Public servants’ creativity: salient stimulators and inhibitors a longitudinal qualitative digital diary study

ABSTRACT

Public sector creativity is the origin of innovation and crucial to public sector organizations’ ability to serve the public’s interest. Factors affecting public servants’ creativity, however, remained unexplored. This longitudinal qualitative digital diary study (N = 142) explores these factors. Our findings indicate that public servants’ creativity appears affected by four salient factors: public servants’ realistic evaluations of ideas, bureaucratic dimensions, out-of-balance work demands and (lack of) social contact. The underlying mechanics indicate that the public sector context demotivates public servants to be creative. These findings indicate avenues for practitioners to carefully consider when aiming to improve creativity within their organization.

KEYWORDS:

• Public sector creativity
• creative processes
• public executive agencies
• public sector innovation
• longitudinal diary study research design

Creativity – defined as public servants coming up with novel and useful ideas through various practices (Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021, 3)—encompasses the crucial ‘front-end’ of the innovation process. Before innovation can take place, individuals need to come up with ideas (Amabile 1996; Csikzenmihalyi 2013). Creativity is thereby essential to organizational performance (Puccio and Cabra 2010; Soriono de Alencar 2012) and public sector organizations’ ability to develop and provide optimal public services to serve the public interest (De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers 2016; Wynen et al. 2014). Indeed, positive links between creativity, public service quality (Salge and Vera 2012) and perceived performance (Gieske, van Meerkerk, and van Buuren 2018) have been found. Accordingly, public sector organizations are increasingly expressing their desire to employ creative public servants (Kruyen 2020; Kruyen, Keulemans, and Borst 2019) and are granted the managerial freedom to be more creative and innovative (Van Thiel 2001; Wynen et al. 2014; Overman and Van Thiel 2016).

Despite this acknowledgement of its importance, research and understanding of public sector creativity remains scarce (Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021). Although there is increasing interest in public sector innovation (De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers 2016), creativity as the crucial front-end of the innovation process remains largely unexplored in the public sector. Thereby, a crucial aspect of innovating in order to provide optimal public services remains opaque. To substantiate, Cinar, Trott, and Simms (2019) concluded that research into the factors that affect idea generation in the public sector is relatively rare and accordingly they call for more research into this specific phase of the innovation process. Moreover, based on their systematic literature review, Kuipers et al. (2014) indicate that there is a lack of knowledge concerning the specific public sector conditions that affect change processes, such as creative processes, stressing the need of more in-depth empirical studies on these processes. Extant literature focuses on creative processes in general (see, e.g. Mumford 2012; Kaufman and Sternberg 2010) and factors affecting the dynamics of creative processes in private sector organizations (see, e.g. Anderson, Potocnik, and Zhou 2014; Zhou and Shalley 2003; Amabile 1996). However, prior research indicates that creativity in the public sector differs significantly from its private sector counterparts (Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021; Kruyen and Van Genugten 2017; Nählinder 2013; Pots and Kastelle 2010). Public sector creativity appears typically pragmatic in nature; public servants predominantly generate incremental ideas reactively through practical application of various practices (Houtgraaf 2022; Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021; Kruyen and Van Genugten 2017). Moreover, the public sector argued to host specific conditions that are at odds with creativity, such as reduced incentives because of accountability issues and lack of market pressures, absence of venture capital, adverse selection of creative individuals and the presence of red-tape and political interference (see Chen and Bozeman 2014; Borins 2000; Bozeman and Feeney 2011; Rainey 1999). These idiosyncratic characteristics render generalization of generic theory on creativity to the public sector context problematic and demonstrate the necessity of exploring the factors that inhibit and stimulate creativity in the public sector specifically.

Therefore, our goal is to explore factors that affect public servants’ creative processes in order to generate insight into what stimulates and inhibits public servants’ creativity according to their perspective. This exploration serves as a knowledge base on how to improve public sector organizations’ innovativeness at its origin; public servants’ creativity. To this end, we conduct an explorative longitudinal qualitative digital diary study, focusing on the perspective of public servants to explore the factors they perceive to be stimulating and inhibiting their creativity. The qualitative diary design allows for a unique, inductive and in-depth approach for exploring the factors that affect public servants’ creative processes. Moreover, public servants’ everyday experiences offer unique and valuable insights for exploration of these factors. This approach allows us to open the black box of public sector creativity. By doing so, our research generates knowledge on the factors that practitioners aiming to improve public sector creativity may look into, enabling substantiated and targeted improvement of public servants’ creativity for increased innovativeness. Furthermore, our digital diary method introduces a valuable behaviouralist perspective and an unconventional method for data collection within public administration (Tummers et al. 2016; Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2017). Thereby it responds to the call for new methodological approaches, preferably longitudinal approaches, to research change processes such as creativity from a microlevel perspective in the context of public administration (Kuipers et al. 2014). Finally, the use of Kruyen (2020) DearScholar mobile diary application is unique. In sum, our research generates insight for practitioners on what to look out for when aiming to improve creativity and innovativeness and adds to the literature concerning public administration, organizational sciences, psychology and methodology.

Our study explores public sector creativity in public executive agencies in charge of policy implementation. During New Public Management reforms of ‘agencification’, these organizations were reformed to operate at arm’s length of government and were granted managerial freedom to operate in a more entrepreneurial and creative manner, with the desire to increase innovativeness as one of the underlying motives for their establishment (Van Thiel 2001). Thus, these agencies are expected to host relatively favourable conditions for public servants to think ‘outside the box’ while remaining ‘inside the box’ of formalization and centralization inherent to public sector bureaucracies.

This leads to the following research question:

Which salient factors stimulate and inhibit public servants’ creative processes according to the experiences of individual public servants working in public executive agencies?

Our exploration indicates that public servants’ creative processes appear to be affected most notably by 1) public servants’ realistic evaluation of the merits of new ideas, 2) hampering bureaucratic dimensions such as formalization, centralization and rigidity, 3) out-of-balance work demands, often as a result of routinized tasks as a possible consequence of formalization and 4) social contact or the lack thereof. Public servants’ realistic evaluation of ideas as useful and feasible appears to be the most prominent stimulating factor, underlining the pragmatic nature of public sector creativity.

