Place-Based Leadership and Public Service Innovation

Robin Hambleton · Joanna Howard

83 citations0/0 files storedLocal Government Studies

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Public Policy and Administration Research Local Governance and Planning Public Administration and Political Analysis

Abstract

This article discusses two matters that are becoming increasingly important in debates about local government: place-based leadership and public service innovation. The troubling international economic outlook means that many local authorities are focusing on ‘efficiency savings’ and the prevailing mantra in public policy circles is ‘do more with less’. This article questions this approach. It aims to contribute to what one chief executive described to us as ‘more with more’ thinking. This approach strives to release the community and business energies of a locality. If this can be achieved the total resources available to improve the local quality of life can be increased, even if state spending is shrinking. A conceptual framework for studying place-based leadership is presented. This distinguishes three, overlapping realms of leadership in any given locality – political leadership, managerial/professional leadership, and community and business leadership. It is argued that the areas of overlap between these realms can be viewed as innovation zones – spaces in which established approaches can be questioned and new trajectories developed. These zones can, however, also become conflict zones with little learning and exchange taking place. Place-based leadership can influence whether such political spaces are used to promote creative problem solving or whether they become arenas for dispute and friction between sectional perspectives. By drawing on a study of the current Digital+Green initiative in Bristol, UK, the article suggests that an imaginative approach to place-based leadership – one that accepts intelligent risk taking – offers potential for improving the local quality of life as well as strengthening local democracy.

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References

2000Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community 2001Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community 2007Making Globalization Work 2010The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power 1996Theories of urban politics 2010Leading public sector innovationCo-creating for a better society 2010Leading public sector innovation 2007Community Participation in the Real World: Opportunities and Pitfalls in New Governance Spaces

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2013Place-based leadership: reflections on scale, agency and theory 2012The civic university: connecting the global and the local 2016A Framework for city leadership in multilevel governance settings: the comparative contexts of Italy and the UK 2019The power of place in public leadership research and development 2021New frontiers in local government community engagement: Towards transformative place-based futures 2019Facilitating spaces for place-based leadership in centralized governance systems: the case of Newcastle City Futures

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