country and service mostly the greater public; research or academic libraries, that are attached to a university or research institute and service only students and scientists; and national libraries. According to the current definition by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) , national libraries have a special responsibility, often defined by law, in the conservation and presentation of a country’s cultural heritage. The public value they deliver is broadly: ‘collect and preserve the national documentary heritage and ensure permanent access to the knowledge and culture of the past and present. They develop central services and take a leading role in the library and information sector in their country.’ (Poll 2008).

These institutions operate in a complex authorizing environment, consisting of different user groups, ranging from the scientific researcher to the greater public; the government, funding bodies for research and development projects; the academic and public libraries to whom they often deliver services; the field of education, including universities; publishers who deposit their publications; private partners like Google and Proquest, with whom they have contracts to digitize their material; a political environment that may be benevolent to national heritage institutions or not; and many different partners with whom they work in national and international networks. A national library is expected to be a safe place to store and keep accessible national heritage for future generations; at the same time it is expected to take the lead in library innovation in their country. In the last decades, these libraries have developed themselves from being predominantly repositories of printed paper, with cataloguing, lending and various expert services into institutions with a strong focus on the digital world. While these original services are still expected of them, they have to concentrate their efforts on new tasks that include preservation of digital heritage, including the archiving of new media such as web sites; conversion of (historical) printed material into digital full text and a large range of web services. And users have come to expect no less. For the current day user of a library, that which is not digital, is virtually invisible, and instead of searching a catalogue they expect browsing seamlessly through the digital full text of both scientific articles and digitized material.

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The current environment is still changing fast. New technologies and vast volumes of digital data (‘big data’) lead to new practices in science (e-science) and scholarship (digital humanities) . in addition, national libraries are confronted with changes (meaning most often less favorable conditions) in funding regime of the government and a changing market where private parties (companies but also users) start offering services that used to be the monopoly of libraries, such as lending e-books or offering scholarly browse and search facilities. The operational capacity of these libraries has very seldom kept full pace with the new demands. Neither the IT infrastructure, nor the process for handling content, nor the (lack of) user orientation, nor the skills and competencies of the staff are entirely up to these innovations.

To understand the magnitude of the changes they are currently involved in, it is best to look at the full list of innovations mentioned in the interviews (see appendix). Among these are building a completely new digital infrastructure, with many partners, for handling all digital cultural heritage in a country and the integration of the national public library coordination and all digital public library services in the national library. This is the field in which the model is tested for its relevance.

IV.1. Propositions on delivering public value through innovation In chapter III.4, innovation theory was juxtaposed with the public value perspective. This produced a definition and a set of propositions on the why, when and how of innovation in a public sector perspective. In the field test these were discussed and evaluated on their relevance by the respondents. To ensure that all respondents would discuss innovation with a common understanding of the concept, they were asked prior to the discussion to evaluate the definition of innovation that is the basis of the model: Successful innovation in a (national) library is: the creation or adoption of an idea or behaviour new to the organization with continued and/or added public value as outcome. This proposition was fully agreed by all as the proper definition of innovation in a national library context.

IV.1.1. Pressures for learning A national library is subject to pressures for learning and innovation which derive from users’ expectations, government and a wide range of stakeholders

This proposition was fully agreed on by all respondents. An important omission in the statement was noted however: the pressure does not only come through the authorizing environment (as it is in the current phrasing) but also directly from the dynamics in the environment itself.

As this is fully in line with the problem statement and the theoretical framework, the proposition will be adapted as follows (change in bold):

A national library is subject to pressures for learning and innovation which derive from dynamics in the environment, users’ expectations, government and a wide range of stakeholders

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IV.1.2. Balancing quality and continuous improvement with innovation In order to deliver public value, a national library needs to be able to foster continuous quality and improvement of service as well as radical innovation in parts

Of all propositions this one was most lively discussed. All recognized the need for and pressures of balancing ongoing demands of ‘traditional ’service while developing radically new ones. But the need for continuous improvement at the same time was contested, both by the focus group the majority of the interview respondents, as one of them expressed it: ‘I sometimes wonder: is this really expected from us by the environment, or is this driven by our sense of quality? Will there really be an angry mob outside the library if we do not update a running service will we are developing a new innovative one?’

All respondents expected to focus more radically on innovation in the future, and to make clear choices in what to improve. In view of these comments, proposition 2 will be adapted as follows:

In order to deliver public value, a national library needs to be able to foster continuous quality and improvement of service as well as radical innovation in parts.

