Innovation in public sector institutions in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Innovation has become a necessity in order to overcome some challenging times in the rapid changing world. The world’s paradigm is shifting towards sustainable development and shared values. Even though numerous benefits of innovating the public sector (PS) have been recognised worldwide, the concept of public sector innovation (PSI) is still new for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The complex and stratified structure of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and its PS has been forever standing in the way of any larger progress. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the development of PSI in FBiH as an opportunity to enhance the performance of public services, increase their efficiency, and decrease the costs. The research was completed by using a mixed-method approach in order to analyse the concept of innovation in the PS. The primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with the management and a survey with close-ended questions which was completed by the employees of the public sector institutions in FBiH. The method of structural equation modelling was used in order to test the research hypotheses. A part of this paper is analysing the main PSI drivers and challenges. The results show that the main obstacles to PSI are the institutional system and the regulations in the FBiH. On the other side, the manager and employees are considered the largest drivers of public sector innovation in FBiH. The paper concludes with several recommendations on how to overcome the main barriers of public sector innovation in FBiH. Keywords: Innovation management, R&D, Innovation incentives, e-Government, Institutional culture. JEL: O38, O32, O31, H11, H41