Drivers and Obstacles Support of Street Level Bureaucrats From Policy Innovation; A Case Study of Implementation of Performance-based Budgeting in Iran

One of the challenges of contemporary governments is to face wicked problems and one of the best solutions to face them is policy innovation. The purpose of the current research was to investigate the individual drivers and barriers to support policy innovation by street-level bureaucrats.Therefore, the implementation of the performance-based budgeting policy in Iran was studied using thematic analysis method. This policy was an innovation to solve the wicked problem of the inefficiency of the budgeting system in the public sector.The findings showed that street-level bureaucrats resist the implementation of new policies due to their professionalism, confrontation and alienation from the policy, and encourage employees, support managers for innovation,closely monitor work performance and give feedback, and empowering employees to perform new activities and actions are the drivers of their support for the implementation of new policies.