IV.1.3. Co-production with partners The co-production of new library systems, services and workflows with partners leads to sharing of innovation risk and adding value to the public sphere

All respondents strongly agreed with this proposition, but indicated that the success of this co-production is dependent on ‘many ifs and buts’ such as: the choice of the right partners, the kind of agreements one makes, the fitness of the developed solution for all partners, and the equality between partners. It was also stated that many partnerships for co-production ‘just end in making the process slower’

IV.1.4. Alliances and networks Forming (long term) alliances and networks with other institutions to innovate lead to increased legitimacy, sharing knowledge and cost efficient delivery of public value outcomes

The reaction to this proposition was quite similar to the one before: full agreement but with many conditions:

One respondent remarked that for working in networks and alliances the organization needs a strong sense of identity: ‘if you do not have this sense of “ego” you cannot decide what part of your service to leave to someone else in the network’. It was also stated that a central organization like a national library only thrives in networks when ‘it is generous and able to grant some jobs to other partners. This asks quite something of the culture in the organization’

All found the cost efficiency of working in networks and alliances to depend very much on the type of partners and the aim of the alliance. While agreeing that cost efficiency is an important driver, the costs of delivering value by working together in a group of institutions are found to be often high in the beginning and the financial benefit was not in all cases apparent: ‘in an ideal world it would work like that – but I’m afraid we are not there yet.’

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Another commented that many conditions should be met such as financial and legal agreements, but ‘in the end it comes always down to people: do they get along – that is the crux of the matter’

All agreed however, that this type of working is an irreversible trend and will certainly be the future for all libraries.

IV.1.5. Co-creation with users The co-creation of innovation with users enhances legitimacy and relevancy of outcome and adds to public value

This proposition was fully agreed as being ‘inevitable’ and ‘certainly our future’. One respondent remarked that ‘the best ideas never come from just within the institution’ .

The focus group commented that co-creating with users was ‘more likely to be successful than working in alliances as users have clearer goals’ and ‘users are more likely to be on your side and so will be more likely to benefit you than alliances’

IV.2. Factors that determine the operational capacity for the delivery of public value through innovation On the basis of the theoretical exploration 42 determinant factors that support innovation in a public sector setting were extracted from the concepts that are most relevant to the public value perspective (tables 1 and 2, boxes 1 and 3). In the draft model in III.5 they are presented in five clusters that parallel the five major research streams in the theory of organizational innovation. The relationship of these clusters of factors to the propositions is shown in table 2.

In the field test, all factors were discussed in depth, to make sure the factors were clearly understood and to collect practice on how these factors play a role in innovation in the experience of the respondents The relevance of practically all factors was immediately recognized by the respondents, although some were thought more crucial than others. They were intrigued to see circumstances they had experienced as enablers and obstacles in innovation, confirmed in the factors drawn from academic literature. While commenting on the factors, they shared many insights and practices in innovation. In the paragraphs below, the most interesting comments from the interviews are quoted. As the shared practices are often an integral part of the comment, the practices are underlined in the citations.

After this discussion the respondents were asked to indicate one cluster that is most crucial; one that is least crucial; one that is easiest to apply, and one in which they would find most obstacles to innovation (see fig 2) After that they were asked to select 10 out of the 42 factors as most crucial, and 10 as least crucial to the innovation process. The resulting ranking was applied within each cluster in the definite model in section V.

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Figure 2: results of the ranking of factors at cluster level

IV.2.1. Leadership and culture This cluster is based on the research stream discussed in III.2.4 and is considered an enabler for all propositions (table 2). This was confirmed in the interviews; it came up as the most crucial to the innovation process.

