Loose Cannons and Rule Breakers, or Enterprising Leaders? Some Evidence About Innovative Public Managers

Abstract

One element of the debate over New Public Management concerns public‐sector entrepreneurship. Critics see entrepreneurs as people prone to rule breaking, self‐promotion, and unwarranted risk taking, while proponents view them as exercising leadership and taking astute initiatives. This article examines two samples of the best applications to the Ford Foundation—Kennedy School of Government innovation awards, one between 1990 and 1994 and the other between 1995 and 1998, to see whether they are more consistent with the critics' or proponents' views. The second sample closely replicates the first, and the evidence from both strongly supports the proponents' views. Innovators are creatively solving public‐sector problems and are usually proactive in that they deal with problems before they escalate to crises. They use appropriate organizational channels to build support for their ideas. They take their opponents seriously and attempt to win support for their ideas through persuasion or accommodation.

Achieving strategic renewal: the multi-level influences of top and middle managers’ boundary-spanning

“…Most research emphasizes the role of MMs as key drivers of CE. For instance, MMs are identified as the most entrepreneurial people (Morris and Jones 1999), the largest group of initiators (Borins 2000), and the main source of creativity in entrepreneurship (Bernier and Hafsi 2007). Yet, this significant contribution of MMs cannot be taken for granted and cannot be understood in isolation of their TMT's influence.…”

Women empowerment through social innovation in indigenous social enterprises

“…Social innovation, defined as a positive change at the conceptual, process, product or organizational level, implies a novel use of resources that contributes to the achievement of social goals (Borins, 2000;Mair & Marti, 2006;Megre, Martins, & Salvado, 2012;Peredo & Chrisman, 2006). The scalability of social entrepreneurship refers to the ability to successfully replicate the business model in other places, in order to continue generating social benefits (Martin & Osberg, 2007;Yunus, 2010).…”

The Paths through Which School Heads’ Transformational Leadership Influence Students’ Outcomes in Public Secondary Schools in Kuwait

“…Application of private sector business models to the public sector is something that has not extensively been explored as there are mixed views with some people contenting that it is immoral to advocate private sector managerial practices into the public sector (Heifetz,1994;Borins, 2000). Heifetz (1994) argues against prescribing private sector management models to the public sector because the problems encountered in the public sector are different and beyond the capacity of any one person to frame and because of the need to comply to very strict government rules and regulations in some cases.…”