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Enhancing Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector

Eva Srensen and Jacob Torfing
Administration & Society 2011 43: 842 originally published online 7 September
2011
DOI: 10.1177/0095399711418768
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418768
rensen and TorfingAdministration & Society
2011 SAGE Publications

AAS43810.1177/0095399711418768S

Enhancing Collaborative
Innovation in the
Public Sector

Administration & Society

43(8) 842868
2011 SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/0095399711418768
http://aas.sagepub.com

Eva Srensen1 and Jacob Torfing1

Abstract
Encouraged by the proliferation of governance networks and the growing
demands for public innovation, this article aims to advance collaborative
innovation as a cross-disciplinary approach to studying and enhancing public innovation. The article explains the special conditions and the growing
demand for public innovation, and demonstrates how it can be enhanced
through multiactor collaboration. The case for collaborative innovation is
supported by insights from three different social science theories. The theoretical discussion leads to the formulation of an analytical model that can be
used in future studies of collaborative innovation in the public sector.
Keywords
public innovation, collaboration, governance networks, metagovernance

Introduction
The recognition of the limits of traditional forms of topdown government
in the face of the growing fragmentation, complexity, and dynamism of contemporary societies has prompted the proliferation of interactive forms of
governance through networks and partnerships (Heffen, Kickert, & Thomassen,
2000; Heinrich, Lynn, & Milward, 2009; Kooiman, 1993). Although interaction between public and private actors is hardly a new phenomenon and
1

Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

Corresponding Author:
Eva Srensen, Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University,
Universitetsvej 1, P.O. Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Email: eva@ruc.dk

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843

always has played a crucial role in policy implementation, networks and

partnerships are increasingly perceived as an effective and legitimate mode of
governance, especially when dealing with wicked problems (Koppenjan &
Klijn, 2004; Rittel & Webber, 1973). Governments at multiple levels use different kinds of governance networks as alternatives, or even supplements, to
traditional forms of governance through hierarchy and markets (Hajer &
Wagenaar, 2003; Marcussen & Torfing, 2007).
Over the last 20 years, the research on governance networks has been
growing steadily and the analytical focus has gradually shifted (Srensen &
Torfing, 2007). The first generation of governance network research was preoccupied with defining governance networks as a distinctive mode of governance, explaining the formation of governance networks, and describing their
role and impact in different policy areas and at different regulatory scales
(Kenis & Schneider, 1991; Marsh & Rhodes, 1992; Mayntz, 1993a, 1993b;
Rhodes, 1997; Scharpf, 1994). The second generation of governance network
research has further expanded the research agenda to include questions about
the sources of governance network failure, the role and impact of network
management, and the normative outcomes of network governance (Benz &
Papadopoulos, 2006; Kickert, Klijn, & Koppenjan, 1997; Provan & Kenis,
2005). The assessment of the contribution of governance networks to the
governing of contemporary societies has gained an increasing prominence
(Srensen & Torfing, 2009), but the focus has mainly been on how governance
networks enhance effective governance by combining authority and flexibility (Provan & Kenis, 2008; Provan & Milward, 1995) and how they can spur
democratic governance by enhancing participation, deliberation, and political empowerment (Klijn & Skelcher, 2007; Warren, 2009).
By comparison, the contribution of governance networks to the innovation of public policies and services has received much less attention among
governance network researchers, although the interest has recently surged
(Considine, Lewis, & Alexander, 2009; Eggers & Singh, 2009; Hartley, 2005;
Metze, 2010). Some researchers have talked about how governance networks
contribute to better coordination and conflict resolution, whereas others
have highlighted the role of networks in fashioning a more responsive problem
solving based on a broader knowledge base and mutual learning (Agranoff,
2007; Koppenjan & Klijn, 2004; Rhodes, 1997). However, although some of
these arguments implicitly invoke concerns for public innovation, there are
very few explicit attempts in the literature on interactive forms of governance
to analyze the contribution of governance networks to public innovation
(Bommert, 2010).

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The scant regard for the innovative capacity of governance networks is

surprising because the role of networks for producing and disseminating
innovation is well established in the social sciences (Freeman, 1991; Rogers,
1962). In the field of institutional economics, there is an abundance of research
on how innovation can be enhanced through collaborative interaction facilitated by more or less formal networks (Gloor, 2005; Powell & Grodal, 2004;
Teece, 1992; S. Weber, 2003). By contrast, there are only a small number of
studies that takes on the task of scrutinizing the role of multiactor collaboration for the enhancement of public innovation (Gray, 1989; Roberts & Bradley,
1991; Roberts & King, 1996, Van de Ven, Polley, Garud, & Venkataraman,
2007). Moreover, in the few studies of public innovation that explicitly adopt a
network perspective, the analytical focus is most often on the implementation
and dissemination of innovation through networks rather than on the collaborative processes through which problems are framed and new solutions are
crafted and selected (Mintrom & Vergari, 1998; OToole, 1997).
The dearth of studies focusing on collaborative innovation in the public
sector is not least regrettable in the light of the increasing demand for public
sector innovation. Since the rise of the reinventing government movement
(Osborne & Gaebler, 1993), there has been a growing interest in public innovation (Borins, 2001; OToole, 1997), and many Western governments have
launched national programs aiming to enhance innovation in public services
and regulation (Newman, Raine, & Skelcher, 2001). International campaign
organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) have also highlighted the need for public sector innovation (OECD, 2010).
Despite the growing interest in spurring innovation in the public sector, the
current understanding of the sources of public innovation is inadequate. As
such, most of the protagonists of public innovation tend to rely far too much
on the positive impact of technical inventions and scientific discoveries. New
information and communication technologies and new medical knowledge
have prompted numerous public innovations, but we must not forget that innovation is always driven by social and political actors who are facing specific
problems and demands and choose to exploit particular opportunities.
Based on this recognition, the entrepreneurial role of different actors has
been highlighted. In his now classical study, Nelson Polsby (1984) focuses on
the entrepreneurial role of political executives who need to advance new
ideas as a part of constitutional routines and when competing for votes. More
recently, the role of politicians in public innovation has been downplayed, but
the celebration of innovation champions has continued. As such, the New