The article is organized as follows. First, we explicate theory regarding creativity and the public sector context. Next, we outline the diary study’s design. Afterwards, we discuss the salient factors affecting public servants’ creativity based on our explorative research findings. Finally, we summarize our findings and discuss their implications for both theory and practice.

1. Creativity in theory

1.1. Generic creativity

Public sector creativity’s definition of ‘public servants coming up with novel and useful ideas through various practices’ (Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021, 3) indicates the central role of individual public servants in creative processes. Amabile (1988) illustrates the significance of individuals in the creative part of the innovation process, stressing that this part specifically involves individuals creating ideas in the context of the social systems called organizations. Hence, we focus on the individual creativity of public servants.

To delineate, creativity and innovation are separate analytical concepts. Creativity regards individuals coming up with ideas, whereas the team/organizational evaluation and implementation of an individual’s novel idea in an organization is considered organizational innovation (Hon and Lui 2016). Creativity is therefore an integral part of the innovation process (Anderson, Potocnik, and Zhou 2014) constituting its crucial front-end (Amabile 1996, 1988). Thus, creativity refers to the initial process of coming up with ideas, whereas the innovation process also encompasses the subsequent process of practical implementation (Amabile 1996; Csikzenmihalyi 2013; Anderson, Potocnik, and Zhou 2014). This research’s focus is on the former.

1.2. Creative processes

More specifically, one possible approach to creativity that is relevant to our analysis encompasses considering creativity as a process in its own right (Mumford 2012; Kaufman and Sternberg 2010). Creative processes pertain to the mental mechanisms – taking the form of stages of thought – that occur when an individual or team is engaged in an activity intended to produce a creative outcome that is both novel and useful (Kozbelt, Beghetto, and Runco 2010; Puccio and Carba 2010). The processes themselves are the mechanisms used to translate goals and raw materials into ideas as outcomes of these processes (James and Drown 2012). The multiplicity of perspectives on creative processes illustrates the sheer complexity and multidimensionality of creativity as a phenomenon (Sternberg 1999; Mumford 2012; Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin 1993). Merging recurrent elements of these approaches, we view creative processes as consisting of two phases: idea generation and idea consolidation. In the idea generation phase, stimulating and inhibiting factors determine whether initial versions of ideas are generated, whereas in the idea consolidation stage, the further elaboration of the idea is determined by stimulating and inhibiting factors in terms of contextual (social) evaluation. Our study does not aim to outline or supplement theory on creative processes, but rather to explore factors that affect creative processes within the public sector specifically as corresponding research is lacking.

1.3. Creativity in the public sector

Despite the body of knowledge on generic creativity (see, e.g. Anderson, Potocnik, and Zhou 2014; Amabile 1996; Csikzenmihalyi 2013; Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin 1993; Mumford 2012; Kaufman and Sternberg 2010) and some explorative knowledge on public sector creativity (Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021; Visser and Kruyen 2021; Kruyen and Van Genugten 2017; Rangarajan 2008), little to no empirical research exists on public sector creativity. This results in a knowledge gap concerning the factors that affect public servants’ creative processes in daily practice (Bysted and Hansen 2015). Meanwhile, the small body of research on public sector creativity and the literature on public sector innovation (Pots and Kastelle 2010; Nählinder 2013; Bysted and Hansen 2015; Boyne 2002) suggest that public sector creativity likely differs significantly from its private sector counterpart. Most notably, public sector creativity is found to be predominantly pragmatic; incremental, reactive and practical (Houtgraaf 2022; Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021). Relevant contextual differences refer to reduced incentives for innovation as public organizations face little market competition (Chen and Bozeman 2012) and asymmetric incentives that punish unsuccessful innovations much more severely than they reward successful innovations (Borins 2000). Furthermore, there is an absence of venture capital to seed creativity (Borins 2000) as public organizations receive resources on the basis of monopoly status with little relation to performance or growth (Chen and Bozeman 2014). Moreover, red-tape appears to limit creative endeavours (Bozeman and Feeney 2011). Finally, there appears to be an adverse selection of creative individuals against public careers (Borins 2000). These public sector conditions appear in conflict with creativity, offering possible explanations for its pragmatic nature. This research focuses on exploring the salient factors that affect public servants’ creative processes, thereby shedding light on the nature of public sector creativity.

2. Methodology

2.1. Research method

We conduct a longitudinal qualitative digital diary study as this method is especially suitable for explorative research on creative processes. Longitudinal qualitative diary designs offer the unique opportunity to exploratively collect large amounts of open, accurate and in-depth data concerning complex processes within organizations over a longer period of time from a microlevel perspective (Hyers 2018; Radcliffe 2013). Diary studies offer a unique balance between quantity and quality of data; it enables a relatively large N as opposed to qualitative methods such as interviews and ethnography, whilst offering in-depth data as opposed to quantitative methods such as surveys and experiments. The unique micro-level perspective allows to adequately explore what public servants experience as stimulating and inhibiting their creativity during daily occupations. Moreover, diary study’s immediacy – as opposed to surveys and interviews – and relative unobtrusiveness – as opposed to experiments, ethnography and interviews – further enable accurate and detailed data collection by mitigation of biases related to recall, social desirability and disturbance of the ecological setting (Symon 1998; Ohly et al. 2010). Furthermore, the longitudinal design allows reliable mapping of the complete course of public servants’ creative processes and minimizes the chance of missing out or excessively focusing on less common events – significant downsides of cross-sectional designs. This results in data representing the broad spectrum of creativity. Finally, diary studies can feature experience-sampling at regular, predetermined intervals of time, as well as event-sampling every time an experience an event occurs, resulting in flexible and optimal data-collection (Reis and Gable 2000; Symon 1998; Hyers 2018).

2.2. Methodological risks and mitigation

Diary studies entail risks that ought to be considered in order to prevent a negative impact on the validity and reliability of the research. First, recall bias poses a risk when respondents fill out their diary after an interval that is too long or behind schedule. Recall bias poses the danger that respondents’ memories of events increasingly change as time passes, resulting in biased and inaccurate data (Reis and Gable 2000; Tourangeau 2000). This risk is mitigated as quick responses are ensured by DearScholar’s convenience, mobility and accessibility (Hyers 2018; Kruyen 2020). Moreover, DearScholar features push notifications that help respondents remember to complete their diary on time. The risk of recall bias is thereby less than in the case of interviews or surveys (Hyers 2018).

