The Move toward Dynamic Governance in Indonesian Public Service

Case Study of the Dynamic Capabilities of the Immigration Office Class

I Surabaya Regions in Pasport Service

Endar Heryan Pajri and Sulikah Asmorowati

Department of Administration, Universitas Airlangga, Jl. Airlangga No. 4-6, Surabaya, Indonesia.

Keywords: Dynamic Capability, Excellent Public Service, Thinking Across, Thinking Again, Thinking Ahead.

Abstract: This paper aims to examine the dynamic capabilities of public institution to improve the public service

quality, in case on Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions; and the factors that drives such dynamic

capability in passport service. This research uses qualitative research method, involving depth interview,

observation and document analysis. The informant chosen with purposive and snowball sampling. This

research finds that the Immigration Office Class 1 Surabaya Regions has moved towards implementing

dynamic capabilities. Realization of thinking ahead start with the strong leadership role has, in turn, created

more motivated and innovative staff that eager to create various innovations. Moreover, the leadership roles

has intensified service performance evaluation, and later make the evaluation not only become more routine,

but also impacted on the changes of various service policies as form realization of thinking again. While the

realization of thinking across mindset shown by the staff’s attitude towards their eagerness to learn from

others through sight visit to other immigration office across areas in Indonesia. Ultimately, this research has

shed a light to the more fact that Indonesian bureaucracy and institution has move towards dynamic

capablities, and thus, may advance the global competitiveness of Indonesia’s public service.

1 INTRODUCTION

The development of the world moves so fast with

changing environmental conditions, the limited

availability of the nation's resources but the

increasingly complex demands of public services

over time. In this situation, the government must be

able to move dynamically by understanding how the

environment is changing and influencing the

changing demands of public service in the future,

governance capability will be the main factor in the

government's success to facilitate the growth of the

quality of public service, as the lessons learned in

the economic crisis in Africa in “The 1989 World

Bank Study 'Sub-Saharan Africa - from Crisis to

Sustainable Growth' analysed the development

problems in Sub-Saharan Africa" suggest that the

stagnation of progress is caused by problems the

“crisis of governance” (World Bank, 1989 : 60).

Dynamic governance becomes an answer for the

government in responding to this challenge, such as

dynamic governance is the government ability

continually adjust their public policies and

programs, and change the way they are formulated

and implemented, so that the long-term interest of

the nation can be achieved (Neo and Chen, 2007 :

8). One of the important tasks for the government is

about creating excellent service quality for the

citizen, as though public service becomes one of the

eight main areas of bureaucratic reform in Indonesia

that issued Presidential Regulation No.81/2010 on

Grand Design of Bureaucracy Reforms 2010-2025,

especially public service institutions that deal

directly with the citizen.

2 RESEARCH METHODS

This research uses qualitative descriptive with the

purpose to examine the dynamic capabilities of

Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions in

their passport service activity. To gain an in-depth

understanding of the institution's dynamic

capabilities, then the researcher performs participant

observation by registering as a passport applicant in

the office, supported by documentary studies, as

704

Pajri, E. and Amorowati, S.

The Move toward Dynamic Governance in Indonesian Public Service.

DOI: 10.5220/0007550007040707

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 704-707

ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3

well as in-depth interviews with 31 people

composed of immigration officials, passport

applicants and partners-working with immigration

offices that support service activities.

3 RESULTS

3.1. Institutional Dynamic Capabilities:

Case on Immigration Office Class I

Surabaya Regions

Passport issuance service is one of public service

which be an attention for citizen of Indonesia.

Passport has become one of the important

documents for the peoples today along with the

increasing economic ability of society in Indonesia

every year which impact on the high intensity of

society to travel abroad. In 2017, the number of

passport applicants in Indonesia reached 3,1 million

people, a higher number compared to 2015 which

reached 2,9 million people (setkab.go.id). In

addition to high passport applications by the

community, other challenges faced by the

immigration office are the high complaints about

public dissatisfaction with the quality of services

provided, the increasing of brokers, the uncertainty

of the services provided, and the technical problems

of the service.

Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions is

one of the main institutions that provide a passport

service for east java with working area includes a

part of Surabaya (south, central, and north

Surabaya’s), Mojokerto city, Mojokerto regency,

and Jombang regency. Although the working area is

limited to the 4 areas, but the people applying for

passports at the Immigration Office Class I Surabaya

Regions come from various regions, especially in

the eastern part of Indonesia including the applicants

from East Java, Sulawesi Island, Kalimantan to

Papua.

This situation requires institutions to be able to

have dynamic capabilities, “dynamic capabilities is

the firm's ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure

internal and external competencies to address

rapidly changing environment” (Helfat dkk, 2007:2).

Dynamic institutions are able to design their various

service activities to adapt to environmental changes

and community demands to create excellent service

quality. In Neo and Chen (2007) the dynamic

capabilities of institutions are seen from their ability

to apply the three main mindsets that will lead to

dynamic governance. The mindset consists of

thinking ahead, thinking again and thinking across.

Thinking ahead is an institutional capacity to

identify future environmental and community

development needs, to understand its implications

for activities in achieving organizational goals and to

identify strategies and options needed to anticipate

them (Neo and Chen, 2007:30). The executive

manager (head and chief of division) in immigration

office class I Surabaya aware that their main

position in carrying the reputation of public service

of Indonesian immigration in the public view,

therefore they emphasize how the door-to-door

activity in the passport service can be reduced by

issuing various service system changes, first through

“one stop service” innovation to simplify the

passport service flow becomes shorter. Second, the

online passport queue to provide certainty to the

public to obtain a passport queue that was previously

enforced manually; Third, remove the payment

system manually into via bank in 76 cooperating

banks and PT Pos Indonesia; Fourth, by creating an

innovation service checking the status of taking

passport via whatsapp official account of

Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions.

Thinking again is the institutional ability to

utilize actual data, information, measurements and

feedback on problems that impede performance,

review various derivatives of policies and programs

from the past to find ways of improving their

performance (Neo and Chen, 2007: 36). The

realization of the process of thinking again an

institution that is on the evaluation of the service

activities. The formal process of evaluating service

performance in reporting is done in several phases,

every month, quarterly, in semester and years. In

addition, immigration office employees, especially

the sector that give the passport serving (division of

information and communication; and section of

immigration documents service) also conduct non-

formal performance evaluations such as in the form

of brainstorming, working meetings between

executive managers and each division at least once a

week. This has an impact on the immigration office

to detect changes that need to be made to improve

service effectiveness.

The evaluation and review of the various service

activities resulted in various policy changes and

redesign of passport services to improve services so

that in accordance with the public’s demands in

order to create excellent service.

The Move toward Dynamic Governance in Indonesian Public Service

705

Table 1.1 Changes in service policy at Immigration Office

Class I Surabaya Regions

No Passport Service

Policies

Goals

1 Implement an online

queue thoroughly by

“Antrian Paspor

Online”

Reduces the queue and

limits of the activities

space for brokers

2 Simplification of

Terms For Passport

Extension

Simplify the applicant

by simply bringing the

E-KTP and previous

Passport (real and

copying document)

3 Addition of Hour of

Passport Taking

Service

Adding hours of service

to the public for taking

passports. (Previous:

13.00- 16.00 to 09.00 -

16.00)

4 Remove the

manually payments

system

Provides ease in

payment system,

reduces case of illegal

levies in practice of

service.

5 Enforcement of the

walk-in queue

system is only for

special needs

The walk-in queue is

aimed more

appropriately for the

applicant who really

needs special needs.

6 Implementing the

“One Stop Service”

System

Simplify the passport

service system and

reduce the number of

applicants arriving in

the passport

arrangement

Source : In-depth Interview with immigration servant

(processed*)

Thinking Across is an organizational ability across

traditional boundaries to learn from the experiences

of others so new ideas can be adopted and allow

innovative new policies and programs to be tried and

institutionalized (Neo and Chen, 2007:40). The

learning process undertaken by Immigration Office

Class I Surabaya Regions is to conduct comparative

study activities with the immigration office from

other regions such as Banten, Palembang, Manado,

Bali and Jakarta. This is to take the lessons and best

practices from each of the advantages possessed by

each immigration office from other areas. in

addition, it’s also as an effort to compare the quality

of services owned by the Immigration Office Class I

Surabaya Regions as rivalry in one sector at the

directorate general of immigration to compete

become the best immigration office in Indonesia to

providing certainty and excellent service passport to

the community.

