Ideas Generation in Hierarchical Bureaucracies: Evidence from a Field Experiment and Qualitative Data

We study ideas generation and innovation in bureaucracies, combining qualitative and quantitative evidence on workplace cultures, workplace climate and bureaucratic performance. We study these issues at-scale in a developing country, using data from bureaucrats in all ministries staffed by the Ghanaian Civil Service. Our qualitative evidence shows these organizations have strong hierarchical cultures, where juniors feel unable to raise innovative ideas, and a lack of resources and systemic Civil Service-wide issues are cited as key bottlenecks for improving organizational productivity. Our quantitative evidence comes from a field experiment training bureaucrats how to break down problems into simple solutions and raise these new ideas with colleagues. We implemented training at the individual level, and at the division-level to bureaucrats working together day-to-day. Our key finding is that individual trainings were more effective in shifting workplace climate towards fostering new ideas, measured 6-18 months post-training. This led individuals to be more likely to raise and discuss new ideas, ultimately improving administrative processes and public service delivery. Division-level training was less effective because divisions failed to integrate in core features of the intervention in terms of the nature of innovations proposed and collective steps to implementation. Rather, division-level plans reflected pre-existing hierarchical workplace cultures that stifle bottom-up incremental innovations and instead, fall back on unrealistically aiming for resource intensive Civil Service-wide change.