Second, reactive bias poses a risk as writing a diary is an evaluative activity. Writing the diary may spark self-reflection, learning and active thinking about the subject, thereby altering respondents’ behaviour, which harms the validity of the research (Hyers 2018; Ohly et al. 2010). Moreover, reactive bias increases with frequency of measurement. ‘Thus, there are severe limits on how often one can reasonably expect participants to complete assessments and provide accurate reports’ (Spector and Meier 2014, 1116). Our research is prone to reactive bias as the study itself entails the risk of inducing respondents to actively think about new ideas, thereby sparking creativity. Therefore, we choose a relatively long interval and moderate interaction to limit respondents’ occupation with the study and implement a focus group to check for reactive bias.

A final risk is respondent burden. Diary studies – particularly qualitative ones – require high participatory commitment as they can be considerably time-consuming and intrusive (Spector and Meier 2014; Ohly et al. 2010). Both frequency of observations and study length increase respondent burden, with a potential negative impact on response, reliability and validity (Hyers 2018). As our study is longitudinal, respondent burden is particularly an issue. To counter this risk, we keep our questionnaires short and the intervals between measurements relatively long. Moreover, DearScholar’s user-friendliness further mitigates this risk.

2.3. Cases

The four Dutch public executive agencies included in the sample are located throughout the Netherlands and facilitate and/or provide diverse public services; from background IT services to public service delivery to citizens. We choose to investigate Dutch public executive agencies as these organizations host relatively favourable conditions in relation to creativity (Van Thiel 2001) and can therefore be perceived as critical cases. A diverse set of organizations voluntarily applied to partake in the study based on a call set out within the Dutch ‘Network Public Executive Agencies’. Respondents are recruited by the organizations themselves from multiple teams through management selection and voluntary enrolment. Data management plans and ethical conduct are approved and organizations as well as respondents remain anonymous. Data collection took place between March 2020 and March 2021, resulting in some of the organizations implementing telework fully or partially during the data collection period to comply with mandatory COVID-19 restrictions in the Netherlands.

2.4. Data collection and response measures

We implement measures to optimize accurate data collection and response rates. Firstly, we conduct a pilot study in a separate knowledge-work organization (N = 13) for a period of 4 weeks encompassing three experience samples. Based on the pilot, we correct issues concerning the provision of information, question formulation as well as technicalities and practicalities that result in inadequate responses and nonresponses. Secondly, prior to conducting the research itself, we provide an informative session and additional documents concerning the research to inform respondents about the topic, research procedure and functioning of DearScholar. A self-assessment intake survey is conducted to collect data on background factors potentially related to creativity for face validity controls (e.g. autonomy, job description; see Appendix B). For example, we check whether mentions of work pressure or bureaucracy stem specifically from respondents with specific types of jobs or degrees of autonomy. Finally, a focus group is organized for each participating organization at the end of the data-collection period for falsification/validation of results in order to add rigour to the findings (see Appendix D for topic list). To illustrate, after the diary data collection and analyses, we check whether participants disagreed with the salient factors that emerge from the analyses of the diaries and have them elaborate on the context.

2.5. Procedure

In practical terms, we ask 142 public servants working in four Dutch public executive agencies to report at least once every other week during a period of 6 months on their work-related creative experiences using the DearScholar mobile diary application developed by Kruyen (2020). We ask respondents to answer fixed diary questions regarding two subjects: 1) their experiences regarding their own novel and useful work-related ideas over the past 2 weeks and 2) their experiences regarding novel ideas that their colleagues shared with them over the past 2 weeks (see Appendix B for an impression of the diary). Experiences regarding colleagues’ ideas serve to control for self-reporting biases by generating additional data based on external reflection. Respondents are prompted to report on these subjects through experience sampling at regular, predetermined intervals as well as through optional event sampling every time a pre-established event occurs; in our case an experience regarding creativity (Symon 1998). Due to the assumed rarity of novel and useful ideas and to mitigate reactive bias, we choose an interval of every other week. To compensate for the long interval, we provide the option of event sampling to collect as much relevant data as possible with minimal harm as a result of reactive bias.

2.6. Response

A total of 102 of the 142 public servants participating in the research completed the intake questionnaire and therefore officially participated in the research. Of these 102 participants, 98 filled out at least one diary entry (entries are single measurement points, whereas diaries are the longitudinal collection of these measurements). Dropout and nonresponse occurred for numerous reasons, most notably work pressure, turnover, disinterest in the research, long-term absence, sickness and failure to attend the introduction meeting. Nonresponse increased by an average of 5.72% points per measurement point during the course of the research, indicating respondent burden. Push notifications, email notifications, calling rounds and digital informal meetings were organized to increase response rates, but motivating respondents from a distance proved difficult due to the mandatory COVID-19 restrictions. Participants had a variety of job descriptions, such as organizers, consultants, (middle-)managers, front-line care workers, HRM, PR, secretaries, support staff, assessors, translators, innovators, info-desk employees and a variety of IT specialists. The job descriptions of 16 participants were exclusively related to innovation and development, eleven of whom worked in the organization that recruited solely from its innovation team (see Table 1).

Table 1. Sample analysis.

Organization	A	B	C	D	Average	Sum
Number of active participants	40	25	22	11	24,5	98
Number of diaries	187	144	130	102	141	563
Number of ideas	126	120	91	92	107	429
Average age	46	49	50	51	49	N/A
Female/Male ratio (percentage of females)	60%	40%	15%	40%	41%	N/A
Average years of experience in current organization	11.0	15.3	12.8	12.5	12.4	N/A
Average years of experience in current function	4.6	11.0	6.6	6.2	6.2	N/A
Percentage of respondents with innovation related jobs	0.4%	25.0%	37.9%	100.0%	25.5%	N/A

A total of 563 valid diary entries were collected. The diaries contained 563 entries concerning the participant’s own ideas and 528 entries concerning the ideas of colleagues. All four organizations contributed roughly evenly (see Table 1 for sample analysis per organization, roughly corresponding with Dutch public sector statistics; see Hulzebosch, Jonkhart, and Van der Maarl 2017).

