Lampe, Hannes W.Hannes W.Lampe2019-11-282019-11-282017-09-03Local Government Studies 5 (43): 707-730 (2017-09-03)http://hdl.handle.net/11420/3913In the public sector, innovation is understood as a major driver of public service performance improvement and excellence. On the one hand, previous research has proven a positive effect of innovation adoption on performance in the public sector. On the other hand, a broad literature proves positive effects of innovation antecedents on innovation adoption. This study bridges this gap and analyses the effect of an innovation antecedent–willingness to adopt a process innovation (accrual accounting)–on municipalities’ service provision cost-efficiency. Therefore, the author makes use of a panel data set of German municipalities, located in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Evidence shows that a higher municipal willingness to innovate relates to higher cost-efficiency. A higher innovation willingness might have a maximal effect of 17 percentage points on municipality cost-efficiency.en0300-39302017707730local governmentperformance measurementProcess innovation willingnessstochastic frontier analysisReview Article10.1080/03003930.2017.1324428Review Article