5. Methodology and purpose of the assessment

Abstract

The chapter outlines the methodology of the assessment of the governance system in Finland carried out by the OECD in between 2020-2021. The aim of the assessment was to identify the gaps within the system that hinder the government from implementing an anticipatory innovation approach. For the latter a mixed method approach using desk research, semi-structured interviews and validation workshops with experts was adopted.

    

The OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation together with the Government of Finland and the European Commission, is developing an innovation governance model. The aim of this initial assessment report is to analyse the preconditions and gaps within the wider public sector policy making and steering system in Finland that may stand in the way or help implement an anticipatory innovation approach in the Finnish context. The assessment will be followed up by an action research phase in which 3-4 pilot case studies will be selected to develop anticipatory innovation capacity or structures within the Government of Finland. Action research is especially well suited to work in public sector anticipatory contexts, where complex challenges, institutional dynamism and rapidly shifting priorities compel researchers to ground their general theories in practitioners’ daily reality in order to produce knowledge that is both relevant and readily useful.

The findings of the assessment report draw on the triangulation of data emerging from semi-structured interviews, workshops, and desk research to understand how the public sector responds to complex challenges and uncertainty. The work is supplemented by comparative analysis from the OECD’s relevant body of research and country work. In Finland, the OECD triangulated data from the following sources:

• Desk research, including previous OECD reports on public governance in Finland, grey literature (policy brief, reports, etc.) on public sector innovation and innovation systems, and Finnish government reports.

• Semi-structured interviews with over 50 public sector leaders, policy makers, experts, media representatives, and key stakeholders across jurisdictions and sectors to understand the system elements, key challenges, and experiences of actors within the system (see list in Annex A). The interviews took place between November 2020 and February 2021 and were all conducted virtually. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, anonymised and coded in NVivo. All the interviews were coded following the coding scheme in Table 5.1 covering first level primary codes. In total, 177 codes over three different levels were created. The coding scheme was developed in an inductive, iterative way, by first testing initial codes on five interviews and then expanding on the scheme based on new topics uncovered in the process in a reflexive manner. Codes that proved to be specific to single interviews were merged with other relevant findings or moved to the category “other” (see Table 5.1). In total 1 368 observations were coded, with an average of 27.4 per interview.

Table 5.1. High level coding scheme
Presented are first level codes; additional send and third level codes were created depending on need.
Code	Description
Governance model	Examples of different forms of governance with sub-codes denoting market-based, network-based and whole of government governance mechanisms.
Governance challenges	Structural/organisational, co-ordination, implementation, individual/psychological, collaboration, political, procedural and process challenges connected to the difficulty to anticipate and deal with complexity.
Policy challenges	Substantive policy challenges including climate chance, ageing, democracy, food security, etc. connected to the need for anticipation.
Innovation	Innovative activities in government with sub-categories on causes for differences among organisations, most innovative organisational examples, situations when government acts as an enabler or where the innovation is led by the private sector.
Capacity	Capacities connected to anticipatory innovation governance that were either demonstrated or expected to be needed.
Tools and methods	Tools and methods that were either needed or demonstrated based on their aims (behavioural insights, collaboration, experimentation, foresight, human centred design, etc.).
Decision making	Findings highlighting the premise of how decisions are made in the public sector of Finland based on evidence, political calculations, timeframes and demand for anticipation.
Institutional actors	Findings connected to specific institutional actors on an agency, oversight, local government, ministry, parliament, PMO or National Audit Office level.
Cases	Cases highlighting either successes, failures or windows of opportunity for anticipatory innovation based on past, planned or underway examples.
Other	Unclassified, but interesting contextual findings tied to either specific institutions, situations or individuals.
Source: OECD.

• Ten different validation workshops with a cross-section of public sector innovation leaders, experts and practitioners to corroborate and substantiate the preliminary findings were held between January and April 2021. All workshops were virtual and had between 7 and 15 participants with the exception of the general findings workshop, which had higher number of participants. The first validation session was carried out with the high-level advisory board of the project composed of senior government leaders (state secretaries, heads of agencies and constitutional bodies) to test initial findings and the methodology for the following validation workshops. While all subsequent workshops discussed anticipatory innovation governance, most validation workshops where thematic (see Figure 5.1 below) and covered the following topics: citizens, trust and participation; futures and foresight; budget and resources; experimentation; individual and organisational capacity; policy cycles and continuity of reforms and co-ordination across government. One of the workshops tested general findings and ideas brought out of testing; and one of the sessions was carried out as part of the Committee of the Future meeting on April 7th, 2021, with the particular focus on futures and foresight and the role of the Parliament. All the workshops followed a similar approach with a presentation of general findings and insights specific to the topic of the workshop followed by clarifications and questions from the participants. Following this, the participants had the opportunity to individually and anonymously comment and rate all the main findings on a 1-5 point Likert scale, followed by discussion. The ratings are not considered statistically valid, but were used to establish areas of disagreement between participants that were taken up during the discussion. Additional ideas for improvement from all participants were collected at the end of the session.

Figure 5.1. Topics of thematic validation workshops

Note: Seven of the ten validation workshops were topical and followed the following themes and questions.

Source: OECD.

• Two additional workshops were held: the first in December with the Steering2020 project team to compare initial findings and the second in February 2021 with the OECD’s open government and trust teams that are conducting scans and cases studies in parallel in Finland. The first workshop highlighted issues picked up by the teams that could be changed with minor changes within the Finnish government (things to be tweaked), that needed a more systematic transformation (things to reconsider) and challenges that cannot be tackled within the current government model (things to cope with). The aim of the second workshop was to uncover overlapping issues and possibilities for change between the areas of anticipatory innovation, open government and trust (see Figure 5.2). Senior officials from the Ministry of Finance in Finland participated in both workshops.

Figure 5.2. Trust, civic space, and anticipation - three perspectives on systems change in Finland

Note: The insights come from a joint OECD workshop with the OPSI, open government and trust teams held on 4^th of February 2021. See further (Holkeri, 2021[1]).

Source: OECD.

• The preliminary assessment report was launched for consultation in the beginning of September 2021. After the pilot case studies were conducted between September 2021 and April 2022 (Part III), a validation session was held in Helsinki with government experts at the end of May 2022. The aim of the session was to ascertain if and to what extent the assessment findings were correct and if any updates could be added to the report.

References

[1] Holkeri, K. (2021), “Trust, civic space and anticipation – three perspective on systems change in Finland”, OPSI Blog, OECD, Paris, https://oecd-opsi.org/trust-civic-space-and-anticipation-in-finland/ (accessed on 13 June 2022).