The Performance Effects of Administrative Innovations--IT Organizational Design Changes in US State Governments

组织，无论是私人的还是公共的，都投入了大量的资源来开发、采用、学习和交流他们在组织结构和管理过程中所做的变化，但是许多观察家认为，变化往往不能产生预期的结果。因此，对主要组织创新结果的仔细分析具有相当大的潜力，可以告知和指导有关采用这些创新的未来决策。本研究考察了管理实践的创新是否以及如何改善复杂组织的运作。着眼于州政府的信息技术（IT）管理创新，本研究在所有50个州采用调查和访谈来检查创新IT管理实践的组合，实践采用的顺序和时间，以及对州政府绩效的影响。深入的个案研究将补充人口研究，以揭示创新做法可导致业绩改善的过程。对更好的IT管理的需求在政府组织中尤为明显，因为政府组织一直在与“少花钱多办事”的需求作斗争。这组研究将有助于回答这样一个问题：在什么条件下，创新实践会在更好的州政府绩效方面获得回报？该项目强调IT治理、IT架构设计和IT采购，因为专家认为这些实践领域对于提高政府IT项目的成功是最关键的。然而，这些发现将有助于了解管理实践中的创新，而不仅仅是州政府。研究结果将分发给学术研究人员和实践者。

Organizations, whether private or public, devote enormous resources to developing, adopting, learning about, and communicating the changes they make in organizational structures and management processes, but many observers argue that changes often fail to produce the intended results. Consequently, careful analysis of the results of major organizational innovations has considerable potential to inform and guide future decisions about their adoption.This study examines whether and how innovations in management practices improve the functioning of complex organizations. Focusing on information technology (IT) management innovations in state governments, this study employs surveys and interviews in all 50 states to examine combinations of innovative IT management practices, the sequence and timing of practice adoption, and effects on state government performance. In-depth case studies will complement the population study to reveal the processes by which innovative practices can lead to performance improvements. The need for better IT management is especially clear in government organizations, which continually struggle with the need to "do more with less." This set of studies will help answer the question: under what conditions do innovative practices pay off in terms of better state government performance? The project emphasizes IT governance, IT architecture design, and IT procurement, because these practice areas are believed by experts to be most critical for improving the success of government IT projects. However, the findings will contribute to knowledge about innovation in management practices in general, not just to state governments. Study results will be disseminated both to academic researchers and to practitioners.