Introduction: Collaborative innovation in the public sector

Abstract

This special issue focuses on collaborative innovation in the public sector (Bommert, 2010; Sorensen and Torfing, 2011). It aims to explore how networks, partnerships and other forms of interaction between relevant and affected actors can accommodate the development and implementation of new and bold ideas in ways that reinvigorate public policies and services (Eggers and Singh, 2009). There has been a growing interest in public innovation (Newman, Raine and Skelcher, 2001; Borins, 2008; Hartley, 2005) and there is a burgeoning literature on the role of interactive forms of governance such as partnerships and networks (Kickert, Klijn and Koppenjan, 1997; Rhodes, 1997; Sorensen and Torfing, 2007). However, so far there have been few attempts to relate these fields of interests and bodies of literature by analyzing how interactive arenas can facilitate multi-actor collaboration that in turn may foster innovation by bringing together public and private actors with relevant innovation assets, facilitating knowledge sharing and transformative learning, and building joint ownership to new innovative visions and practices.In order to compensate this benign neglect this issue of The Innovation Journal endeavors to investigate when and how multi-actor collaboration can enhance public innovation. In this brief introduction we shall first look at the main differences between private and public innovation and the mounting interest in public innovation before presenting the argument in favor of collaborative innovation as a key driver of policy development and service improvement. Since the role and impact of collaborative innovation is determined by political-institutional macro-conditions as well as a number of micro-interventions, the Introduction concludes a discussion of the significance of the transition from Old Public Administration, via New Public Management, to New Public Governance and the importance of new forms of innovation management.Innovation in the private and public sectorIt is common knowledge that innovation is the key to success for private businesses (Schumpeter, 1934, 1946). Innovation helps private companies to cut costs, improve their products and open new markets. Failure to innovate is often fatal as private firms will gradually loose their competitive edge and face shrinking market shares and profits, before they eventually close down. The widespread recognition of the need for innovation in private companies means that large private enterprises create large R&D departments or use crowd-sourcing to get new ideas. Small and medium size companies form strategic alliances with each other and public knowledge producers and try to copy the products and practices of the larger and more innovative firms in order to maintain their competitive position.When it comes to the public sector there is a lot of skepticism with regard to the capacity for innovating public policies, organizations and services. Many people, and especially a good deal of those employed in the private sector, consider the public sector as a slow-moving bureaucracy characterized by red tape, inertia and stalemate. Indeed, pointing out the lack of dynamism and adaptive change in the public sector was a key part of the neo-liberalist bashing of the public sector in the 1980s.The critical evaluation of the innovative capacity of the public sector is not completely misguided. Max Weber (1968 [1922]) clearly sees stability as the primary objective of public bureaucracy, and we can hardly deny that the thick layer of formal rules, the multi-layered hierarchies, the organizational silos, the lack of economic incentives and the divided political leadership in the top of public bureaucracies tend to stifle public innovation (Halvorsen et al., 2005). In addition, it has been argued that with the growth of public bureaucracies most of their resources are used to provide internal coordination and fight external border wars with other public bureaucracies (Downs, 1967). …

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