Entrepreneurialism Spirit in the Public Sector

Professors C. Kenneth Meyer and Maria M. Clapham, Drake University, won the best paper of the track, Entrepreneurship, Trade and Tariffs, for their paper at the 33rd Annual Conference, The American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences at the Hyatt Place, New Orleans, March 13-15, 2026.  The paper is entitled “Entrepreneurialism Spirit in the Public Sector”, and they were recognized at the annual dinner banquet on Saturday, March 14th. The paper dispels the commonly held view that there is a lack of inventiveness, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship when assessing the efficiency, fairness, and effectiveness associated with the public delivery of goods and services. It is a truism that the over 125,000 state and local governmental entities differ immensely in how they embrace new ideas, solve problems and, generally, manage change. In managing the people’s business, they run into strongly held classical (traditional) tenets of governance that are largely reactive, rule and resource driven, and centered on rigid or inflexible bureaucratic structures, processes, contents and experiences. There is prevailing public expectation that the many obstacles that impede innovation and change in public jurisdictions be overcome with zeal and considerable ease.