While literature on innovation and the diffusion of innovation in developing countries has grown over the years, the evidence remains inconclusive. This chapter employs a systematic review protocol to examine and shed light on the factors that influence the creation and diffusion of innovations as well as the internal and external channels of innovation diffusion in low-income countries. The evidence suggests that the literature is still nascent, with most of the studies published only in the last five years. While factors such as clusters, the link between public (universities) and private sector, and the empowerment of the poor are key facilitators of knowledge diffusion, other factors including weak education systems, unstable political powers, fragile legal systems, limited financial resources, poor infrastructure, and cultural and linguistic distances all hamper the diffusion of innovations in low-income countries. These enhancing and hampering factors were, however, identified to be heterogeneous and vary from one developing country to the other. With research gaps in areas such as the determinants of innovation diffusion in the informal sector and the role of open innovation networks in LIC, among others, it is recommended that low-income countries must focus attention and resources on measuring and capturing incremental innovations and innovation activities in formal and informal settings.

Over the years, data unavailability has limited the empirical analysis of the relationship between innovation and firm growth, leading to the partial understanding of this relationship in low-income countries. This chapter fills these gaps by using a unique firm-level data to estimate the effect of technological and non-technological innovations on firm productivity in Ghana. The econometric estimations show innovation as an important determinant of labour productivity, for both formal and informal firms. Our results also suggest that technological innovation leads to higher labour productivity than non-technological innovation. New policy thinking and policies are needed to recognize, support and enhance the innovation activities in both formal and informal firms, by mitigating critical constraints such as financial and labour skill constraints formal and informal firms both face.

There is a growing recognition that African firms are innovating and these innovations are important to African economies. This chapter provides a general introduction to the book by introducing the broad objectives, the research design and methods as well as the research questions tackled in each of the subsequent chapters of the book. In addition, the chapter presents the structure of the book and summarizes the major findings in each chapter.

The chapter focuses on attracting individuals whose predispositions will create a foundation for high quality service to citizens. Arguing for public organizations to attract individuals with high public service motivations means that merit, which has traditionally been associated with competence alone, would be defined more broadly, to include service predispositions. This chapter identifies methods for attracting and selecting high public service motivation staff. Among the methods are for public leaders to develop compelling organizational images and to advertize to appeal to prospects' commitments to making a difference. Public organizations should also screen in applicants with high public service motivation (or similar attributes) and screen out prospects whose motivations are likely to crowd out intrinsic or prosocial motivations.

This chapter analyses how the gender of the entrepreneur is associated with firm-level innovation performance, both directly and in conjunction with other firm and manager attributes. Using a unique survey data set collected in 2013 from the DILIC project in Ghana, and formulating a two-stage model, the chapter examines if gender differences exist in firm-level innovation activities in Ghana. Our analyses show significant differences in innovation behaviour between women’s and men’s firms, suggesting that women are less likely to introduce technological and new-to-market innovations, and also sell less of innovative products. However, the results show that women are more active in adopting non-technological, especially marketing, innovation. For policy, the chapter offers new insights into gender differences, and the role of informal firms in the innovation system of Ghana, and suggests that there is a need for new policy redirection towards informality on the one hand and the need for specific institutional arrangements to address this gender gap on the other hand.

This chapter summarizes the findings from this book and develops the framework for the analysis of under-the-radar innovation and its nature, sources and impact, as well as the policy implications from the research. It argues that Africa cannot leapfrog the 4th Industrial Revolution with the under-the-radar type of innovation. Therefore, policy responses at the national and international levels are needed to address these challenges and to build an inclusive global community. Limitations of the study and areas for future research are discussed at the end of the chapter.

The chapter complements the discussion of attracting high public service motivation staff in chapter 3 by discussing how to provide opportunities for new employees to learn public service motivation and organizational public service values. The chapter begins with the benefits of employee socialization, which include increased integration of staff and organizational public service values, increased member-organizational fit, increased autonomy of member behavior, and increased mission valence and work effort. The chapter discusses the rationales for socializing employees, the impact of socialization and organizational outcomes, and the prevalence of socialization in public service motivation research. The chapter argues that employee needs and values require continuous attention and recommends strategies for tending to employee needs. The chapter concludes by examining strategies for socializing staff to public service values. Onboarding processes should be designed to align organizational and employee public service values from before an employee's first day beyond their first year. Creating effective mentoring partnerships and programs helps to reinforce public service values.

Interactions between firms, universities and other actors in the innovation system are essential for open innovation. Empirical literature on the relationship between open innovation strategies and firm performance in low-income countries however is less and heavily biased towards developed countries. This chapter examines the role of open innovation strategies on the innovation performance of firms in Ghana and Tanzania, and explores further the roles of university–industry collaborations and the participation of regional and global production networks on capability development of African firms. Based on primary data, our results show that open innovation strategies – external knowledge search, clusters, collaboration and regional value chains – help firms in Ghana and Tanzania to circumvent the many constraints they face in their day-to-day operations. In terms of policy, the chapter suggests that there is a need for policy actions that directly help to support and promote open innovation strategies within and between formal and informal sectors

The chapter synthesizes research on compensation and motivation, identifying compensation strategies to optimize outcomes in public organizations. While public service motivation is most closely linked with performance-based pay in research, other facets of compensation policy are relevant to public service motivation. The chapter outlines these other facets and discusses specific strategies to improve outcomes through compensation. First, the chapter argues for the use of total compensation for benchmark comparisons to control the extrinsic-to-intrinsic reward ratio. The chapter subsequently discusses base pay, different base pay schemes like alternative wages and efficiency wages, and strategies to maximize the value of these schemes. Next, mobility systems, like pay for ability, skills, and performance, are discussed. The chapter discusses the viability of the contest and tournament models and makes other recommendations for mobility systems. Penultimately, the chapter discusses incentives, motivation crowding and recommends that governments avoid high-power incentives that crowd-out public service motivation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of position classification.