Innovation in the Public Sector: Linking Capacity and Leadership

Victor Bekkers, Jurian Edelenbos and Bram Steijn (editors). Innovation in the Public Sector: Linking Capacity and Leadership. Governance and Public Management Series. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.Reviewed by Karl LofgrenWhile the notion of innovation has been on the international political agenda for 20 years now, accompanied by a massive interest among students of economics and business studies, the concept has been remarkably disregarded in the academic field of public administration. Innovation as a concept has almost become synonymous with entrepreneurship in the private sector, whereas the public sector has been perceived as a natural opponent to innovation.In that context, the collection of chapters edited by Bekkers, Edelenbos and Steijn fills a gap in our body of knowledge, and makes a valuable contribution to a new research agenda in which the public sector is an important constituent in our endeavour to become a truly innovative society. As the editors argue in their introductory chapter, innovation represents a challenge to public administration in two different ways. First, the public sector, and subsequently public administration, constitutes the foundation for a more innovation-driven economy. Without a public sector adapted and geared up to a different form of knowledge based economy, the aim of making society and the economy more innovative will inevitably fail. Second, a future society requires that the public sector itself becomes innovative in order to face a number of challenges. Societal threats such as climate changes, crime and international economic competition force the public sector to rethink the choice of priorities, solutions and instruments. In particular, this is because, as the three editors point out, a number of social and political developments (e.g. individualisation, globalisation etc) in (Western/European) societies have undercut some of the 'linkages. between various social actors thereby depriving governments the capacity of solving (cross-sectoral) 'wicked problems.. Undoubtedly, this requires a new way of considering our current forms of governance and choice of policy instruments.The collection is composed of an introductory chapter, nine contributions which include both empirical, theoretical and conceptual pieces, and a final discussion. The contributions cover a range of subjects from case studies on the management of innovation studies to comparative studies on innovation in different states. If I, as reviewer, should pick a few good chapters I would in particular stress the conceptual contribution by Christopher Pollitt on innovation in the public sector, and the chapter by Lember, Kalvet and Kattel on public sector innovation at the urban level and the role of procurement. The former, by Pollitt, puts the whole concept of innovation into a broader conceptual and historical framework, and warns against 'off-the-shelf' models and theories of innovation in which frameworks developed for production innovation in the private sector are uncritically exported to the public sector. Pollitt argues that innovation in the public sector needs to be studied from a long-term perspective in which we over time see if we can identify any common denominators. That context matters is also something emphasised in the overall conclusion of the book - local relations, values and interactions matter for innovation. The latter chapter by Lember, Kalvet and Kattel is interesting insofar it provides a good comparative study of a number of innovations, mainly transport-and IT-systems, in a number of Baltic Sea cities with a special emphasis on procurement, and the relationship between the public procurer and the private contractor/supplier. The chapter demonstrates how the public sector through procurement affects the innovation of new processes and products (which later can be commercially exploited).While there is every reason to applaud the initiative by the editors to compile a selection of papers in the novel field of innovation of the public sector, there is also reason to draw the attention to some less fortunate aspects of the volume. …