The conflicting demands of the current environment on library leadership were expressed by one respondent as follows, related to the factor capability to steer both stability and radical change: ‘this is important in view of the fact that we currently are in a kind of limbo between the physical and the digital: on the one hand books and paper, and a lending function, and that whole business of the physical library not diminishing really, and demanding its own skills and expertise ; on the other hand there is the digital world that is emerging , that we see as our future destination. This is disruptive and the challenge for leadership is to show to the staff that it is no disaster to be out of balance from time to time. ‘

The factor tolerance to ambiguity and uncertainty was recognized as crucial especially in relation to working in partnerships, as ‘they never tell you exactly how things are, there is a certain risk involved but we have to have the confidence that we can handle it. Another thing is not to panic too quickly when thing do not go exactly as planned, a leader should have the flexibility to deal with that and inspire confidence in others they can do it as well’

The diversity of the top management team was found to be an important condition as well; two respondents mentioned specifically that their library had benefited from having a board member or a CEO with a background in industry: In general the diversity of top management plays a big role at my library, because the top management consists of very different people. One of the new vice directors came directly from the private sector in telecommunications. Everybody was rather frightened that he was going to change everything in a radical way, and to some extent he actually did, but everybody agrees by now that it was a really good idea. He never heard of any library things before he came to this library, it was a strange thing to hire a guy like this to run a library division,

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Leadership andCulture

Processes Knowledge andOrganizational

learning

CollaborationCapacity

OrganizationalDesign

Ranking of clusters

most crucial most obstacles least crucial easiest to apply

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maybe we were just lucky, but he brought a lot of important things, especially for the future of the library, because he is much more market-orientated, much orientated on the users of the library. That plays a big role in many of these innovations I mentioned I think because this group of people is able to give many different views and angles on many things.

On the other hand there was very little interest in the leader being an inventor himself. This is a significant difference with the private sector where this is considered a crucial factor(Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, 2009). Also unlike industry the encouragement of risk is rather avoided in a national library: a careful risk assessment before you take the final step is more important than just encouragement of risk when you are talking of such a big step for the organization. Let’s compare it to driving on a dual carriageway with your wife sitting next to you: you will want to be pretty close to a hundred percent sure that you will not run into another car before you take over another car. So you need to define your risk and be aware of what you do not know throughout the process.

IV.2.2. Processes This cluster is based on the research stream discussed in III.2.3 and is considered an enabler for proposition 2 (table 2). This was confirmed in the interviews.

Processes were seen as both easy to apply and hard to change in a phase of radical innovation.

There was no great enthusiasm for the continuous redesign of routines by the respondents: ‘in our library it seems we continuously design new routines and processes without getting rid of the old ones. We now have four different processes for decision making in innovation running in parallel that are sometimes at cross purpose with one another. My advice would be: do not set up a new process until you are sure it adds value’

The role of best practice project management in innovation was undecided: ‘clearly we have to have some project management, it makes things work, even a Google at their agile-best are still having to do some form of project management, otherwise nothing gets done properly or completed’ one respondent commented, but ‘it should be appropriate to what you’re doing, otherwise you stifle innovation and even your ability to deliver stuff. For this [innovation] programme we have a very lightweight, agile form of project management and it works very well’

It was also commented (in relation to the factor slack resources in the knowledge cluster) that the mindset induced by rigorous project management might be an obstacle to innovation: I guess you have to plan in the slack as time, as it were. I give you an example, I know when I first took over this team, one of the big issues was, they were being in effect being used as project managers quite a bit, and I think having that as a full-time role, you're very focused on day-to-day running a project, and that does stifle the ability to innovate. So we've taken the project management out of their role and its worked very well. It's just allowing people that time to think about these things, develop ideas, work with others in the library to realise it’

A positive role was seen for portfolio management in innovation especially ‘not doing everything’ Some interesting practice of this was shared : ‘clear choices are very important, even if it concerns recent innovations in service. Our library decided to come back from opening the library on Sundays, even if the public was quite happy with it. But the effort and resources it took were not in balance with the value it added, so we turned it back in order to focus on innovation in the digital library‘ .

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Another respondent stated: ‘we have a system for this that works very well: for every bigger project to be started, especially if it's cross-department projects that influences the entire library ,we have to indicate in the proposal what other things might be closed down or completely changed as a part of this new project. So closing down things has been a focus area in innovation actually. Sometimes of course, on a shorter term, this leads to parts of the library being rather upset, because their favourite thing is suddenly closed down, but it is very deliberate, and with the focus that there will be something new instead.

IV.2.3. Knowledge and organizational learning This cluster is based on the research stream discussed in III.2.1 and is considered an enabler for propositions 1,3 and 5 (table 2). This was confirmed in the interviews.

