The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 5(2), 2000, article 1f.
Is Innovation a Question of Will or Circumstance?
An Exploration of the Innovation Process Through the Lens of the Blakeney
Government in Saskatchewan, 1971-82
Edited by Eleanor D. Glor
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Section III: How Should the Innovation Process Be Understood?
What is Innovation?
The innovation process has been examined several different ways by the authors of this book: If two sides of a cube have been the central and line agency strategies for approaching innovation, the third side is an analysis of those changes.
In this section of Is Innovation a Question of Will or Circumstance? the cube is turned to examine innovation along Wilson’s (1992) dimension of voluntarism-implementation and determinism-process. In chapter 9 innovation is considered as voluntarism, as something that can be planned and in Chapter 10 as determinism and a trait of government. Chapter 9 examines innovation as a question of implementation. These chapters do not provide an exhaustive examination, but offer a view of the innovation process in the Saskatchewan government from each perspective. The Conclusion then considers whether Wilson’s dimensions are a useful and illuminating way to describe, analyze and understand innovation.
One of the advantages of using several approaches is the different perspectives revealed. Another advantage is that opportunities are created to compare the approaches and to determine which if any approach is superior, and in which circumstances.
- Chapter 9
Voluntarism: Innovation in Saskatchewan as Planning and Implementation
Eleanor Glor - Chapter 10
Determinism: Innovation as Emergent
Eleanor Glor
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