2.7. Data analyses

We analysed our sample using Atlas.ti, coding textual elements that indicate stimulation or inhibition of public servants’ creativity using the ‘emergent themes’ template analysis method (King 2004). Emergent theme analysis is an inductive and iterative distillation process of large amounts of qualitative data that aims to make sense of the data and reduce it to relevant text fragments that encapsulate specific phenomena – defined and categorized as specific themes – that provide information relevant to the research question. Template analysis is thereby suitable for exploring extraordinarily large qualitative datasets such as ours. In our case, themes encompass clusters of codes that resemble factors affecting creative processes. Both themes and codes are checked for intercoder reliability by other researchers. For the second and third coder, intercoding was 63.33% and 59.33% consistent with the coding of the main coder, based on 75 codes from 15 randomly selected diaries. Coding diverged as a result of the close conceptual proximity between usefulness and feasibility as idea characteristics – which were indeed merged in our analyses into pragmatism – resulting in consistency levels of 70% and 64.67% after being merged. The emergent themes are interpreted and ordered (sequentially) through clustering (King 2004). To illustrate, we identified the themes formalization and centralization as part of an overarching theme of bureaucracy.

3. Results

3.1. Salient factors

Public servants indicate a wide range of stimulating and inhibiting factors that they perceive to affect their creative processes. A number of these factors stand out due to the recurrency, typicality and prominence in which they are observed. We discuss these below, categorized by the stage of the creative process that they predominantly – but not exclusively – affect; idea generation or idea consolidation. We analysed the number of occasions that factors were mentioned. Factors could be mentioned multiple times within one diary. This is due to multiple questions within the two modules concerning public servants’ own ideas and the ideas of their colleagues. We leave out factors that were identified, but appeared less salient (less structural, less typical to the public sector and observed less frequently), such as employees’ inspiration/motivation or the lack thereof, employees’ isolated position or their decisiveness. These remaining factors are discussed in our discussion section.

3.2. Work demands

Firstly, both work demands that are either too high or too low are very frequently mentioned as affecting public servants’ creativity. Work demands are predominantly mentioned as affecting idea generation and incidentally as affecting idea consolidation.

On 187 occasions spread evenly across 123 diary entries from all organizations, high work demands are indicated as an inhibiting factor. When respondents are asked why they did not come up with any novel and useful ideas or did not hear any from colleagues, they answer, for example, ‘Too much work pressure’, ‘Lack of time, being busy at work due to a lack of personnel’, ‘Performed a lot of one-sided administrative work … leaves little room for creativity’, ‘No time to think about it’, ‘Many deadlines, so no time for creativity’, ‘[We need] less hectic weeks and more room for reflection’. What stands out in the data is that routinized tasks are often (53 occasions) named the cause of high work demands, for example: ‘Too busy with regular tasks to think about new stuff’, ‘I was too busy with daily tasks’, ‘Busy with the issues of the day and neatly following the work instruction’, ‘[There is] lots of work, without variation’, ‘Busy, routine’ or ‘Probably because colleagues are too busy with daily operation’.

Conversely, a lack of work demands in the form of absence of new tasks and challenges are also indicated as an inhibiting factor on 43 occasions across 34 diary entries. One of the organizations reports 54% of these occasions, whereas the other organizations contributed roughly evenly. When respondents are asked why they did not come up with any novel and useful ideas or did not hear any such ideas from colleagues, they answer, for example, ‘I would have needed to encounter issues that did not function’, ‘[I need] new tasks’, ‘If there was more stress … I would have had more need for new ideas’, ‘[We need] arising obstacles/issues’ or ‘[We need] a challenging problem to solve’. Although these textual elements indicate the absence of tasks that are not routine, respondents also specifically illustrate that low work demands are due to the predominance of routinized tasks; ‘[We need] some more variety in our work. There weren’t really problems which required ideas’, ‘Little occupation with new tasks. Only occupied with daily and planned topics’, ‘Predominantly executed our own tasks in which no problems arose’ or ‘I had few conversations in which new topics were discussed’.

3.3. Social contact

Secondly, both social contact and the lack thereof are very frequently mentioned as affecting public servants’ creativity. Social contact is predominantly mentioned as affecting idea generation and incidentally as affecting idea consolidation.

On 99 occasions spread across 85 diary entries from all organizations, a lack of social contact is indicated as an inhibiting factor. Two of the organizations, one of which did not implement teleworking, report a relatively smaller number of these occasions. When respondents are asked why they did not create any novel and useful ideas, did not share ideas and did not hear any from colleagues, they answer, for example, ‘Talked to few others about this’, ‘Little interaction with others’, ‘There has been little contact regarding thinking about ideas’ or ‘I get to speak with only a few colleagues’. Lack of informal contact is mentioned specifically on 36 occasions across 32 diary entries: ‘We don’t make time for chit-chats and coffee-dates’, ‘Because of working from home, you don’t just have a chat. Especially in these chats ideas would arise’ or ‘[We need] more real-time contact’.

Conversely, cooperation as a form of social contact is indicated as a stimulating factor on 84 occasions, spread roughly evenly across 66 diary entries from all organizations. When respondents are asked how they come up with ideas, they respond, for example, ‘After a conversation with colleagues’, ‘Brainstorm with a group’, ‘We came up with this idea collectively and used our separate influences’ or ‘Through a discussion with a colleague’.

3.4. Receptiveness towards creativity

Thirdly, both individuals’ and organizations’ receptiveness towards creativity in terms of openness and rigidity is frequently mentioned as affecting public servants’ creativity. Receptiveness towards creativity is mentioned as affecting idea consolidation.

On 47 occasions spread roughly evenly across 42 diary entries from all organizations, an open stance is indicated as a stimulating factor. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of their idea, they illustrate its success in the following terms: ‘I actually did not encounter any resistance’, ‘I was open to the idea’, ‘Positive, I often encourage creative ideas!’ or ‘We’re planning to give it a try, at least’.