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Public Management literature has emphasized the entrepreneurial role of

public managers and private contractors responding to competitive pressures.
HR managers and some European trade unions have highlighted the importance of tapping into the ideas and resources of the employees. Finally, there
has also been a growing interest in user-driven innovation, where public managers and employees are supposed to learn from or about different user groups
to improve public services. However, despite the unique contributions of all
these different actors, public innovation is seldom the result of the individual
efforts of singular actors (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). In most cases, public sector innovation requires collaborative interaction between a host of different
public and private actors, including politicians, civil servants, experts, private
firms, user groups, interest organizations, and community-based associations
(Borins, 2001). Unfortunately, there is hardly any recognition of the role of
collaboration for reinvigorating the public sector.
To compensate the failure to appreciate and exploit the potential of multiactor collaboration for spurring public innovation, this article aims to advance
collaborative innovation as a cross-disciplinary approach to studying and
enhancing public innovation. Hierarchies might contribute to public innovation by establishing stable routines for adapting to new conditions and mobilizing their vast amount of resources and expertise in processes of exploration
and exploitation (March & Olsen, 1995) and the creation of quasi-markets in
the public sector is likely to enhance innovation through increased competition and user orientation (Lubienski, 2009). However, a third source of public
innovation is provided by network-based forms of collaboration, which may
even compensate some of the deficiencies of hierarchies and markets. The
bureaucratic silos and narrow-minded professionals associated with public
hierarchies and the failure of competitive markets to find favorable ways of
sharing the costs, risks, and benefits of innovation tend to stifle innovation,
but these problems can be overcome by the formation of networks that facilitate collaboration across organizational and institutional boundaries.
Governance networks do not always give rise to sustained collaboration,
and collaboration does not always lead to innovation. However, when the
right initial conditions are in place, the institutional design is appropriate, and
the collaborative process is properly facilitated, there is a good chance that
collaborative innovation will be successful in breaking policy deadlocks and
improving public services (Ansell & Gash, 2007; Dente, Bobbio, & Spada,
2005; Metze, 2010).
To advance collaborative innovation in the public sector, the section titled
Innovation in the Public Sector discusses the special needs and conditions for
public innovation. The section titled Public Innovation Through Collaboration

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defines the concept of innovation, identifies the key elements in innovation

processes, and shows why and how collaboration can enhance innovation.
The section titled Theories of Collaborative Innovation explores how different social science disciplines support the idea of collaborative innovation
and identifies their analytical contributions. Building on this analysis, the
section titled Analyzing Collaborative Innovation provides an analytical
model that may guide future studies of collaborative innovation in the public
sector. The conclusion summarizes the argument and calls for more empirical
research.

Innovation in the Public Sector

In the private sector, innovation in technology, production processes, and
products has since Schumpeter (1934) been perceived as a potent lever of
cost reduction, market expansion, and profit maximization. Although small
and medium-sized business firms are often benefiting from innovations
developed elsewhere, many large enterprises have their own Research and
Development departments. In addition to in-house innovation, an increasing
number of big companies form strategic alliances with other firms to exploit
complementarities in terms of knowledge and resources to enhance innovation (Powell & Grodal, 2004; Teece, 1992). Some large companies have even
created external knowledge networks with users, scientific experts, and public authorities to help them in developing new and creative ideas (Nambisan,
2008), whereas other companies use open-source to develop new prototypes
(S. Weber, 2003).
In sharp contrast to the routinized and collaborative innovation practices in
the private sector, the public sector is commonly associated with rule-bound,
bureaucratic silos characterized by red tape, inertia, and stalemate. As such, a
key part of the neoliberal critique of the public sector has been to blame it
for not being sufficiently dynamic and innovative. The cure for this problem
has been a combination of deregulation, privatization, contracting out, and
the introduction of strategic management principles from the private sector
in the remaining public sector. However, despite the presence of a risk-aversive zero-error culture in some parts of the public sector, the neoliberal
critique of the public sector for being inhospitable to innovation is highly
exaggerated. In fact, there has been a lot of innovation in the public sector in
the postwar period. If we compare the form and content of public policies and
services of today with what was offered to us 40 to 50 years ago, it is clear that
the public sector has undergone a dramatic transformation as a result of incremental and radical innovations. One has just to think of the significant changes

