The FADE measurement instrument: Assessing cultural values for process exploration in European institutions
This study develops and validates FADE, a 35-item measurement instrument comprising four dimensions (Failure Acceptance, Agility, Disruptiveness, and Ecosystem Thinking) to assess exploration-oriented cultural values in European public sector organizations, thereby complementing existing exploitation-focused frameworks to support BPM ambidexterity.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Governments face a constant, difficult balancing act. On one side, they must deliver reliable, efficient services to citizens every single day, ensuring that taxes are collected, benefits are paid, and laws are enforced without error. On the other side, the world is changing rapidly, and governments must also invent new ways of working to solve complex, emerging problems. This tension between keeping things running smoothly and trying out new, risky ideas is a central challenge in modern public administration. For decades, experts have known that the culture of an organization—what its people believe, value, and how they behave—is the key to solving this puzzle. If a government office is too rigid, it cannot innovate. If it is too chaotic, it cannot deliver reliable services. Until now, researchers had a good map for the values that help governments stay efficient, but they lacked a clear guide for the values that help them explore new possibilities.
A team of researchers from Ghent University has set out to fill this gap by developing a new tool to measure the specific cultural values that allow public institutions to innovate. They focused their study on the European Union institutions, complex organizations that must coordinate across twenty-seven different countries, each with its own administrative traditions. These institutions represent a unique testing ground where the need for both stability and rapid adaptation is extreme. The researchers discovered that to successfully explore new ways of working, public organizations need to cultivate four specific cultural traits: the willingness to accept failure as a learning opportunity, the ability to move quickly and adapt, a drive to fundamentally rethink how things are done, and a mindset that sees the organization as part of a larger network of partners. They packaged these insights into a measurement instrument called FADE, which stands for Failure Acceptance, Agility, Disruptiveness, and Ecosystem Thinking.
The journey to create this tool began with deep observation. The researchers did not start with a theory and try to force it onto reality; instead, they went into five different EU institutions and listened to the people working there. They conducted interviews with staff ranging from IT specialists to policy makers and reviewed internal documents to see what actually happened when these organizations tried to innovate. They found that successful innovation was not just about having a good idea, but about the environment in which that idea was born. They saw that in places where new processes thrived, people felt safe to try things that might fail without fear of punishment. They saw teams that delivered small improvements quickly rather than waiting for a perfect, final product. They observed leaders who encouraged radical changes to old systems and organizations that worked closely with citizens and other groups to design services together.
From these real-world observations, the researchers identified the four core values. Failure Acceptance is not about celebrating mistakes, but about creating a "safe-to-fail" space where experimentation is encouraged and lessons are learned from what goes wrong. Agility is the capacity to adapt quickly to changing needs, delivering value in small, continuous steps rather than massive, slow projects. Disruptiveness involves the courage to fundamentally reimagine how work is done, moving beyond small tweaks to radical redesigns. Finally, Ecosystem Thinking is the recognition that public services do not exist in a vacuum; they require collaboration with external partners, citizens, and other organizations to be effective.
To ensure these ideas were not just a good story but a scientifically valid tool, the researchers subjected them to a rigorous testing process. They first turned their observations into a list of eighty specific questions, or items, that could be asked of employees. A panel of experts, including both academics and seasoned public sector practitioners, reviewed these questions to ensure they were clear and accurate. They refined the list, removing confusing items and ensuring each question truly measured the intended value. This process whittled the list down to forty-two items.
The final test involved a large-scale survey of 214 staff members across the three largest EU institutions. These employees answered the questions about their workplace culture and also rated how well their departments performed in terms of both innovation and efficiency. The researchers used advanced statistical methods to analyze the answers, checking to see if the questions consistently measured the four values they proposed. The results confirmed that the four values—Failure Acceptance, Agility, Disruptiveness, and Ecosystem Thinking—were distinct, reliable, and measurable. The tool, now reduced to a final set of thirty-five questions, proved to be a robust way to diagnose an organization's culture.
The most significant finding of the study was how these exploration-oriented values interact with the traditional goal of efficiency. A common belief in management theory has been that an organization must choose between being efficient and being innovative; that focusing on one necessarily hurts the other. However, the data from this study suggests a different reality. The researchers found that organizations with strong FADE values did not perform worse at delivering reliable, efficient services. In fact, the data showed a positive relationship: the same cultural values that helped organizations explore new ideas also supported their ability to exploit existing processes effectively. This indicates that a culture of innovation does not have to come at the cost of reliability. Instead, these two capabilities can reinforce each other, provided the organization has the right cultural foundation.
This discovery challenges the old assumption that public sector organizations must be risk-averse to be effective. The study suggests that by fostering a culture where failure is seen as a learning step, where speed and adaptation are valued, where radical change is encouraged, and where collaboration is the norm, governments can achieve both stability and innovation. The FADE instrument provides a practical way for leaders to measure their current culture, identify gaps, and take specific steps to build the capacity for exploration without sacrificing the essential reliability that citizens expect. It offers a clear path forward for public institutions navigating the complex demands of the digital age, proving that the values needed to invent the future are not in conflict with the values needed to serve the present.
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