Re-organizing Australian public sector work

Conditions for innovating-in-practice

Authors

  • Mary Johnsson Centre for Research in Learning & Change, University of Technology, Sydney
  • Oriana Milani Price Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong and Centre for Research in Learning & Change, University of Technology, Sydney
  • Marie Manidis Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Graduate Research School, University of Technology, Sydney

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v18i4.15646

Keywords:

Innovating-in-practice, Practice theory, Work organization dualities, Employee-driven innovation (EDI), New public management

Abstract

Public sector organizations continue to re-organize in response to reform imperatives but are they more innovative when they transform to market or customer orientations? This paper examines what we call innovating-in-practice in a hospital emergency department, a local government council and a corrections centre by analyzing how work organization dualities are negotiated using a practice theory lens. In public sector work, work dualities and tensions are often created when reform initiatives are introduced, requiring existing work practices to be challenged and changed. Our empirical illustrations expose the mess- iness and enmeshing of various practitioner interests, relations, materialities and purposes of practice in ways that restrict or embrace innovation. Innovating-in-practice ‘troubles’ the structural limitations of conventional approaches to organizing or designing for inno- vation, suggesting in contrast, the value of more fluid processes for reinventing work that emerge from accommodating work organization dualities and interrogating the complexities of practice-based accomplishments.

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Author Biographies

Mary Johnsson, Centre for Research in Learning & Change, University of Technology, Sydney

Mary Johnsson currently researches in the fields of workplace learning, relational practices and practice dynamics at UTS. Her doctoral research challenged entitative conceptualizations of collec- tive learning in the workplace by applying complexity theory principles and relational philosophies and drew from her 20 years of practitioner experience in facilitating strategic change and innovation for multinational corporations in the USA. Her teaching focuses on systemic learning, the sociology of work and professional learning subjects that assist students develop their professional practice competencies.

Oriana Milani Price, Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong and Centre for Research in Learning & Change, University of Technology, Sydney

Oriana Milani Price’s research interests are in workplace learning and practice as it relates to organizational change and employee-driven innovation and she completed her doctoral research in the area of organizational change and practice at UTS. Having worked in the private, public and higher education sectors for the past 20 years, she has held numerous management and specialist positions which focused on leading organizational change and development initiatives. She currently teaches in the Master of Business Administration and Master of Science programs at the Sydney Business School and is a researcher in the Transnational Teaching Teams Project in the School of Health and Society, both schools at the University of Wollongong.

Marie Manidis, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Graduate Research School, University of Technology, Sydney

Marie Manidis has recently completed her doctorate in organizational learning examining the knowledge practices of nurses and doctors in urban and semi-urban emergency departments. She is commencing a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, researching and developing academic and cultural (organizational) literacies of international Higher Degree Research students at UTS. Over the past 30 years, she has worked in private, public, vocational and higher education sectors where she held a number of specialist and managerial positions.

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Published

2014-12-15

How to Cite

Johnsson, M., Milani Price, O., & Manidis, M. (2014). Re-organizing Australian public sector work: Conditions for innovating-in-practice. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 18(4), 29–50. https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v18i4.15646

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 4 (2014): Innovative Practices in Work, Organization and Regional Development – Problems and Prospects

Section

Original Articles

License

Creative Commons License

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