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in areas such as social welfare, employment policy, environmental regulation,

and health care.
Hence, the problem with innovation in the public sector is not so much the
absence of innovation but rather that most public innovations are episodic
and driven by accidental events that do not leave public organizations with a
lasting capacity to innovate (Eggers & Singh, 2009). As the analysis of applications to the Ford Foundation innovation award program in the mid-1990s
shows, public innovation is often a response to new legislation passed by
national governments, the heroic efforts of new leaders and executive managers aiming to prove their worth, crises and scandals triggered by failures made
visible by the mass media or external performance reviews, spending cuts and
sudden changes in the demand for a program, and new opportunities provided
by technological inventions (Borins, 2001). The accidental character of public
innovation demonstrates the need for a new innovation agenda that aims to turn
innovation into a permanent and systematic activity that pervades the entire
public sector.
The call for a new innovation agenda in the public sector is motivated
by the growing demand for innovation in the public sector that emanates
from three mounting pressures. First of all, citizens and private firms have
rising expectations about the quality, availability, and effectiveness of public
services, and they have growing demands for governments to be responsive
(Vigoda-Gadot, Shoham, Schwabsky, & Ayalla, 2008). The demand for tailormade services and flexible regulations is also on the rise (Bowden, 2005;
Carter & Belanger, 2005). At the same time, public resources are limited due to
a combination of structural and conjunctural factors. Given the labor-extensive
character of public service production, the public sector cannot produce the
same high-productivity gains as the wage-leading private sector. As a result,
wage payments become a growing fiscal burden in public sector. In addition,
the economic recession following in the wake of the global credit crisis has
put severe strains on public finances. The combination of rising demands and
resource constraints clearly generates a need for new and smarter solutions
that can help to satisfy new demands without increasing public expenditure.
Second, professionals, public managers, and elected politicians have growing ambitions in terms of the quality of public governance and its ability to
solve social, economic, and environmental problems. As such, governments at
different levels aim to deliver a more effective, responsible, flexible, targeted,
efficient, and holistic form of governance. At the same time, society is becoming increasingly difficult to govern due to the growing complexity and fragmentation of social, political, and economic processes (Kooiman, 1993).
Globalization further accelerates this problem by expanding the spatial and

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temporal horizons for strategic action (Jessop, 2002). The attempt to close the
gap between the official governance ambitions and the actual performance of
public policy programs calls for innovation.
Third, public policy researchers tend to agree that a growing number of
public policy tasks involve wicked problems that are ill-defined, difficult to
respond to, require specialized knowledge, involve a large number of stakeholders, and carry a high potential for conflicts (Koppenjan & Klijn, 2004).
The need for policy instruments that can enhance sustainable development,
reduce lifestyle-related illnesses and augment public safety is a case in
point. These wicked policy problems cannot be solved simply by throwing
more money or standard solutions at them; rather, they require innovative
policy solutions.
The urgent need for public innovation should not blind us to the fact that
the public sectorin its classical, bureaucratic formcontains a number of
barriers to public innovation (Halvorsen, Hauknes, Miles, & Rste, 2005;
Rste, 2005). As such, it is often asserted that the strong adherence to legal
and bureaucratic rules and the lack of competition and economic incentives
in terms of patents and bonus payments tend to stifle public sector innovation
(Borins, 2001; Kelman, 2005). Another problem is that public services are
relatively complex, multifunctional, and based on statutory rights and, therefore, difficult to alter without causing all kinds of problems (Hartley, 2005).
A third problem is the proliferation of performance indicators that tend to
prevent innovation, especially when they are focusing on input and output
measures (Newman et al., 2001). Finally, the public sector is governed by
elected politicians and public managers who are risk-aversive because failures will often receive intensive media coverage that might ruin their careers
(Borins, 2001).
That being said, we should remember that there are also important and
distinctive drivers of innovation in the public sector. The size of the public
sector and its ability to absorb the costs of failure might help to reduce riskaversive behavior. Moreover, the recent introduction of competitive pressures,
strategic management, and a more rigorous measuring of outcomes tends to
force public agencies to change established rules, norms, and routines. As
such, there is no doubt that New Public Management has spurred public innovation, despite the backdrops mentioned above. However, the most important
drivers of public innovation relate to the actors involved in public governance
and service production. Politicians can make a political career on the basis of
new and successful innovations. Public managers and employees are relatively
well-educated people who are driven by professional values and ambitions that
prompt them to improve the content and performance of the programs that

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they are responsible for. In fact, the new innovation agenda provides a golden
opportunity for public employees to mobilize their professional knowledge
and competence that recently has been suppressed by New Public Management
reforms aiming to enforce rigid performance standards. Last but not least,
the customers in terms of users of public services are much more actively
engaged in raising demands, providing critical feedback, and coproducing
solutions than the customers in private markets.

Public Innovation Through Collaboration

Innovation is an elusive concept (Lloyd-Reason, Wall, & Muller, 2002) that
often lacks a precise definition, and with the growing attention that it receives
in the public sector, there is a risk that the notion of innovation looses its
distinct meaning and becomes synonymous with reform, change, and
new ideas. Therefore, we should begin our endeavor to enhance collaborative innovation by offering a rigorous definition of innovation.
Innovation is often defined in catchy phrases such as new ideas that work
(Mulgan & Albury, 2003) or new stuff that is made useful (McKeown, 2008).
Although such definitions might capture the gist of the concept, we shall here
provide a more elaborate definition that clarifies some of the intriguing questions that surrounds the concept of innovation. Here, innovation is defined as
an intentional and proactive process that involves the generation and practical adoption and spread of new and creative ideas, which aim to produce a
qualitative change in a specific context.
Unpacking this dense definition of innovation will help to demonstrate
how it sides with some analytical positions rather than others. First of all, the
definition maintains that innovation involves intentional and proactive action.
The process of innovation is an open and unpredictable process that might
involve several chance discoveries. Nevertheless, it is based on intentional
actions through which different actors aim to respond to problems and
challenges or to exploit new opportunities. Innovation involves a deliberate
attempt to change, or even improve, the current state of affairs in the light of
present and future demands, but when multiple streams of problems, solutions, and events are connected and worked on (Kingdon, 1984), the final
result becomes a mixture of intended and unintended outcomes
Second, the definition makes it clear that innovation is not merely about
getting a new idea. To come up with a new and promising idea, and thus to
make an invention, involves creativity, but creativity only becomes innovation
when the creative idea is exploited in practice and, therefore, is capable of

