Exploring barriers to innovation in public administration: an empirical study of the local layer of government Liarte, Irene Criado, J. Ignacio Alcaide Muñoz, Laura Barriers Public Sector Innovation Innovation Process This study deepens our knowledge on innovation barriers within Public Sector Innovation (PSI) processes in local governments. It analyzes the barriers to PSI from a mixed method approach using an original survey directed to innovation managers in the largest Spanish city councils and semi-structured interviews within a case study. This study shows the most relevant barriers to innovation in different stages of development, the strategies used to overcome these barriers and the relationships among them. This research contributes to PSI literature by shedding light on the barriers’ dynamics and how they operate in local governments within contexts of high levels of digitalization. Results suggest a significant prevalence of institutional barriers, more common in countries with a Napoleonic administrative tradition, and uncover the relevance of politics and human resource management foster innovation at the local level. 2025-02-25T12:27:02Z 2025-02-25T12:27:02Z 2024-11-19 journal article J. Ignacio Criado, Irene Liarte, and Laura Alcaide-Muñoz. 2024. Exploring Barriers to Innovation in Public Administration: An Empirical Study of the Local Layer of Government. Int. J. Public Adm. Digit. Age 11, 1 (Dec 2024), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJPADA.361011 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/102679 10.4018/IJPADA.361011 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional IGI Global