The comparative study activity became one of

the important agendas and became a necessity for

the Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions.

Organizations or sub-units between governments

unite to learn from each other, social socialization

will be formed and create what are called

innovation-rings (Kouzmin et.al, 1999:131) the

comparative study process helps this institution to

get better service innovation ideas, the

ineffectiveness of the service system at other

immigration offices serve as a warning to prevent it

from happening. This is makes the service system in

Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions

continues to develop in public views, so that not

infrequently people from outside the East Java

region willing to apply for passports in the

Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions

because of the certainty of service that they can

provide more than other Immigration Office.

3.2. Dynamic Capabilities Driving

Process in the Immigration Office

Class I Surabaya Regions

The process of thinking ahead of the Immigration

Office Class I Surabaya Regions is formed by the

intensity of meetings that the head of immigration

always exercises to the executive manager to always

talking about innovative services that can be created

and the openness of his thoughts on the development

of the passport applicant's needs and the willingness

to accept the advice of his employees. As a result,

employees feel more appreciated and free to share

their opinions to think about what future services

need to be, and this makes employees more

motivated to think about the various innovations of

service, they to create a more excellent service than

ever.

The thinking again process is formed by routine

evaluation activities, both formally and non-

formally, which is often done by the head of the

immigration office to the executive manager. As a

result, the evaluation results are also increasingly

on-floor and accepted to all employees in each field.

This encourages employees at all levels (up to the

level of technical service) also often gather to

brainstorming and doing informal evaluations

together to respond the wishes and outcomes of the

evaluations conducted by the head of the

immigration office together with the executive

manager.

While the thinking across process is formed by

the needs from every employee in the entire division

to learn from other immigration offices performance.

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706

This attitude is embedded from the various benefits

that they feel after doing a comparative study, for

the Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions,

the comparative study process is the best solution

when an institution needs the latest innovation

notion when the idea for developing a service

system is already limited. This comparative study

makes them think more openly by getting

information and fresh thoughts that were previously

unthinkable to be applied in service activities and

take lessons to prevent the ineffectiveness of the

services performed by other immigration offices at

the Immigration Office Class I Surabaya Regions.

In this case, we find that leadership factor is the

main roles to actualize the dynamic governance. If

there is still a leader in a government institution led

by an incompetent, intelligent and agile person then

dynamic governance will never happen (Andhika,

2017:94). The leaders is the mastermind for

institution, leader with the dynamic mindset will

drive the institution move dynamically as well,

especially in generating public policies and services.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Dynamic capability of Immigration Office Class I

Surabaya Regions through the analysis of thinking

ahead, thinking again, and thinking across in the

implementation of passport services capable enough

of generating various changes to the passport service

system that impact on improving the quality of their

passport services, although there are still some

things that need to be perfected in the dynamic

capabilities of this institution, but this analysis

shows implement the mindset of thinking ahead,

thinking again, and thinking across can drive

institutions to develop better in the activities

undertaken, in this case in particular provide

excellent service for public. This case show that

innovation of public services is an important product

of the dynamic capabilities of an institution that is

the result of dynamic governance, such as described

by Gulbrandsen (in Andhika, 2017:89) that dynamic

governance will be which says the concept of

dynamic governance will be more beneficial if

government policy also innovates, and this is

implemented by Immigration Office Class I

Surabaya Regions.

The process of forming dynamic capabilities at

the Office of Immigration Class I Special Surabaya

is dominated by the leadership role of immigration

office head that mobilizes all employees to be able

to create various innovations that become the

realization of the service minds thinking ahead,

service performance evaluation activities become

fairly routine and impact on changes in various

service policies that are the realization of thinking

again thinking patterns, and attitude willing to learn

service practices through comparative study with

other immigration office which is the realization of

mindset thinking across. As the work process

resulting from group learning process is one part of

the influence of leadership behaviors applicable in

the institution (Schein, 2004 : 11). The role of

leader is the key to improve the public servant

performance and establish a dynamic institutional

capability in public service activities in Indonesia.

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