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producing some significant effects. In short, innovation is defined as creativity

plus exploitation (Mulgan & Albury, 2003).
Third, although innovation aims to bring about change, we are talking about
a particular kind of second or third-order change (see Hall, 1993). Innovation is
not about producing and delivering more or less of the same kind of goods,
services, or solutions (first-order change) but rather about changing the
form, content, and repertoire of goods, services, and organizational routines
(second-order change) or transforming the underlying problem understanding, policy objective and program theory (third-order change). In short, innovation involves the production of qualitative rather than quantitative change
(Slappendel, 1996). There is no objective way of determining the amount of
qualitative change that is needed in order for a transformation to qualify as
an innovation. Too much depends on the subjective perceptions of situated
actors. However, as a rule of thumb, qualitative changes will tend to challenge conventional wisdoms and sedimented practices.
Fourth, the above definition insists that innovation is always relative to a
specific context. Innovation brings about something new. However, the new
is not necessarily novel to the world but merely perceived to be new in particular contexts or domains (Zaltman, Duncan, & Holbek, 1973). Even if a
new and promising idea or practice has been adopted before, or in another
place, the adoption of the very same idea or practice in a different institutional context or domain clearly qualifies as an innovation (Hartley, 2005).
Not only will the adoption of a new idea or practice in a different organizational context result in a qualitative transformation of the new context, but
the process of transferring ideas and practices always involves a contextdependent selection, combination, translation, and modification of the original concept (Rvik, 1992).
Fifth, although innovation carries a positive connotation, the definition
presented above does not include anything about whether the consequences of
an innovation are good or bad (Hartley, 2005). However, we may talk about
successful innovations in terms of innovations that are perceived to lead to a
desirable result in the eyes of the stakeholders. Ideally, the outcome of public
innovation should correspond with the preferences of the elected politicians,
make life easier for the public employees, and create higher user satisfaction.
In real life, however, politicians, public managers, street-level bureaucrats,
and users often evaluate the outcome of public innovation in different ways.
The different evaluations do not only reflect the relative gains of the actors
but also the fact that innovation can serve different purposes. As such, public
innovation can either improve efficiency, effectiveness, job satisfaction, or

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Dissemination of
new practices

Implementation
of new ideas

Generation
of ideas

Selection
of ideas

Figure 1. The innovation cycle

the quality of public services, and there are crucial trade-offs between these
different objectives.
Innovation is a complex, nonlinear, and iterative process. However, as
shown in Figure 1, we can identify four constitutive phases in the innovation
cycle (Eggers & Singh, 2009).
Generation of ideas. This involves the development, presentation, and crossfertilization of ideas, but the generation of ideas presupposes the identification
of problems and opportunities, the clarification of relevant goals and values,
and the questioning of long-held assumptions.
Selection of ideas. This involves decisions about ideas that are worth pursuing. Ideally, ideas should be big, bold, and transformative, and at the same time,
feasible, flexible, and broadly accepted among the key stakeholders. As such,
negotiation, compromise formation, and conflict settlement are key features of
the idea selection.
Implementation of new ideas. This involves conversion of ideas into new
procedures, practices, and services. Changing existing patterns of behavior is
a difficult task that requires the exercise of leadership, the construction of
ownership, and the creation of positive incentives. As many things can go
wrong in the implementation phase, public innovators must be prepared to
deal with uncertainties, unforeseen problems, and temporary setbacks.
Dissemination of new practices. This involves the spread of innovation
throughout an organization or from one organization to another. Spreading
innovative practices requires highlighting the gains obtained by first movers,
establishing contacts to potential followers, overcoming standard objections
such as we do not need any changes and this is not invented here, and
adopting innovative concepts to new and different circumstances.

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The four phases do not always follow neatly after each other, but are often
rearranged, combined, mutually integrated, and repeated in and through a
series of complex feedback loops (Van de Ven et al., 2007). However, the four
phases are key components in the complex, nonlinear, and often messy processes of innovation.
With this in mind, we can now advance our main claim, which is that each
of the constitutive phases in the innovation cycle can be strengthened through
collaboration between relevant and affected actors from the public and private
sector. Our first proposition is that the generation of ideas is spurred when
different experiences and ideas are circulated, challenged, transformed, and
expanded through multiactor collaboration that facilitate mutual learning. Our
second proposition is that the selection of ideas is improved when actors with
different perspectives and forms of knowledge participate in a joint assessment of the content and the potential gains and risks of competing ideas. In
addition, collaborative interaction will facilitate the formation of compromise
and agreement, so that stalemates are prevented and the role of veto players
is mitigated. Our third proposition is that the implementation of the selected
ideas is enhanced when collaboration creates joint ownership to new and bold
initiatives, so that implementation resistance is reduced. Collaboration in the
implementation phase also helps to mobilize resources, ensure flexible adjustments, and compensate eventual losers. Our final proposition is that the dissemination of innovative practices in the public sector is propelled by the
formation of social and professional networks. Networks with strong ties
have a short reach but provide a strong mutual support, whereas networks with
weak ties have a longer reach but a high potential for disseminating novel
ideas (Granovetter, 1973).
The positive impact of collaboration on innovation is not only confirmed
in studies of innovation in private firms (Powell & Grodal, 2004) but also in
empirical analyses of public sector innovation. Hence, a meta-analysis of
studies of organizational innovation shows that diversity among the involved
actors and a high level of internal and external communication has a positive
impact on innovation in both public and private organization (Damanpour,
1991). Moreover, the analysis of innovative projects submitted to a national
innovation award program in the United States reveals that 60% of the projects were generated through interorganizational collaboration (Borins, 2001).
A number of qualitative case studies confirm the conclusion about the positive impact of collaboration on public innovation. First, the analysis of stakeholder collaboration in the area of school policy at the state level shows that
collaboration has a positive impact on policy innovation, although the participants in the collaborative process were constrained by their constituencies