Conversely, a rigid stance is indicated as an inhibiting factor on 51 occasions across 39 diary entries, with two organizations responsible for 80% of these occasions. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of ideas, they illustrate the lack thereof in the following terms: ‘At first reaction, there appeared to be too many obstacles. Nobody picks up the idea and brings it further’, ‘So far I’ve only heard ifs and buts’, ‘At first the reactions featured some hesitation’ or ‘Too rigid decision-making’. This rigid stance also relates to the following factors that will be discussed, namely bureaucratic dimensions.

3.5. Bureaucratic dimensions

Fourthly, typical public sector bureaucratic dimensions such as formalization and centralization are very frequently mentioned as negatively affecting public servants’ creativity. Bureaucratic dimensions are mentioned as affecting idea consolidation.

On 50 occasions spread roughly evenly across 42 diary entries from all organizations, high degrees of formalization in the form of fixed rules and procedures are indicated as an inhibiting factor. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of ideas, they illustrate the lack thereof in the following terms: ‘Whether it was allowed in terms of GDPR resulted in it being ground to a halt’, ‘A lot of people will need to have a say about this’, ‘That is the policy and that is difficult to change’ or ‘Not realizable because of policy’.

Moreover, on 53 occasions across 40 diary entries from all organizations, high degrees of centralization in the form of hierarchical chains of command and decision-making structures are indicated as an inhibiting factor. This factor is mentioned substantially more often (45%) by one of the organizations than by the others. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of ideas, they illustrate the lack thereof in the following terms: ‘Little sense of urgency at the board’, ‘The manager is rather critical … so we’ll have to see if it’s possible’, ‘Managers are to be made aware and need to give permission’ or ‘It is again organized top-down’.

Conversely, autonomy is indicated as a stimulating factor on 47 occasions spread evenly across 38 diary entries from all organizations. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of their idea, they illustrate its success in the following terms: ‘I myself am in the lead on this’, ‘That is the leeway I have within my work’, ‘I take care of that myself’ or ‘I get space to pick this up and take responsibility for it’.

3.6. Idea merit

Finally, perspectives concerning the merit of ideas are exceptionally frequently mentioned as affecting public servants’ creativity. Perspectives on the merit of ideas are mentioned as affecting idea consolidation. These perspectives are a factor that is overlooked in the current literature (De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers 2016).

On 536 occasions spread roughly evenly across 290 diary entries from all organizations, the usefulness of an idea is indicated as a stimulating factor. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of their idea, they illustrate its success in the following terms: ‘It’s more insightful’, ‘It helps the customer’, ‘Gets more done in less time’ or ‘Saves a lot of expense and helps with preventing the spread of COVID-19’. This theme consists of multiple subthemes, such as ‘user orientation’, ‘societal benefit’, ‘cost reduction’ and ‘time reduction’.

Moreover, on 75 occasions spread roughly evenly across 48 diary entries from all organizations, the feasibility of an idea is indicated as a stimulating factor. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of their idea, they illustrate its success in the following terms: ‘Is a very viable idea’, ‘I expect the idea to have a fair chance of succeeding’, ‘Is not very complicated to elaborate’ or ‘Fairly simple practicability’.

Conversely, a lack of feasibility or usefulness of the idea is indicated as an inhibiting factor on 68 occasions across 48 diary entries. The occasions are evenly spread across organizations, with the exception of one organization that accounted for only 7% of these occasions. When respondents are asked about the consolidation of ideas, they illustrate the lack thereof in the following terms: ‘Not possible for everyone, and often bad Wi-Fi’, ‘Demands commitment from the whole organization’, ‘Tooling was not approved’ or ‘Too soon, too much’.

The originality of the idea is indicated as a stimulating factor on 43 occasions across 34 diary entries. The occasions are spread roughly evenly across the organizations, with one organization contributing slightly more of these occasions (44%). When respondents are asked about the consolidation of their idea, they illustrate its success in the following terms: ‘Positive. I had not heard from it before in this context’, ‘Because it would be good to do it another way’, ‘Does not exist yet and there is demand’ or ‘Because it’s original’.

This leads to the following table of salient factors affecting public sector creativity. See Table 2:

Table 2. Factor occurrence.

Factor	Range & elaboration	Ratio	Effect	Overall mentions	Affected stage
Work demands	Too low work demands (low) to too high work demands (high), both partially under effect of routinization	Low (43)/ High (183)	Inverted U	Very frequently (226)	Predominantly idea generation, incidentally idea consolidation
Social contact	Lack of social contact (low) to collaboration (high), including informal forms	Low (99)/ High (84)	Positive	Very frequently (183)	Predominantly idea generation, incidentally idea consolidation
Receptiveness	Rigid (low) to open (high)	Low (47)/ High (51)	Positive	Frequently (98)	Idea consolidation
Bureaucracy	Autonomous (low) to formalization and centralization (high)	Low (47)/ High (103)	Negative	Frequently (150)	Idea consolidation
Idea merit	Useless and infeasible (low) to useful and feasible (high), originality (high*) to a lesser degree	Low (68)/ High (611; 43*)	Positive	Exceptionally frequently (632)	Idea consolidation

