Internal and external factors associated with public governance: government innovation as an intervening mechanism

Abstract

This study investigates the relationships among internal organizational factors, external institutional conditions, government innovation, and public governance within an integrated framework informed by the resource-based view, institutional theory, and dynamic capabilities theory. Internal factors comprise participative leadership, organizational competency, management autonomy, and organizational systems, whereas external institutional conditions include policy and legal frameworks, digital transformation, public value creation, and stakeholder networks. Government innovation is conceptualized as an adaptive mechanism through which organizational capacities and institutional conditions influence governance processes. A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed using survey data collected from 390 public-sector respondents across three provinces in northeastern Thailand. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, and PROCESS bootstrapping mediation analysis with 5,000 resamples. The findings indicate that both internal organizational factors and external institutional conditions are associated with government innovation and public governance. Internal factors exhibited significant direct and indirect relationships with public governance. In contrast, external institutional conditions received only partial support, as policy and law, digital transformation, and public value creation were significantly associated with public governance, whereas stakeholder networks showed no significant direct relationship. Government innovation demonstrated the strongest association with public governance and functioned as an important intervening mechanism linking institutional conditions to governance processes. The findings suggest that external institutional conditions influence governance primarily through innovation-related pathways rather than direct governance effects alone.