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resulting in an incremental rather than radical innovation (Roberts & Bradley,

1991). Second, a comparative case study of urban development finds that the
innovative capacity in Turin has been much larger than in Milan and explains
this in terms of the higher diversity and density of the governance network in
Turin (Dente et al., 2005). Finally, a comparative case study from Britain concludes that local authorities with weak interagency and stakeholder networks
tend to have less extensive patterns of innovation (Newman et al., 2001).
However, just as social and political actors will not always collaborate,
collaboration will not always produce public innovation. As such, repeated
collaboration in closed and stable networks that over time have developed
more or less the same worldviews will tend to stifle creativity and prevent
innovation (Skilton & Dooley, 2010). Power asymmetries in collaborative
arenas may prevent certain groups of actors from voicing their opinion and
bringing new ideas to the table (Torfing, Srensen, & Fotel, 2009). Networks
sometimes create problems when trying to implement innovations because of
the heightened level of uncertainty and the incomplete institutionalization
that both tend to diminish trust and short-term efficiency (OToole, 1997).
Finally, the diffusion of innovations can be prevented by the presence of
structural holes that emerge when actors who could benefit from communication are not connected (Burt, 1992) or by the lack of homophily that
occurs when people communicate with someone whom they feel are too different from themselves (Rogers, 1962).
Nevertheless, with the right kind of institutional design and management,
collaboration can be a crucial source of innovation in the public sector (Bland,
Bruk, Kim, & Lee, 2010; Metze, 2010; Newman et al., 2001; OToole, 1997).
Therefore, we need to explore the different strategies for collaboration that
public agencies may use to spur innovation. For this purpose Bill Eggers and
Shalabh Singh (2009) provide a helpful overview of five different collaborative strategies: (a) The cultivation strategy aims to facilitate collaboration
between different kinds of public employees, so that they can exchange and
develop new ideas and test them in their everyday working life; (b) The replication strategy aims to foster collaborative relationships with other public
agencies to identify, translate, adapt, and implement their best and most successful innovations; (c) The partnership strategy aims to develop and test
new and creative ideas through collaboration between public and private
partners, which have different rule and resource bases; (d) The network
strategy aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas, mutual learning, and joint
action through horizontal interaction between relevant and affected actors
who have different kinds of resources and expertise; and (e) The open-source
strategy aims to produce innovation by using the Internet to invite unknown

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cocreators from around the world to help solving a specific problem. It goes
without saying that the choice between the different collaboration strategies
depends on the time and place, the character of the innovation challenge, and
the experiences and capacities of the public agency aiming to facilitate collaborative innovation.

Theories of Collaborative Innovation

The theoretical advances within different fields of study help to pave the way
for the development of an interdisciplinary framework for studying collaborative innovation in the public sector. Three fields of study are particularly
interesting in this regard: economic innovation theory that focuses on innovation in private firms and industries, sociological planning theory that focuses
physical planning in urban and rural areas, and public administration theory
that aims to understand the changing conditions for public governance. The
intellectual developments in these three fields have over time come to emphasize the role of collaboration for the enhancement of innovation. At the same
time, the three bodies of theory offer complementary insights into collaborative innovation.

Economic Innovation Theory

The intellectual development within economic innovation theory can be
divided into three phases. In the first phase, Joseph Schumpeter (1934, 1946)
and his followers study the role of the individual and collective entrepreneurs
in product or process innovation within private firms (Hagedoorn, 1996).
Innovation is defined as new combinations and is a result of a supplydriven process through which entrepreneurs, who are neither inventors nor
owners, engage in creative labor. With the advent of monopoly capitalism
and large corporations, the individual entrepreneur is transformed into a collective entrepreneur who exploits technological possibilities through the
expansion of a cooperative entrepreneurship. In the second phase, the focus
is directed toward interorganizational collaboration between different private firms (Teece, 1992) and between private companies and public authorities and knowledge producers (Lundvall, 1985). The innovative potentials
of industrial districts and clusters are emphasized, and the impact of national
and regional systems of innovation is highlighted (Edquist & Hommen,
1999). The third phase is marked by a growing interest in how collaborative
interaction between private firms and their users can spur innovation (Von
Hippel, 2005).

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The theoretical development in economic innovation theory has to an

increasing extent seen innovation as a function of multiactor collaboration.
The cooperative and systemic approach to innovation does not only challenge the idea that innovation is a result of cutthroat competition but also the
linear and supply-driven models of innovation according to which scientific
discoveries lead to the development of new technology which in turn satisfies new and emerging market needs. Hence, innovation is seen as a result of
collaborative interaction in complex networks with numerous feedback loops
that take into account the new and emerging demands of private firms and
their customers (Edquist & Hommen, 1999). The new theoretical approach to
innovation in firms and industries grants public authorities a proactive role in
facilitating the emergence of institutional designs that promote innovation by
creating and sustaining relationships of interdependence, interaction, and
communication. However, the key contribution of economic innovation theory is the demonstration of the limits of competition and the value of trustbased collaboration, even among potential competitors, together with the
idea that users can provide an important input to innovation processes (Teece,
1992). The emphasis on how innovation can be spurred by complex systems
of interaction among users, producers, scientists, and public authorities is an
important source of inspiration for the development of a theory of collaborative innovation in the public sector.

