Mixed methods approaches overcoming difficulties in researching in the Public Sector.

Background: Public sector organisations are complex entities needing to engage with multiple stakeholders and deal with multiple issues simultaneously. This complexity often leads to difficulties in undertaking research. This paper provides an Australian Case Study of how mixed methods research was used to overcome such difficulties.
Purpose: To identify the relationship between Workplace Innovation and Culture within a Public Sector Organization using an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach. The research objective for this paper is to extrapolate from this work and identify how mixed methods research was applied to assist in overcoming restrictions placed on collecting data.
Design and Methods: This research used an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach. A survey of 479 employees was analysed using correlation, regression and structural equation modelling. Triangulation with Qualitative data corroborated the findings. Qualitative data was collected from the survey however the organisation restricted the number of questions used. Additional information gained from using documentary analysis strengthened the quantitative data collection.
Findings - Public Sector Culture was shown as a significant antecedent of Workplace Innovation predicting 24.6% of the variation and significant variation in Individual Innovation, Organizational Innovation, Team Innovation, and Workplace Innovation Climate. Analysis of Demographic and Employment Characteristics found considerable variation between groups. Group-level culture was particularly influential. Triangulation with Qualitative data corroborated the findings and identified factors including sustained organizational change that reinforced the strength of subcultures.
Conclusions and Implications: Organisational restrictions can lead to resistance or reticence to allocate time to research. It is important for researchers to access information in time-effective ways. The Document research method was found to be an important element to achieve this in this case study. There is a need to consider how governance within public sector organisations can be developed to foster engagement with third party researchers for the purpose of supporting innovation and creating value for public sector organisations.