4. Discussion

4.1. Realistic evaluations

Public servants’ diaries indicate that four salient factors affect their creative processes. Firstly, idea consolidation appears significantly affected by public servants’ realistic evaluation of the merits of ideas in terms of usefulness and feasibility. This factor appears typical of the public sector. Furthermore, the relevance of this finding is to be stressed as the systematic literature review by De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers (2016) indicates that factors relating to idea characteristics are overlooked in the extant public sector literature, although our results indicate the significant importance of these evaluations. The evaluation of the merits of ideas indicates public servants’ realistic perspective concerning creativity wherein the merits of ideas are predominantly evaluated in terms of their use and feasibility, whereas with an idealistic perspective on creativity the merits of ideas are predominantly evaluated in terms of originality. Our findings correspond to previous explorative findings on public sector creativity by Kruyen and Van Genugten (2017, 837), who found that public sector practitioners emphasized usefulness as the main criterion for creative ideas, while considering originality to be less relevant, illustrating that public servants ‘are not looking for original ideas to innovate, but for useful solutions to pressing problems or to cope with innovations’. Similarly, West and Berman (1997) argue that, in the public sector, creative solutions are evaluated against a broad range of factors that determine their feasibility and efficacy. Our analyses corroborate their statements, as we find that public servants evaluate ideas in terms of multiple dimensions of usefulness (e.g. customer orientation, cost/time reduction, societal benefit) and feasibility (e.g. fit and available knowledge, expertise or budget). However, this finding does contradict findings on private sector creativity, in which ‘novelty’ in the definition of creativity (Amabile 1996; Csikzenmihalyi 2013)—per definition a prerequisite for an idea to be creative – indicates a spectrum of degrees in newness or originality; ranging from ideas towards incremental adjustments of lesser originality to radical breakthroughs of major creativity (Richards 2007; Kozbelt, Beghetto, and Runco 2010). The realism of public servants can be seen as another dimension of the pragmatic nature of public sector creativity, alongside previously identified dimensions of incrementalism, reactivism and practicalism (Houtgraaf 2022; Houtgraaf, Kruyen, and Van Thiel 2021; Kruyen and Van Genugten 2017), indicating that public servants’ creativity appears to be focused on coming up with useful ideas to ensure public services’ continuity and stability (see also Masood and Nisar 2021).

4.2. Work demands and routinization

Secondly, public servants’ diaries indicate that out-of-balance work demands – with routinization as a major cause – appear to significantly inhibit their idea generation through both overstimulation and understimulation. Work demands that are too high appear to lead to overstimulation, resulting in a lack of available psychological energy – described in terms of lack of mental space, focus, room or rest – necessary for an idea to emerge. This result corresponds to prior findings regarding barriers to innovation in the public sector (Yuriev, Boiral, and Talbot 2021) and findings that individuals require adequate time as a resource for creative cognitive processing to develop novelties (Amabile 1988; Amabile 1996; Ohly, Sonnentag, and Pluntke 2006). Meanwhile, work demands that are too low appear to lead to a lack of activation of psychological energy – described by our respondents in terms of a lack of challenges, tasks, problems and issues. We argue that the overstimulation and understimulation of psychological energy can be regarded as fluctuations in intrinsic motivation, and there is relative consensus that intrinsic motivation is a prime antecedent for idea generation (Amabile 1996; Shalley and Gilson 2004). Balanced work demands, in short, appear to stimulate public servants’ idea generation, whereas out-of-balance work demands inhibit it, implying an inverted U-shaped relationship between work demands and creativity in the public sector, a result which corresponds to previous research on the effect of work pressure on creativity in the private sector (Ohly, Sonnentag, and Pluntke 2006; Baer and Oldham 2006).

Striking is the fact that, apart from deadlines and meetings, public servants’ diaries illustrate that routinization appears a significant cause for both understimulating and overstimulating work demands as routinized tasks appear to either sap required intrinsic motivation by understimulation or drain it by overstimulation. This factor appears to be typical of the public sector. Indeed, Rangarajan (2008, 132) describes routinization as the ‘very antithesis of creativity’, but the causal dynamics at play remain insufficiently scrutinized within extant literature. Routinization is often linked to formalization in the public sector (Adler and Borys 1996), thus implying that rules and procedures as forms of formalization lead public servants to experience work demands that are either too low or too high – following the abovementioned mechanism – which in turn inhibit their idea generation. However, these results contradict the findings by Ohly, Sonnentag, and Pluntke (2006), who found that job control and routinization were positively related to self-reported creativity. We therefore call for future research to delve deeper into the role of routinization – as a possible consequence of formalization and determinant of work demands – on public servants’ creativity.

4.3. Bureaucratic dimensions

Thirdly, public servants’ diaries indicate that bureaucratic dimensions – typically present within public sector organizations (Boyne 2002; Borins 2006; Hartley 2005)—appear to significantly and negatively affect idea consolidation, mostly through rejection and demotivation. Although the negative relation between bureaucratic dimensions and creativity is frequently discussed in the literature, the causal dynamics at play have remained fairly opaque until now. Public sector bureaucratic dimensions of formalization (strictness, hindering rules and procedures, Rainey 1999; Adler and Borys 1996; Bozeman 2000), centralization (hierarchical decision-making, Rainey 1993; Mansfield 1973) and rigidity (general resistance towards new procedures and products, Rainey 1999) appear to influence public servants’ perspective regarding the degree to which ideas are feasible both a priori and a posteriori (see also Feeney and DeHart-Davis 2009; Hirst et al. 2011). This result corresponds to findings by Yuriev, Boiral, and Talbot (2021, 18) that public sector bureaucratic dimensions appear to ‘quash innovative ideas in their early stages’. In line with early suggestions by Thompson (1965), our findings indeed indicate that public servants either know from experience or assume that their idea will be rejected or take too much effort because of bureaucratic dimensions. Either way, they become demotivated and refrain from seeking to generate or consolidate ideas (see, e.g. Amabile 1996, 1988 on the role of motivation in this context). In a similar vein, DeHart-Davis and Pandey (2005) argue that formalization – especially red tape – erodes public servants’ autonomy and leads to demotivating feelings of powerlessness and meaningfulness, with detrimental effects on employee outcomes. Such a line of reasoning could explain the realistic and pragmatic attitude towards creativity displayed in the public sector; bureaucratic dimensions hamper and thereby demotivate public servants, leading them to think in terms of usefulness and feasibility instead of from an idealistic perspective focused on originality, thereby inhibiting their creativity. Although the public sector’s bureaucratic dimensions are often linked to restraining the kind of risk-taking behaviour (Chen and Bozeman 2012; Brown and Osborne 2013) that is needed for creativity (Feeney and DeHart-Davis 2009), our data do not appear to indicate any explicit signs of risk aversion as inhibitors of public servants’ creativity, apart from ideas being evaluated realistically, which can be interpreted as ‘cautious creativity’ as coined by Rangarajan (2008, 152). We call for future research to further elaborate and corroborate the possible causal dynamics underlying the links among bureaucratic dimensions, motivation and creativity, and to test the influence of different bureaucratic dimensions across different types of public sector organizations, such as policy-making organizations versus policy-implementing organizations.