Sociological Planning Theory

Theories of public planning have been on a similar journey. Traditional planning theory was based on the assumption that it is possible to create growth
and development in urban and rural areas by formulating and implementing
rational and comprehensive long-term plans with the character of blueprints.
Such plans would be crafted on the basis of scientific expert knowledge
and the use of linear extrapolations of economic and demographic trends
(Davidorff & Reiner, 1962; Friedman, 1987). From the 1970s onwards, this
assumption was subjected to a growing critique because the long-term plans
seldom produced the predicted outcomes. The increasing number of planning
failures was caused partly by the fierce resistance from the local citizens and
other lay actors, who did not have any ownership to the master plans and the
new development projects, and partly by the fact that the blueprints did not
take the local conditions and dynamics sufficiently into account (Sager,
1994). The critics claimed that social and physical planning had to involve
local citizens and key stakeholders and make systematic use of the practical
knowledge that these actors possess. In many countries, this critique led to

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the establishment of formal procedures for citizen involvement in public

planning through hearings and town meetings. A participatory and deliberative element was added to the traditional planning model.
The most recent planning theory takes a step further in its critique of the
traditional planning philosophy. As such, it concurs that we must give up the
very idea of rational and comprehensive long-term plans aimed at programming future developments and replace it with a more realistic understanding of
planning in terms of an articulation of multiple and decentered transformation
processes that create a continuous coordination and overall direction in a fragmented and emerging development process (Sievert, 2007). Such a planning
process, which Patsy Healey (2007) denotes strategic planning, requires the
establishment of a plurality of flexible connection points and overlapping governance processes. Empirical studies show that the innovative capacity of strategic planning processes depends on the inclusion of a diversity of social and
political actors who are linked through networks with a high density (Dente
et al., 2005). Like the new economic innovation theories, the new planning
theories also emphasize the role of properly facilitated collaboration and
deliberation for the production of innovative solutions in land-use planning
(Booher & Innes, 2010; Metze, 2010). However, they also draw our attention
to how difficult it is to reach an agreement about the common goals of complex transformation processes in general and innovative planning processes in
particular. Innovation designs can be accelerated through a discursive framing
of collaborative interaction, but it is impossible to determine in advance where
the process will end and what the outcomes will be (Fischer & Forester, 1993).
As such, the key contribution of planning theory to a theory of collaborative
innovations lies in its emphasis on the open-ended and dynamic character of
public innovation processes.

Public Administration Theory

Public administration theory has for a long time been occupied by the question of societal change, but the focus has been directed toward the transformation of public organizations and public governance. However, traditional
public administration theory was mostly interested in identifying modes of
governance and organizational principles that could create a stable and legitimate rule, fair and predictable decisions, efficient governance, and topdown
control. Max Webers (1978) ideal-typical model of bureaucracy allegedly
delivers on all counts due to its legalrational foundation, rule-governed practices, horizontal division of labor, and hierarchical decision-making structure.
Although Weber perceives stability as the main objective of public organizations,

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Anthony Downs (1967) tends to conceive the high degree of stability in public
bureaucracies as a perennial problem because it prevents a dynamic adaptation
of the public sector to societal changes and new conditions for public governance. According to Downs, public bureaucracies tend to become bigger and
bigger, and large-scale public bureaucracies have great difficulties bringing
about change because they spend all their energy and resources on internal
coordination and external boundary wars. In Downs own words, public
bureaucracies become increasingly ossified.
This criticism of public bureaucracies was a key driver in the development
of Public Choice theory (Niskanen, 1987) and the tidal wave of New Public
Management reforms that from the late 1980s onwards have aimed to reduce
and transform the public sector (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). The key ambition
of New Public Management was partly to increase the use of market-driven
governance mechanisms based on competition and free consumer choice to
create a more dynamic and flexible public sector, and partly to develop new
and more effective forms of public management based on performance contracts and performance-related salaries that aim to enhance the motivation
and entrepreneurial spirit of the public managers and their employees (Hood,
1991). However, seen from a public innovation perspective, New Public
Management has two clear limitations: (a) It builds on a dogmatic assertion
that the main source of efficiency-enhancing innovation comes from imitation
of the competitive logic in private sector and (b) it places the responsibility
for public sector innovation solely in the hands of the public managers.
Building on this criticism, the new theories of governance networks recommend that we take a more open and relational approach to the question of how
public innovation is enhanced. The new governance network theories developed in response to the growing complexity of modern society, and they claim
that public innovation can be enhanced through collaboration as well as competition (Kickert et al., 1997). As such, there are a host of actors such as public
managers, street-level bureaucrats, private stakeholders, and users who are
capable of providing important inputs to public innovation processes (Hartley,
2005; Vigoda, 2002). As such, the role of public managers is not to produce
public innovation all by themselves but rather to create, institutionalize, and
manage open and flexible arenas for collaborative interaction with other
relevant and affected actors (Nambisan, 2008). This kind of facilitating network management that aims to provide a political, institutional, and
discursive framework for collaborative innovation is exactly what the
new theories of network governance denotes metagovernance (Jessop,
2002; Srensen & Torfing, 2007, 2009). Metagovernance is defined as
the regulation of self-regulation, and it is here that public administration

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theory can make a special contribution to a theory of collaborative

innovation. Collaborative innovation in and through governance networks
must be carefully metagoverned to spur public innovation.
In sum, our analysis has shown that the intellectual development within
economic innovation theory, planning theory, and public administration theory contains a growing appreciation of multiactor collaboration as a source of
innovation, and together, the three bodies of theory provide an interdisciplinary framework for further analysis of collaborative innovation.

