The sources of municipalities’ innovation in the management of weather disaster risks, their relationships, and their antecedents

ABSTRACT

This article presents the results of a study on the use of internal and external sources of innovation by municipalities to deal with weather hazards. Using data collected by an online survey of municipal emergency management coordinators in Quebec – Canada, this study shows that municipalities rely primarily on their expertise and, to a lesser extent, on peer organisations and upper levels of governments to develop new solutions to weather hazards. In addition, this study finds weak support for the complementarity hypothesis between internal and external sources of innovation and suggests strongly that these sources of innovation are not substitutable. The capacity and vulnerability of municipalities, as well as political support for initiatives to improve the management of weather disasters, seem to be significant drivers of innovation. Finally, efforts aimed at strengthening public organisations’ internal capacities and creating incentives to facilitate collaborations between public organisations are important levers to stimulate innovation.

KEYWORDS:

• Internal sources of innovation
• external sources of innovation
• complementarity between innovation sources
• climate change adaptation
• weather disasters
• municipalities
• Canada

Acknowledgements

Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Kaddour Mehiriz

Kaddour Mehiriz is an assistant professor of public policy at the School of Public Administration and Development Economics of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar. His research projects have focused on multilevel governance, the politics of decision-making, municipal infrastructure, adaptation to climate change and programme evaluation. His research has been published in journals including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, PLoS ONE, Research Evaluation, Local Government Studies and Program Evaluation and Planning.