The importance the respondents ascribed to this cluster is not very well visible in the chart, due to the fact that Leadership and Culture took all the votes for ‘most crucial’ , and ‘clearing obstacles’ had priority over other considerations, making Processes second. In this cluster, five factors came up as most crucial:

Intention, interpreted by all respondents in the first sense of a shared strategy, played such an important role in some innovations that it outweighed the disadvantage of slowing down the process: ‘It took a long while, two years, all in all, before we had a common vision, and there was some friction on the way, but when we arrived at the point where we knew: this is what we wish to do together, there was a lot of added value in this shared strategy’

Requisite variety, diversity of teams played for most respondents an important role for the integration of innovation within the library, but it was considered even more important to have external members: ‘ In this innovation we worked mainly with people from outside the organization, and they were really the drivers of renewal.’

The presence of an Innovation budget was described as ‘indispensable’ and ‘this plays a very important role in entering innovation projects with external partners’.

For Absorptive Capacity , having and R&D budget and education level component, the graduate (technical-scientfic) education was seen as most crucial: expenditure may play a role but I think capacity is always mainly in people, you need people who are strong [in certain knowledge areas] and who can translate and apply the innovation . All agreed that the technical (IT) education has become very important all through the organization ‘I think the interesting difference with before is is that there have always been technical people in libraries, but they've been sort of tucked away in the IT function, and now you need them everywhere’ .

In relation to learning from failure the SCRUM methodology was mentioned as having good mechanisms for this ‘an integrated part of that is what SCRUM calls the retrospectives, so at every sprint you look back at the last sprint which is normally 2-3 weeks and you try to fine-tune your development process, learn from your failures, these are basically your post-project reviews

In relation to two lesser rated factors, Redundancy (overlap in knowledge between units) and sharing tacit knowledge, an interesting practice was shared: That's really important, part of what we've been doing is about how we can ensure that this [i.e. redundancy] happens. Behind that are

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things like our training programme and that links to sharing tacit knowledge, training by doing. It's trying to not have this as just a theoretical exercise but really looking at an application and delivering things that end up as services for our users.

There was remarkably little faith among the respondents in the role for middle management in exploitation of knowledge: ‘Marginally important [….] When things are having to be passed down the chain, I see that as inhibiting a bit. I think there is an active role for middle managers, but it is not to get too much in the way. We will have the professionals involved in innovation sitting in front of our senior leadership team to take them through an idea so it wouldn't be: they pass it to their manager - they pass it to their manager - they take it to the senior management group. You get the people who have the ideas to own it. […] So there is an active role for middle management but it is to not get in the way.’

The difference between factors for internal sharing and the levering of external knowledge were not obvious to the respondents, they considered all factors in this cluster in the light of working with both internal and external parties. This corresponds with the open and collaborative aspect of most of the innovations they are involved in. Therefore it was decided to group all knowledge factors together in the definite model.

IV.2.4. Organizational design This cluster is based on the research stream discussed in III.2.2 and is considered an enabler for proposition 2 (table 2). This was confirmed in the interviews. This cluster was considered least crucial by the respondents.

The national libraries in this survey were all characterized by their respondents as largely hierarchical bureaucracies This was felt by a few to be a barrier for innovation : ‘We are a very bureaucratic organization and we lack synergy between the departments where we create and develop innovation and the operational departments of the library. This is a huge obstacle for the uptake of innovation.’

They did place a high premium on encouraging some hybridity in the form of ‘skunk works’ for ad hoc working groups, taken from all parts of the library, stimulated or at least tolerated by management that would have the freedom and the resources to really innovate.

But the majority of the respondents did not feel the need to change the entire structure of their library, which was characterized as ‘something you can easily work around’.

IV.2.5.Collaboration Capacity This cluster is based on the research stream discussed in III..2.5 and is considered an enabler for all propositions (table 2). This was confirmed in the interviews.

The low ranking for Collaboration capacity is a bit of an anomaly. This cluster was discussed as an important condition, in particular for the propositions around co-production, co-creation and long term alliances, but as a cluster it was rated among the least crucial to innovation. On the other hand, three out of the five factors out of this cluster came up as crucial to the process.

Partnership and Networking capacities were mentioned several times as a particular strength of the respondents own library, in view of the fact that their organization had been operating for a long

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time in networks and alliances and within a complex authorizing environment. The importance of partner selection was stressed several times, for instance: selecting the right partner is very important, we still do not do enough of this. We have seen the consequences of a poor partner choice in a process for integration we actually stopped at some point. You have to consider very well if organizations are compatible with you.

