Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Summary
- one Introduction
- two Public services innovation: perspectives on innovation in organisation and management
- three The housing association policy environment, regulation and innovation
- four Classifying and measuring innovation
- five In search of the innovative housing association
- six Managing innovation
- seven Conclusions
- References
- Index
seven - Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Summary
- one Introduction
- two Public services innovation: perspectives on innovation in organisation and management
- three The housing association policy environment, regulation and innovation
- four Classifying and measuring innovation
- five In search of the innovative housing association
- six Managing innovation
- seven Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
It has been demonstrated that housing associations have innovative capacity – a sizeable proportion have lived up to the expectations placed upon them. They have steered their way through a difficult and turbulent environment and now, more than any time previously, need to maintain this capacity and enhance their ability for framebreaking. This is necessary because government agendas are now fast-moving while the expectations of the public are changing: no longer do tenants flock to the doors of the housing office in search of accommodation; the housing officer now needs to search for new tenants. The drivers of innovation now extend beyond government expectations, which has created a climate for public services organisations to present themselves as innovative organisations, and increasingly include market pressures as users exercise choice and private financiers leave their mark. They also extend to the changing nature of the external environment and the ways in which our case-study associations actively engaged with it. In addition leaders were eager to improve performance across a number of dimensions and keen to learn from other contexts. The iterative process of innovation and re-regulation of these new activities by associations, to draw them into a framework where they can be monitored, is clearly seen in our example of housing associations. Associations have responded to changes in their environment and developed a range of innovations which has led the industry regulator to redesign the regulatory framework. It can be argued that this has been designed in such a way that it can bend and flex, going with the flow of the innovations that associations put into practice, rather than snap and shatter as the flow of innovations is resisted. However, in order to achieve this, the control over associations has been increased raising a challenge to future housing association innovation. The style of regulation now seen is more akin to that of the privatised utilities, with a growing emphasis upon economic regulation. This in part reflects the housing associations’ own self-definitions, and their capacity for polymorphism; they increasingly parade themselves as private organisations, but can still display their public and voluntary forms. This final chapter of our study draws out conclusions and makes linkages between the central questions of this book concerning the classification of innovation, the characteristics of innovative organisations and the management of innovation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Managing Public Services InnovationThe Experience of English Housing Associations, pp. 99 - 110Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2001