Analyzing Collaborative Innovation

Despite the theoretical underpinning provided in the previous section, there is
no commonly accepted theoretical framework for analyzing collaborative
innovation in the public sector. As a first step in developing such a framework,
we shall provide a simple analytical model that may stimulate academic
debates and inform empirical studies in the future. The model is inspired
by the model of collaborative governance advanced by Chris Ansell and
Allison Gash (2007) and the Institutional Analysis and Development framework elaborated by Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker (1994). As indicated in
Figure 2, the underlying assumption is that collaborative innovation processes, which produce public innovation outputs that can be evaluated in different ways, are imbedded in institutional arenas of interaction that provide a
contingent set of drivers and barriers that facilitate and hamper collaboration
and innovation. The institutional arenas of interaction, and thus the processes
of collaborative innovation, are shaped by pregiven initial conditions and
proactive forms of metagovernance.
The model displayed in Figure 2 aims to map the interplay between the
different factors that may lead to the production and dissemination of public
innovation outputs. Public innovation includes product and service innovation, process innovation, organizational innovation, policy innovation, and
symbolic/rhetorical innovation (Hartley, 2005). The different kinds of public
innovation may have an incremental or radical character (Roberts & Bradley,
1991), and their scope may be limited to a particular public organization or
may embrace several organizations and policy areas.
Public innovation outputs may produce different outcomes that can be
evaluated by a range of different actors who will apply competing standards,
use different methods, and arrive at different results as to the desirability of
public innovations. The evaluation of the public innovation outcomes may
either spur the dissemination of best practice or stimulate the search for
next practice in terms of a creative development of future practices.

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Discursive
problematization
Initial conditions

Macro

Institutional arenas of
interaction
Collaborative
innovation processes

Meso
Micro

Metagovernance

Hands-off
Hands-on

Public innovation
outputs

Empowered
participation
Mutual and
transformative
learning
Joint ownership

Drivers and barriers

Cultural
Institutional
Inter Organizational
Organizational
Identity related

Policy
Organizational
Service

Evaluation
Standards
Method
Results

Figure 2. Analytical model for studying collaborative innovation

Public innovation is a result of open-ended and nonlinear processes of collaborative innovation. The study of the processes of collaborative innovation
will initially focus on the participation of empowered actors with different
identities, roles, and resources (March & Olsen, 1995). The active participation of politicians, administrators, experts, private organizations, and citizens
can be difficult to obtain and requires that the public and private actors can
make good sense of the transformative process, its purpose, and its underlying
premises (Wenger, 1998). However, it is not sufficient to study how the various actors are motivated to participate in communities of practice. We must
also analyze the conditions for the emergence of collaboration and the conditions for collaboration to spur innovation processes. With regard to the latter,
it is essential to study the processes of transformative learning. According to
Mezirow (2000), both instrumental and communicative learning may result
in an affirmative view of the world that tends to preserve status quo. Hence,
critical reflection is a decisive condition for the development of transformative learning processes that stimulate creative recombinations of old and new
ideas and practices. Critical reflection questions tacit assumptions, challenges
acquired habits, and aims to toss metaphors that facilitate new interpretations
and new ways of making sense of the world. Finally, we should analyze the
impact of collaboration in terms of the development of a joint ownership to

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new and bold ideas that will help to overcome implementation resistance and
ensure coordination and flexible adjustment of innovative practices. The participating actors ownership to new ideas and solutions depends on their active
participation in the innovation process, their ability to influence the process,
and the responsiveness of the other actors (Skelcher & Torfing, 2010).
The extent to which interdependent actors collaborate and use collaboration as a vehicle for public innovation is conditioned by a number of contextbound drivers and barriers that either stimulate or hamper the processes of
collaborative innovation. (Halvorsen et al., 2005) Examples of potential drivers would be the construction of policy or service problems with a great sense
of urgency, the presence of a strong interdependency between empowered
and committed actors, agreement on the overall mission and a high level of
mutual trust, and the likelihood of significant gains from public innovation.
The potential barriers can be divided into the following: (a) cultural barriers
prevalence of a legalistic, zero-error culture and predominance of paternalistic professional norms; (b) institutional barriersstrong separation of
politics and administration and use of inappropriate designs for dialogue
with users; (c) interorganizational barrierspredominance of bureaucratic
silos, boundary wars, and groupthink; (d) organizational barrierslack of focus
on innovation and absence of procedures for exploration and exploitation;
and (e) identity-related barriersthe identities of key stakeholders prevent
collaborative innovation.
The processes of collaborative innovation are embedded in institutional arenas of interaction that can be analyzed as governance networks. The institutional arenas of interaction provide rules, norms, routines, cognitive scripts,
and discourses that structure the actions of the social and political actors (March
& Olsen, 1995) and create particular patterns of interaction that can be analyzed by Social Network Analysis (Considine et al., 2009). In relatively selfregulating partnerships and networks, the actors negotiate and amend the
rules of the game, and the institutional arenas may, therefore, be gradually
transformed in the course of interaction.
The attempt to create and sustain institutional arenas of interaction that
facilitate collaboration and public innovation depends on a number of initial
conditions. At the macro level, there might be different traditions for stakeholder involvement in different countries and in different parts of the public
sector. At the meso level, there will often be different legal and institutional
conditions for participatory governance in different policy fields. At the
micro level, the presence of strong power resource asymmetries, the lack of
clear incentives, and negative past experiences with cooperation might prevent collaborative interaction (Ansell & Gash, 2007). Analyzing the impact