For most national libraries, having had a strong internal focus for most of their existence, understanding user communities is a new skill, that they are teaching themselves: ‘Our digital scholarship programme is for a large part about understanding the communities of digital humanities, social scientists, perhaps even a wider community, and how we meet their needs’.

IV.2.6. General usability/applicability of the model All respondents were unanimous in considering the model a useful and relevant instrument to evaluate innovation capacity, in particular to reflect on this in their own organization. Several respondents announced that they were thinking of using it in discussions around innovation strategy in their library. They were also interested in of continuing the sharing of practices in innovation in future.

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V. Definite model In this section the conclusions from field testing are applied to the draft model (III.5) to propose a tentatively validated model for assessing innovation capacity in a national library. The definite model presented here differs from the draft model in the following aspects:

• The set of propositions on concepts of innovation in the perspective of a national library have been slightly adapted on the basis of the discussion (see IV.1)

• The five clusters of factors that determine capacity for successful innovation in a national library are now presented in the order of the ranking given by the participants (see Report on field testing, 5.3 Ranking the clusters, and Ad 4.2, Interview Protocol, Question 4.1)

• In the cluster Knowledge and Learning, the sub headings Knowledge sharing [..]and Specific for […] external knowledge were removed and the factors ordered as one list, as a consequence of the fact that respondents made no difference between these two forms of knowledge creation and diffusion in their answers (see IV.2.3)

• Within the clusters, the factors are represented in the order of the ranking given by the participants (see Report on field testing, 5.4 Ranking the factors, and Ad 4.2, Interview Protocol, Question 4.2)

Definition: Successful innovation in a (national) library is: the creation or adoption of an idea or behaviour new to the organization with continued and/or added public value as outcome.

1. A national library is subject to pressures for learning and innovation which derive from dynamics in the environment, users’ expectations, government and a wide range of stakeholders

2. In order to deliver public value, a national library needs to be able to foster continuous quality of service as well as radical innovation in parts

3. The co-production of new library systems, services and workflows with partners leads to sharing of innovation risk and adding value to the public sphere

4. Forming (long term) alliances and networks with other institutions to innovate lead to increased legitimacy, sharing knowledge and cost efficient delivery of public value outcomes

5. The co-creation of innovation with users enhances legitimacy and relevancy of outcome and adds to public value

Box 4 Propositions on delivering public value through innovation, applied to a national library, adapted after field testing

The ranking at cluster level (see Report on field testing, 5.3, table 3) has been applied as follows:

• most votes in most crucial comes on top • most votes in most obstacles comes second as obstacles must be cleared before you can

proceed with innovation • most votes in least crucial come at bottom • Easy to apply plays no role in ranking, as this says nothing of the importance, but this is

indicated with an asterisk* in the model as a tip for quick wins

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The ranking at factor level (see Report on field testing, 5.4, table 4) has been applied as follows:

• All factors indicated by more than two respondents as ‘most crucial’ are labelled a ‘must’ in the innovation process. These are presented in the top section of each cluster.

• All factors that had no votes in most crucial, or more votes in least crucial are labelled ‘can do without’ . These are presented in the bottom section of each cluster.

• Those in between the two other categories are labelled ‘nice to have’ and are presented in the middle part of each cluster.

priority factors most crucial least crucial Leadership and Culture Leadership must can steer both stability and radical change; 4 0 must tolerance to ambiguity and uncertainty; 4 1 must diversity of top management team 3 1 nice to have ability to deal with complex authorizing environment 1 1 nice to have

calibrate sensing and seizing of opportunities (entrepreneurial) with transformation (routines) 1 1

can do without leaders not only supportive but ‘inventors’ themselves 1 4 can do without independency, unconventionality; 0 2 can do without

supportive of innovation: ‘champions’; ‘walking the walk’ 0 2

Culture must Inventiveness, openness, curiosity 4 0 nice to have novel and adaptive thinking (beyond rule-based) 1 0 nice to have Trust, collaboration 1 1 nice to have tolerance to failure 1 1 can do without Encouragement of risk-taking 0 1 Processes* must portfolio management; making clear choices, ‘not

doing everything’ 3 1 nice to have Best practice project management 1 1 nice to have

change routines, e.g. for technology transfer and new product development 1 1

can do without continuous redesign of routines 0 3 can do without

continuous asset orchestration and renewal, use of analytical methodologies (e.g. investment choices) 0 4

