Analyzing the critical factors for innovation sustainability in the public sector: evidence from Indonesia

Purpose: This study examines the critical factors contributing to the different conditions of innovation sustainability after a change in local political leadership. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a multiple case study approach and applied the critical incident technique (CIT) to collect and analyze data from four innovation cases in the two local governments of Indonesia. Findings: The results highlight that the sustainability condition of each innovation after the political regime change is determined by multiple critical factors. Research limitations/implications: First, the data collected through interviews may contain a memory bias. Second, this study was limited to local governments and did not consider innovation taxonomies. Practical implications: The study implies that in order to sustain innovation, public leaders must support innovation legitimacy as a new organizational structure; thus, it can be more durable in the long term. In addition, public leaders need to minimize innovation politicization by authorizing bureaucrats to autonomously manage innovation operationalization. Social implications: Public leaders need to pay careful attention to their innovation sustainability because a non-sustained policy can disappoint the individuals working for it, losing their trust and enthusiasm. This dissatisfaction could become a barrier to mobilizing support for the following policies. Originality/value: Innovation sustainability is a new theme that is overlooked in the public sector innovation literature. Therefore, investigations using different methods and contexts are required, as this study offers. This study also demonstrated the value of CIT in identifying critical factors affecting innovation sustainability in the context of political leadership change. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.