4.4. Social contacts

Lack thereof are outlined as factors affecting creative processes, mainly in the idea generation stage, but also in the idea consolidation stage, a result which corresponds to prior findings in the private sector (Shalley and Gilson 2004; Mumford 2012). Public servants’ diaries indicate that sharing knowledge through social contact in the form of interaction and cooperation with colleagues (and to a lesser degree with external stakeholders) leads to the emergence of new ideas and further elaboration of existing ideas, corresponding to the suggestion by Torfing (2018) that multi-actor collaboration is a superior driver of innovation. Conversely, a lack of social contact prevents interaction from taking place and thereby inhibits creativity (see also Houtgraaf 2022). Moreover, informal contact in the form of spontaneous meetings and chats at the office are specifically mentioned as stimulating public servants’ creativity and a lack of this informal contact is specifically mentioned as inhibiting such creativity. Although the diaries do indicate the effect and causal dynamics of this factor, it is likely overrepresented in our research compared to normal working situations as the lack of (informal) social contact at the time of our study is a result of teleworking due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Repetition of our study in the post-COVID-19 era will shed more light on the role of social contact.

4.5. Limitations

Although our study provides valuable insight into the factors that public servants perceive to affect their creativity, it does have certain limitations. We mitigate some of these limitations through the intake survey and focus groups (see the section on Methodology).

Firstly, case selection has to be taken into account when generalizing the findings to other countries and the public sector as a whole. The Netherlands is a Western, stable and affluent country, making generalization of the findings to autocratic regimes or less-developed/rapidly-developing countries is problematic. Furthermore, the Dutch national context is characterized by ‘agencification’ of policy implementation, meaning that executive agencies specifically implement policy and public servants working in these organizations therefore use significant amounts of discretion. Moreover, these organizations host relatively favourable conditions for creativity and innovation to flourish, because they received more managerial freedom in terms of budget allocations and operational freedom in relation to goal attainment during ‘agencification’ reforms as part of the New Public Management paradigm (Van Thiel 2001). Although a diverse set of public executive agencies is selected as elaborated in the methods section, these organizations might be more hospitable to creativity and their employees might be more creative than civil servants in other government bureaucracies. However, as our findings mainly mapped inhibiting and contingent factors, the case selection bias is arguably less of an issue as it indicates which factors are salient even in optimal conditions. Still, the explorative results ought to be interpreted against this backdrop.

Secondly, the possible influence of the method on public servants’ creativity has to be taken into account. If the research itself spurred creativity in respondents, then this would impact the representativeness of the findings. However, participants in the focus groups almost unanimously stated that they did not perceive that their creativity was affected by the research itself. This claim was supported by one of the focus groups when a participant explained – based on their internal statistical track record – that there were no differences in the number or types of ideas submitted during the course of the research.

Thirdly, as with every diary study, nonresponse and attrition were issues. A notable level of dropout occurred during intake and response rates declined during the course of the research. Although 126 out of 141 respondents were selected by the organizations based on the criterion of an adequate representation of their workforces, this representation might be distorted by dropout and nonresponse. In the focus groups, participants indicate that dropout and nonresponse are mostly due to sickness, holiday, work pressure, technical problems with the mobile diary application and respondent burden caused by annoyance with the repetitive task of filling out a diary and by certain repetitive questions. Although analyses of the focus groups, response and dropout rates did not show that respondents with specific background variables dropped out or were under- or overrepresented, it is possible that specific types of public servants were more prone to actively participate in the research (for example, based on intrinsic motivation or affinity with the subject). Overrepresentation of, for example, motivated respondents may lead to less representative results, for example because of decreased identification of inhibiting factors such as work pressure in diaries of highly motivated individuals. However, as our findings mainly mapped inhibiting and contingent factors, the respondent selection bias is arguably less of an issue as it indicates which factors are salient even in optimal subjects. Still, results ought to be interpreted against this backdrop.

Fourthly, certain factors that previous research has indicated as affecting creativity were not included explicitly in our study, such as motivation, proactivity, leadership styles and task characteristics (Anderson, Potocnik, and Zhou 2014; Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin 1993; Mumford 2012; Kaufman and Sternberg 2010). This failure to observe what we term ‘latent factors’ has two possible reasons. For one, our data are based on the subjective experiences of individual public servants, which, although offering unique insights, also likely results in limited objective reflection on what affects their creativity on a deeper level (i.e. being unaware of feeling unmotivated or being influenced by supervisors). Second, even if these ‘latent factors’ were observable in our data, these observations would be based largely on the researchers’ interpretations of the textual elements and therefore prone to bias. The ‘latent factors’ are relevant, however, as they are more closely related to the fundamental psychological/neurobiological processes underlying creativity that are often subject to academics scrutinization and thus possibly play a role in complex causal dynamics (i.e. being demotivated as a result of bureaucratic elements or out-of-balance work demands; see Shalley and Gilson 2004). Thus, the nature of our data does not allow for accurate analyses of ‘latent factors’ and their role in more complex, fundamental causal dynamics, which is why we call for future research to delve into these factors based on other types of data in an attempt to link together the factors we found, ‘latent factors’ and cognitive/neurobiological processes in more complex causal models regarding creativity.

Fifth, although creativity is predominantly viewed as positive, we connotate this view by warning for a maximization fallacy; creativity may have dark-side. Multiple authors have argued – or at least mentioned – that creativity and innovation do come in disputable forms and with potentially negative effects (Khessina, Goncalo, and Krause 2018; Gino & Ariely 2011; Anderson and King 1993; Kruyen and Van Genugten 2017; Hartley 2005; Salge and Vera 2012), for example creative rule-bending (DeHart-Davis 2007, 2009; Khessina, Goncalo, and Krause 2018; Kruyen and Van Genugten 2017). Creative rule-bending is accompanied by risk of inconsistent application of rules harming accountability, predictability, procedural fairness and legitimacy (Bozeman and Scott 1996; Jung, Bozeman, and Gaughan 2020; DeHart-Davis 2009). Thus, some forms of creativity may actually be harmful. Future research will have to look into this aspect of public sector creativity.

