The technological challenges of the so-called fourth industrial revolution, innovative inter-organizational network relations, integration in corporate strategies of sustainability challenges, or unsatisfactory levels of staff commitment stemming from complexity and related uncertainty are some of the main key issues that organizations have to face in the near future. In this context, the appearance of the ‘evolutionary organization’ model marks an important milestone in terms of a renewed identification of fundamental principles for organizations, arguably as an update or revision of systemic thinking. This model allows organizations, functioning as living beings, to be more agile and humanistic and better prepared to establish agile and trustworthy inter-organizational relationships. Collaborative platforms are possible from that ability to add value between organizations while also being closely aligned with the principles and values of evolutionary organizations. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into how these (teal) organizations work with respect to their common principles of wholeness, evolutionary purpose, and self-management. In the end, the study intends to highlight relevant practical organizational aspects that can better facilitate the management of current and increasing complexity, as well as the transition to more humanistic-oriented organizations.

La innovación organizativa puede ser una de las palancas para implementar mejores prácticas de gestión en el sector público. Sin embargo, esta innovación debe examinarse a la luz de la complejidad, ya que se trata de una característica principal de las políticas públicas, así como de las organizaciones del sector público que se ocupan de esas políticas. Para hacer frente a esa complejidad, esta investigación utiliza el marco conceptual desarrollado por Frédéric Laloux en su indagación sobre las organizaciones ‘Teal’, vinculándolo a los antecedentes teóricos sobre la aplicación de la teoría de la complejidad a los estudios sobre organizaciones y gestión pública.El objetivo principal de la investigación es así pues identificar y analizar, según el marco de las organizaciones ‘Teal’, experiencias de innovación organizativa en las administraciones públicas europeas. Para este análisis se examinan la estructura organizativa, los procesos de recursos humanos y las prácticas cotidianas (rutinas repartidas por la organización que incorporan valores y políticas), junto con las condiciones para la aparición de estas iniciativas, los elementos clave para su sostenibilidad y su efecto en el desempeño de la organización.La investigación utiliza el estudio de caso como estrategia, identificando cuatro casos en los que se están implementando diferentes formas de innovación organizativa: el Servicio Público Federal Belga de Seguridad Social, el Conservatorio Municipal de Música de Barcelona, la unidad A.2 de la Agencia Ejecutiva para la Pequeña y Mediana Empresa (EASME) de la Comisión Europea y el Tribunal de Cuentas Europeo.Aunque la muestra de casos es demasiado pequeña para sacar conclusiones generales, los resultados revelan que la innovación en prácticas organizativas en el sector público no solo es posible, sino que está ocurriendo. Al comparar estos cuatro casos, la investigación encuentra algunos patrones comunes que podrían ser utilizados como referencia por los profesionales del sector público interesados en introducir nuevas formas de trabajo en sus organizaciones.

Organizational innovation can be a promising path for public administrations to follow to become more supportive of the realization of sustainability goals. With the Teal Organizations framework as a reference, this study explores organizational innovation in Spanish public administrations by assessing the extent and patterns of the implementation of selected innovative organizational practices, with the aim to help them improve. This study performs multivariate and individual analyses of the variance and factor analysis of the responses given by Spanish public sector employees to an online questionnaire about the degree of implementation of certain practices in their organization. The results show that there are little differences in the degree of implementation of these practices among the national, regional, and local administrations and that this implementation does not seem to be guided by the three principles of Teal Organizations: self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose, but by five factors combining them, labeled as trust, task assignment, meetings management, hierarchy, and community and values. Because of the low degree of implementation of the practices under the community and values factor and the comparatively low effort required to introduce them, these practices appear as interesting options to explore when considering administrative reforms.