Knowledge and organizational learning

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priority factors most crucial least crucial must Intention: strategy communicated and embraced by

all 5 0 must Requisite variety: diversity of teams 4 0 must Innovation budget, transaction budget 4 2 must Learning from failure (e.g. post-project reviews) 2 0 must Absorptive capacity for external knowledge 2 0 nice to have Redundancy: overlap in knowledge between units 1 0 nice to have Autonomy of professionals 1 1 can do without

Platforms for sharing, centres for research and innovation 1 2

can do without

Active role for middle management in exploitation of knowledge 0 1

can do without Sharing tacit knowledge: training by doing 0 1 can do without ‘Slack’ resources 0 1 can do without

Incentives for innovation such as awards or innovation contests 0 1

can do without Related syndrome: ‘Not invented here’ as a barrier 0 2 can do without Communities of practice 0 3 can do without High performance in the past as a barrier 0 4 can do without Fluctuation and creative chaos, ‘stretch’ 0 5 Collaboration Capacity must Partnership capacity 3 0 must Understanding user communities (e.g. open source,

digital humanities) 3 0 must Networking capacities 3 1 can do without Type of collaborator: boundary spanners 1 2 can do without Virtual collaboration skills 0 4 Organizational Design* must Mix of adhocracy and bureaucracy , ‘Hybrid’

organization 3 0 can do without Hierarchical ‘machine’ bureaucracy: barrier 1 2 can do without Pure adhocracy: only fit for Silicon Valley 0 3 Table 3 : Definite model of factors clustered in five groups.

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On the basis of the limited, exploratory nature of the testing, this definite model can of course not be considered as more than a first step towards building a truly validated and usable instrument. In VI.3 some steps are proposed to further develop the model and in sections VII some reflections on this follow.

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VI. Conclusion and recommendations The research in this thesis was driven by the challenge of national libraries to constantly innovate their products and services, so that they can continue to deliver value to the public. How do these institutions cope with meeting the demands of this innovation? What seems to work, and what are the barriers? This led to the research question:

What factors determine the organizational capacity for successful innovation in a national library?

A preliminary theoretical exploration revealed that a model for assessing the innovation capacity of an organization in a public sector setting, such as a library, is currently lacking. This led to the research objective:

To build a model to assess the innovation capacity in a national library

VI.1.Answering the research question For this purpose, the research question was explored in four sub questions:

1. What is innovation in the context of the organization? 2. What is Innovation in the perspective of a public institution? 3. What factors determine the capacity for innovation? 4. Are these factors are relevant to innovation in national libraries as public sector institutions?

On the basis of an exploration of literature that was necessarily limited in scope, it can be cautiously concluded that the theory in the field of organizational innovation (sub question 1) is fed by five major streams of research: Organizational learning and knowledge creation; Organizational design; Processes; Leadership and culture and Collaboration Capacity. The exploration of these streams led to the conclusion that successful organizational innovation requires a number of conditions: the sharing of knowledge within the organization as well as leveraging external knowledge with users and suppliers and the ability to balance two opposing approaches in the areas of competencies, processes and organizational design.

To observe innovation theory through the lens of public sector theory (sub question 2), the public value perspective was chosen. The synthesized view on innovation was expressed in a definition and five propositions, that form the basis of the model. These propositions were all subscribed to by the respondents, with minor alterations. Although the concept of Public Value ((Moore, 1995,Benington & Moore, 2011,Hartley, 2011) was new to the respondents, they recognized it quickly as a valuable perspective for their library as a public institution. Propositions 3-5 were moreover illustrated convincingly in the fact that eight out of the ten innovations listed by the respondents in the second part of the test involve co- producing in partnerships, in networks and with users (see Report, table 1).

From the literature in the five research streams in innovation theory that were explored, a total of 42 enabling factors (sub question 3) were extracted that appeared relevant for innovation according to the five propositions. They were based for the most part on the Knowledge theory of Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) and the Open Innovation Maturity Framework of Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp (2011) for the organization as a whole, and the Dynamic Capabilities perspective (Teece, 2007, 2012), the

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Ambidextrous Organization (Tushman & O’Reilly,1996, 1999) for Leadership in particular. In table 2 the streams of research are mapped to the propositions. The factors, clustered according to the five streams, form the body of the model. The draft model is presented in chapter III.5.