Sixth and finally, the influence of COVID-19 during the data-collection phase of this research influenced the working conditions and creativity of public servants, thereby affecting some of our results. A notable number of respondents worked from home during the data-collection phase of the research, although not all organizations were in a position to permit teleworking and some did not do so full-time. Within the focus groups, there was some consensus that teleworking increased the lack of social contact and altered the nature of social contact. Although our results do accurately indicate the possible effects of this factor, its presence in normal situations is likely to be less prominent. Thus, our results regarding social contact should be interpreted with caution.

5. Conclusion

By means of a qualitative longitudinal diary design, this study explores the factors that public servants perceive to affect their creativity. Our results indicate that public servants’ creativity is notably affected by four salient factors. These four salient factors may explain the pragmatic nature of public sector creativity and indicate avenues to consider for practitioners wishing to improve public servants’ creativity as the origin of innovations and thereby ameliorate the capability of safeguarding and developing optimal public services in the public’s interests.

Firstly, public servants’ evaluation of the merit of ideas in terms of usefulness and feasibility indicates a realistic – as opposed to idealistic – perspective on creativity in the public sector, affecting the idea consolidation stage of public servants’ creative processes. This realistic perspective can be regarded as another dimension of the pragmatic nature of public sector creativity, alongside its previously identified dimensions of incrementalism, reactivism and practicalism. Realistic – as opposed to idealistic – evaluations may cut off and demotivate ambitious, radical and proactive forms of creativity. Practitioners who wish to stimulate more ambitious, original, radical and proactive forms of creativity for corresponding types of innovations may look into their current styles of evaluation and spur a culture that has more tolerance towards idealistic ideas. However, a connotation here is that realism might also be considered desirable as the public sector has a responsibility to safeguard the public interest, is financed with public funds and subject to strict requirements in terms of responsibility towards citizens, politics and the law. Public servants who depart from realism and proactively pursue radical and therefore risky ideas may run the risk of wasting public funds, disrupting the continuity and legal certainty of public services and thereby sustaining criticism from society and politics. Public servants, therefore, may consider an appropriate balance between realism and idealism.

Secondly, bureaucratic dimensions such as formalization, centralization and rigidity lead public servants to either experience the rejection of their idea or assume that their idea will be rejected because of these bureaucratic elements. Bureaucratic dimensions appear to hamper and thereby demotivate public servants, leading them to think in realistic terms of usefulness and feasibility – instead of an idealistic perspective focused on originality—, thus inhibiting their creativity. Practitioners who wish to stimulate more ambitious, original, radical and proactive forms of creativity for corresponding types of innovations can scrutinize their bureaucratic structures and determine whether they demotivate idealistic creativity. However, as bureaucratic dimensions may also serve as functional restrictions, here too public servants may consider the appropriate balance between idealism and realism.

Thirdly, social contacts appear important in stimulating public servants’ idea generation. Our study took place during the COVID-19 crisis, when teleworking was imposed in many organizations. This might have influenced our findings on this topic, but social contacts have been known to be important factors for creativity in general, so it seems logical to conclude that this claim holds true for the public sector as well. Thus, practitioners that aim to improve overall creativity may consider optimizing social contact – a consideration especially relevant in the post COVID-19 teleworking era.

Finally, out-of-balance work demands appear to inhibit public servants’ creativity in the idea generation stage, either through overstimulating work demands draining intrinsic motivation required for the emergence of an idea or through understimulating work demands sapping intrinsic motivation. Routinization appears to be a major cause of overstimulation or understimulation, which in turn can be linked to the bureaucratic element of formalization. Practitioners that aim to improve overall creativity may look at balancing work demands, not only being vigilant to excessive demands, but also a lack of stimulation as a result of routinized tasks.

Acknowledgments

The respondents of the participating organizations are thanked for their devotion in putting energy into filling out the diaries that enabled this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data will be made available for verification upon request but are under embargo and may not be used for additional research.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the official Dutch Organization for Scientific Research through the Open Competition contest under grant #27000931

Notes on contributors

Glenn Houtgraaf

Glenn Houtgraaf has a background in Political Science (BA, University of Amsterdam) and Public Administration (MA, Radboud University), has worked as a lobbyist for several international organizations and is currently working on a PhD (Radboud University) in public sector creativity under the supervision of Dr. Peter Kruyen and Prof. Dr. Sandra van Thiel. The research project ‘The Creative Public Servant’ aims at filling the gap in the literature regarding creativity in the public sector. Creativity is the origin of every innovation and is thus crucial for public sector performance. Therefore, his research project aims to shed light on multiple aspects of creativity in the public sector, most notably, its processes, the types of ideas generated, the creative practices that public servants apply, the idiosyncratic features of public sector creativity and the factors that typically stimulate and inhibit public sector creativity. To these ends, his fundamental research project features multiple ambitious and unique research methods, such as a diary study, an experiment, a systematic literature review with a twist and a thorough quantitative analysis based on a large-scale survey. Visit his website GlennHoutgraaf.com to find out more.

Peter Kruyen

Peter Kruyen has a background in Public Administration and Organization Studies (BA & MA) and a PhD in psychometrics. He is currently working as an assistant professor at the Department of Public Administration, Radboud University, the Netherlands. He teaches organizational theory, public management, and statistics to public administration students and supervises several PhD students. His research programme focuses on civil servants’ behaviour, psychological characteristics, and competencies and on how their work is affected by managerial techniques, human resource management and organizational structures. In particular, he is interested in civil servants’ work-related creativity.

Sandra van Thiel

Sandra van Thiel studied psychology and educational sciences at Catholic University Nijmegen and has a PhD in sociology from Utrecht University. Currently, she is a professor of public management at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam and at the Department of Public Administration at Radboud University in Nijmegen. Her research interests revolve around semiautonomous executive agencies, which have been charged with the implementation of public policies but which operate at a remove from the government. In addition to her academic work, she is a frequent advisor to governments and executive agencies. In 2012, she coordinated a parliamentary inquiry into this topic for the Dutch Senate. Sandra is also editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Public Sector Management.