Innovation in the Public Sector: Exploring the Characteristics and Potential of Living Labs and Innovation Labs

Dimitri Schuurman,Piret Tõnurist

doi:10.22215/timreview/1045

Dimitri Schuurman, Piret Tõnurist

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1045

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Abstract

IntroductionIn the private sector, the rapid development of technology has provided opportunities for firms to launch new products, transform their production processes, and do business in new ways. Different paradigms and frameworks have been developed to assist private organizations in dealing with innovation, such as open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), (lead) user

Highlights

In the private sector, the rapid development of technology has provided opportunities for firms to launch new products, transform their production processes, and do business in new ways
Innovation in the public sector has for long been regarded as a contradictio in terminis, contemporary scholars and practitioners agree that innovation is necessary in order to deal with contemporary societal challenges
Innovation in the public sector requires specific approaches and adaptation of frameworks, tools and ‘best practices’ from the private sector, as literature and research reveal that the circumstances and needs for innovation are sometimes fundamentally different

Summary

Introduction

The rapid development of technology has provided opportunities for firms to launch new products, transform their production processes, and do business in new ways. Different paradigms and frameworks have been developed to assist private organizations to deal with innovation, such as open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), (lead) user innovation (von Hippel, 2005) and distributed innovation (Sawhney & Prandelli, 2000). This has led to different innovation management approaches and organizational forms to cope with these new innovation models. As in current literature and debates, both concepts are sometimes mixed and used interchangeably, we perform a comparative literature review and meta-analysis into the nature and outcomes of both organizational forms that are put forward as facilitators and generators of public sector innovation. We outline the similarities and differences between both approaches and propose a model that integrates both into a more longitudinal vision on public sector innovation

Innovation in the public sector

Innovation labs

Living Labs

Discussion & conclusion