Contribution of Institutional Enablers to Internal Innovation Implementation in Public Sector: The Case of Civil Dispute Cases Prevention and Termination in Taipei City Government

Volume: 

25

Number: 

2

Published date: 

December, 2021

Authors: 

Chun-Ta Lee

Abstract: 

In recent years, the Taipei City Government has been pushing, ahead of other municipalities in Taiwan, for a reduction and rapid settlement of its litigation cases, through the concentrated management of such cases by a dedicated unit. The innovation implementation has borne fruit, having reduced not only the amount of new litigation but also the number of old cases, according to statistics compiled by the city government’s Department of Legal Affairs. From the point of view of an organization, the implementation of effective innovation needs the support of institutional enablers, which can forge the conviction of an organization’s members in, as well as their reaction to, an innovative system, thereby affecting the outcome of internal innovation. Given the features of the public sector, this study treats management support and resource availability as the institutional enablers for litigation reduction. The study used a questionnaire survey that targeted the city government’s legal officials, the results of which were subjected to statistical analysis. Subsequent regression analysis showed that the legal officials confirmed the importance of the standpoints of government-agency chiefs in terms of implementing the innovation for litigation reduction. Moreover, encouragement from or acknowledgement by the mayor also affected the standpoints of the government-agency chiefs in relation to litigation reduction. Meanwhile, the operating procedure for litigation reduction is an important resource available to legal officials and has a significant influence on innovation implementation. In practice, this study suggests that city governments should put in place an environment conducive to law enforcement, thereby facilitating efforts to reduce the amount of litigation.

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