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of the initial conditions is particularly important in comparative case studies

of collaborative innovation.
The institutional arenas and the drivers and barriers that they engender can
be transformed by proactive forms of metagovernance. Metagovernance
involves deliberate attempts to facilitate, manage, and direct more or less
self-regulating processes of collaborative interaction without reverting to traditional statist styles of government in terms of bureaucratic rule making and
imperative command (Jessop, 2002; Kooiman, 2003; Srensen & Torfing,
2009). Metagovernance can help to stabilize the institutional arenas of interaction and may also help to enhance drivers and remove barriers of collaborative innovation while respecting the tendentially self-regulating character of
the collaborative interaction processes. In principle, both public and private
actors can exercise metagovernance, but the legitimacy and special resources
and capacities of public authorities give them a clear lead (Klijn & Koppenjan,
2000). The exercise of metagovernance involves a combination of hands-off
tools such as institutional design and network framing and hands-on tools such
as process management and direct participation (Srensen & Torfing, 2009).
The analytical model provides a heuristic tool for mapping the basic
factors and dynamics that condition and shape collaborative innovation in
the public sector. The connections between the different components are not
deterministic but rather aim to capture the conditions of possibility for spurring
public innovation. The model is simple, but it can be further expanded depending of the problem or research question that is addressed.

Conclusion
The proliferation of interactive forms of governance through networks and
partnerships and the rising demands for public innovation have prompted our
attempt to advance collaborative innovation as a cross-disciplinary paradigm
for enhancing public innovation. We have in this article argued against the
increasingly fashionable attempts to highlight the role of particular innovation
champions and instead drawn attention to the large and relatively unexplored
potential for enhancing public innovation through networked collaboration
of multiple stakeholders. As such, we have claimed that multiactor collaboration may facilitate the cocreation of new and promising ideas and forge a
joint ownership to these ideas so that they may be implemented in practice
and produce outcomes that are deemed valuable and desirable by the key
stakeholders. To sustain this claim, we have shown that collaboration may
strengthen all parts of the innovation process and pointed out a number of
different strategies for facilitating collaborative innovation. Our argument

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contributes to the research on governance networks by pointing out the

capacity of governance networks to enhance public innovation, something
that has so far been neglected in the scientific literature. The research on
public innovation may also benefit from our explicit attempt to emphasize the
pivotal role of multiactor collaboration and from anchoring the study of public innovation in the new research on governance and governance networks.
Such an anchorage will enable students of public innovation to assess the
impact of different forms of network governance and to explore the role of
institutional design.
In the attempt to advance collaborative innovation as a new, interdisciplinary research field, we have shown how the intellectual developments within
three different social science disciplines tend to emphasize the role of collaborative interaction for producing new and innovative solutions in the public
sector. We have also identified the specific analytical contributions of economic innovation theory, planning theory, and public administration theory.
Moreover, building on these insights, we have elaborated and presented an
analytical model that may inform future studies of collaborative innovation in
the public sector. The analytical model highlights the importance of reflexive
and strategic forms of metagovernance that might be seen as a new and important kind of innovation management.
To expand and solidify the new collaborative approach to public innovation, we need to conduct a broad range of empirical studies of collaborative
innovation in different countries and policy areas and at different levels of
government. Survey data will help us to explore the participation of different
types of actors in collaborative innovation and to analyze their perception of
the drivers and barriers of collaborative innovation. Delphi studies may also
be used to establish a more nuanced picture of the typical drivers and barriers
and further explore the role of metagovernance and innovation management
(Adler & Ziglio, 1996). However, qualitative case studies are required to
fully understand the complex processes and causalities involved in the production of collaborative innovation and to appreciate the role of the social
and political actors different interpretations of the collaborative and innovative processes, outputs, and outcomes. Although individual case studies will
facilitate an in-depth analysis of how and under what conditions collaborative
interaction enhance public innovation, comparative case studies will facilitate
the formulation and testing of more specific hypotheses and contribute to theory building. Case studies can be designed either as a backward mapping of
the actors and collaborative processes that have produced a particular public
innovation or as a forward mapping of the innovative outputs and outcomes
that may or may not result from more or less formal arenas of collaborative
interaction.

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The insights gained through a combination of quantitative surveys, Delphi

studies, and qualitative case studies can be used in design experiments that
aim to enhance collaborative innovation in public organizations through iterative cycles of diagnosis, intervention, and performance measurement. Design
experiments will be a valuable tool for producing situated knowledge of what
works in particular contexts (John & Stoker, 2008). Such situated knowledge
will be greatly appreciated by the public and private stakeholder involved in
collaborative innovation in the public sector.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article:
The authors received funding to a large-scale project on Collaborative Innovation in
the Public Sector (CLIPS) from the Danish Council for Strategic Research.

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Bios
Eva Srensen is professor in Public Administration at Department of Society and
Globalisation, Roskilde University, and director of a large-scale research project on
Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector (CLIPS). Her most recent publications
include Theories of Democratic Network Governance, Palgrave, 2007 (coedited with
Jacob Torfing) and The Politics of Self-Governance, Ashgate, 2009 (coedited with
Peter Triantafillou).
Jacob Torfing is professor in Politics and Institutions, Department of Society
and Globalisation, Roskilde University, and director of Center for Democratic
Network Governance. His most recent publications include Theories of Democratic
Network Governance, Palgrave, 2007 (coedited with Eva Srensen) and Interactive
Policy Making, Metagovernance and Democracy, ECPR Pres, 2011 (coedited with
Peter Triantafillou).

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