Towards a Deeper Understanding of Public Sector Innovation

Abstract

This chapter contributes to a deeper understanding of public sector service innovation, exploring how it evolves in interaction between actors in hierarchies, markets and networks. A typology of innovations in public sector services is developed and a model of public sector service production is presented. Then, drawing on an in-depth review of the public innovation, public policy and public administration literature, service innovation in three sorts of circuits and relationships between actors is identified. A number of characteristics of public sector service innovation are derived from the analysis, and it is concluded that public sector service innovations may be diverse and varied. They may be initiated top-down or bottom-up, formalised or policy based, organisation or employee led, and initiated by professionals or by users. It is suggested that the public service innovation process may be described as “co-evolution”, emphasising the view that change may occur in all interacting populations of public sector service organisations. Innovation is seen as happening in the encounter between people situated in hierarchies, networks and market-led organisations; and as evolving as iterative, interactive and heterogeneous processes where goals are often relatively unclear, resulting in innovations that must often be understood retrospectively rather than as intended outcomes of the execution of detailed plans.