In chapter III.1.2 it was argued that the enabling factors, for a large part being related to human behaviour, would apply across different sectors. The explorative field testing of the model in the national library field (sub question 4) has demonstrated that this assumption was mostly correct, within the limited scope of the research. The respondents recognized almost all factors from their own experience, as can be seen in the lively discussion around them in chapter IV.2 and in the test Report. Not all were considered equally crucial to the innovation process; the ranking can be seen in the definite model in chapter V.

It can be concluded that the research question What factors determine the organizational capacity for successful innovation in a national library? has been answered in the form of the definite model presented in section V, within the limitations of the research explained in chapter II.2 of this thesis.

VI.2 Conclusion In the introduction of this thesis I proposed to make a modest start on building a perspective on enablers for innovation in national library that combines theory and practice. After discussing the concepts and factors provided in the model with both a focus group and six library managers it can be cautiously concluded that the model provides this perspective:

• It was confirmed by all respondents as relevant and useful for assessing the innovation capacity in their library

• The discussion of the factors led to the expected sharing of practice around these factors

The research objective however, went beyond these questions: this was to produce a skeleton model to assess the innovation capacity of a national library, meaning that it should be a first step toward building a real framework for evaluating the innovation capacity in a public sector setting, comparable to the Open Innovation Maturity Framework of Enkel, Bell, & Hogenkamp (2011). The next obvious step would be to find indicators for all factors, and then operationalizing them into a model for comparative research. Evaluating my findings in this very first exploration in the field, I think that the instrument produced is still very far from becoming an evaluation tool for comparative research. The main problem is that the field is very full of variables that would bias any result. Of these, the issue of cross cultural research is not even the most problematic. This could probably be identified and filtered out. More serious is an issue I encountered during the interviews: it appears that respondents judge enablers and obstacles differently according to their own organizations’ maturity in these aspects. This bias makes it extremely difficult to compare answers and to even draw very firm conclusions on the relevance of the ranking. And these are only two issues; a study of variables to be neutralized for such a model could easily be a thesis study in itself.

On the other hand, the potential of the model as an instrument to reflect upon the innovation capacity of a single organization seems to be promising, as well as its potential for sharing good practice on innovation. With this, the secondary objective of this model: to support the sharing of innovation practice among national libraries, can be considered to be achieved in a modest fashion.

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The interviews have also provided the beginning of answers to the question that drove the building of the model: what seems to work in library innovation, and what does not?

To summarize: The cluster Leadership and Culture came out of the exploration as being both the most crucial enabler and the biggest obstacle to innovation. The respondents felt that without the right conditions in this area, it would make no sense to work on any of the others. Organizational Design on the other hand was considered least crucial, as something you can easily work around, as long as you have the culture right. The comments and practices shared around the cluster Knowledge indicated that this is where innovation really happens, as soon as the right conditions are set. One of these conditions appears to be the making clear choices in the innovation Process, and cutting services if needed. In the area of Collaboration, an important factor in library innovation in partnerships, networks and alliances is the selection of the right partner(s). These outcomes may be very crudely visualised as

Figure 2: Visualisation of the outcome of the interviews

The real value of the outcomes of this exploration, however, lies not in this high level summary; it is in the examples shared on how things really work in practice: that a leader should show the organization that it is ‘no disaster to be out of balance from time to time; that for every innovation some existing function or service should to be closed down; that the ‘people from outside the organization in a project were really the drivers of renewal’ ; that librarians with little or no technical background, as part of their trainig are building computer applications that could really be used as a service for users, and that a lightweight, agile approach to innovation seems to work best.

These examples are valuable to share among peer organizations. It is for this sharing that the model is probably best suited.

start here: leadership and culture

clear away obstacles in

your processes

Knowledge is at the heart

of things

develop your collaboration

capacity

and forget about design

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VI.3 Recommendations/Next steps The sharing of practice is not meant to stop with the completion of this thesis. It should rather be the beginning. Further sharing can be done in meetings, conferences and other channels. To make a start, I have set up a blog (Balk, 2013). Here, the discussion of innovations and enabling factors can be continued with colleagues from the library field. The focus group has already indicated interest to contribute, and more contributions will be invited through twitter and other channels.

The tentative model could be further developed into an instrument for reflection or self-assessment of the innovation capacity in a library .This could be done by exploring it among a larger population in the national library field to validate and refine it further, perhaps make it more concise by eliminating factors that are seen to overlap or consistently come out in the ranking at the bottom of the list.

