This seminar is based on a research project entitled "Transitioning towards sustainable water and waste management: developing an innovation and learning lab with(in) a Swedish public organization”. The focus is on how current narrations about innovation in the public sector are strongly informed by private-sector ideas and practices, often ignoring but also creating frictions with the public sector inherent nature.
In this seminar we will invite the audience to reflect and discuss the notion and practices of public sector innovation, the role of design (in (re)producing and sustaining this notion and practices) and the role of organizational power dynamics and leadership (e.g. roles, structure, informal networks) in relation to public sector innovation.
Some of the questions that will be explored are:- What is innovation in the public sector?
- How is the concept framed and narrated?
- What consequences do these narratives have on efforts towards promoting change in the public sector?
- What is the role of power dynamics and leadership for public sector innovation?
- How might it be possible to create a different narrative?
With: Anna Seravalli and Hope Witmer, Malmö University