Public administration reform has become a universal and increasingly common phenomenon. In that sense, there are many proposals put forward by different authors, with very different approaches, on the elements to be reformed. The thesis brings a different approach by addressing the problem from the organisation theory, on the premise that the challenges that public administrations must face in the 21st century must be addressed from contemporary organisational models. Among the possible models to be explored, the thesis relies on Frédéric Lalouxs interpretative framework for organisational innovation, based on progressive stages of development where the Evolutionary or `Teal Organisations represent the most advanced state, characterised by three operating principles: Self-management, Wholeness, and Evolutionary Purpose. With the help of this reference framework, the purpose of the thesis is to identify organisational elements of public administrations on which action can be taken to improve their performance. To this end, it examines the existence and implementation patterns of organisational innovation practices inspired by evolutionary organizations (Teal practices) in public administrations, with particular attention to the Spanish case. It also looks at the aspects that characterise performance in public administrations and how it can be assessed (leading to its own model based on four dimensions: Results, Relations, Operations and Capacity building), and the effect that the Teal practices examined have on this performance. The thesis includes a comparative case study of organisational innovation in public administrations, looking at four experiences: the Belgian Federal Public Service for Social Security, the Municipal Music Conservatory of Barcelona, the Unit A.2 of the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (EASME) of the European Commission, and the European Court of Auditors. This study shows some elements common to the four experiences: the emergence of an activating event triggering change, the openness of leaders to new ways of working, and a pragmatic approach to acting on aspects not covered by the rules. The thesis also comprises the statistical analysis of the responses provided by public employees of Spanish administrations to an online questionnaire on the existence of Teal practices in their organisations, which includes elements to assess individual and organisational performance. The questionnaire was applied to two different groups, as a generic questionnaire open to public employees from the national, regional and local administrations, and as a specific questionnaire for workers of the Andalusian Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AACID), and their replies were compared to provide the Agency with guidance in its assessment of the possible implementation of agile and humanistic practices. The analysis of the generic questionnaire showed a low degree of implementation of Teal practices among Spanish public administrations, with a pattern of implementation which, instead of complying with the three Teal principles, corresponds better to a five-factor model: Community and values, Trust, Hierarchy, Tasks assignment and Meetings management. Of these, structural equations modelling found that only practices associated with Trust and Hierarchy factors have a positive and direct influence on organisational performance, and that those associated with Community and values also have a positive but indirect influence through individual performance. The results of the thesis confirm that it is possible to start the transition to more evolved organisational paradigms in public administrations by introducing Teal practices. In this transition, considering the starting point and effect on performance, practices associated with the Community and values dimension appear as the most promising ones. RESUMEN La reforma de la Administración se ha convertido en un fenómeno universal y cada vez más frecuente. En este sentido, son muchas las propuestas planteadas por diferentes autores, con enfoques muy diversos, sobre los elementos a reformar. La tesis aporta una aproximación diferente abordando el problema desde la teoría de la organización, bajo la premisa de que los retos a los que la Administración debe hacer frente en el siglo XXI deben abordarse desde modelos organizativos contemporáneos. Entre los posibles modelos a explorar, la tesis se apoya en el marco interpretativo de la innovación organizativa de Frédéric Laloux, basado en etapas progresivas de desarrollo donde las Organizaciones Evolutivas o Teal representan el estado más avanzado, caracterizado por tres principios de funcionamiento: Autogestión, Plenitud y Propósito evolutivo. Con la ayuda de este marco de referencia, el objetivo de la tesis es identificar elementos organizativos de la Administración sobre los que es posible actuar para mejorar su desempeño. Para ello, examina la existencia y las pautas de implantación de prácticas de innovación organizativa inspiradas en las Organizaciones Evolutivas (prácticas Teal) en la Administración, con especial atención al caso español. Asimismo, estudia también los aspectos que caracterizan el desempeño en la Administración y cómo puede evaluarse (dando lugar a un modelo propio basado en cuatro dimensiones: Resultados, Relaciones, Operaciones, y Desarrollo de capacidades), y el efecto que tienen sobre este desempeño las prácticas Teal examinadas. La tesis incluye un estudio comparativo de casos de innovación organizativa en la Administración donde se examinan cuatro experiencias: el Servicio Público Federal de la Seguridad Social de Bélgica, el Conservatorio Municipal de Barcelona, la unidad A.2 de la Agencia Ejecutiva para pymes de la Comisión Europea (EASME) y el...