After maturing, a model such as this could perhaps also be used as an instrument for case studies in individual libraries, or related to specific innovations. In the current research design, I explicitly excluded the interpretation of results in relation to the innovation capacity of the libraries that were part of the study. Nevertheless, interesting patterns emerged during the interviews that would merit further research. This research should preferably not be anonymous, so that a clear relation between the factors and the innovation process can be demonstrated.

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VII. Discussion and reflection In defining the public value perspective on innovation it became clear that the open innovation concepts play an important role in current innovations in the public sector. This was confirmed by the empirical research. It is also an area where national libraries clearly struggle to find their bearings. On the one hand, the respondents in the interviews stressed repeatedly that they consider the concepts of co-production, co-creation and networking as both inevitable for the future of their institutions and as a means to enhance public value. On the other hand, as appears from the comments in the interviews, most of them find it still hard to gain real benefit from these partnerships for innovation in their own organization. This may apply to the public sector in a wider sense. So far, open innovation has been mainly researched in the private sector, with a strong focus on large, multinational industries. This is an area that would merit attention in the field of research in the public sector.

VII.1 Reflection In the months that I worked on this master thesis I have often reflected on the relevance of this research. Innovation may well be the currently most studied subject both in academic research and in popular management books, perhaps only rivalled by studies on leadership. How then can I even pretend to have extracted the most relevant factors out of just a couple of overview articles and a handful of theories?

The first answer to this is: I cannot. There are undoubtedly factors that I have not selected, that may play a role nevertheless.

The second answer is: there may be more factors but it is possible that they would not add very much to the range selected now; they would most probably fall into one of the five clusters defined. On what do I base this presumption?

Firstly, on the fact that I did not exactly stop at the literature mentioned so far. On my reading list were also works on disruptive innovation (Christensen, 1997, Anthony, 2008) and more literature on the implementation of open innovation in large companies (Mortara, University of Cambridge, & Institute for Manufacturing, 2009, Tushman, Lakhani, Assaf, & Hila, 2012); on co-creating with users in industry (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004) on complexity leadership (Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007) and on innovation policy in the Netherlands (Berkhout & Ridder, 2008). As none of these books and articles were as focused on listing and defining enabling factors as the other literature chosen, I did not use them for the model in the end. But they offered nothing to contradict the choice of factors; in fact, the more I read , the more I came across the same thoughts on the factors that determine innovation capacity. It can still be argued that these works all fall into the range of other literature I used, but then, as may be demonstrated by the innovations mentioned by the respondents and literature on the practice of library innovation described in the introduction of this thesis ((IFLA, 2013, Nowviskie, 2013; Posner, 2013; Rockenbach, 2013; Sula, 2013; Vandegrift & Varner, 2013; Vershbow, 2013; Vinopal & McCormick, 2013), the current wave of innovation is disruptive , the environment is very complex and most new developments do involve an open cooperation with peers, users and suppliers.

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Secondly, in the discussions both in the focus group and in the interviews, not one of these managers and professionals, all engaged in the process of innovation in their libraries came up with other factors or different categories of factors that they found to play a role in innovation.

Of course the 42 factors now presented are still chosen on the basis of an exploration that was limited in time, scope and background knowledge of a researcher to whom this academic field was relatively new. If the model were to be used for further practice or research in any direction, it would need considerable scrutiny into the granularity of the different factors and the possible overlap of some factors. On the whole, the model would probably benefit from being limited to fewer, but better explained factors.

I would like to end this thesis with a reflection on the personal benefit I experienced in the process. It was an enriching experience to lean back from daily practice on pushing innovation in my own library to explore innovation in theory and practice in a broader field. I found many of the factors very applicable in my own institution. The most interesting part was to discuss the concepts found in theory with colleagues across Europe. I found this directly beneficial for my own innovation practice; many practices were shared that I think should be tried out in my own library. Discussions like these are good practice in itself, related to the factor communities of practice in the model. As mentioned earlier, there was one serious drawback to the method: In interviews, anonymity was guaranteed to all respondents. For the reader, this places a veil between innovations mentioned and comments given. I hope that in the future discussions through the blog libraryinnofactors.wordpress.com , we can be open so that more people can benefit of the shared experiences. After all, it is clear that all national libraries struggle with the organizational side of innovation in similar ways.

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Appendix: Report of Field testing the draft model (separate document)