Coevolving towards innovation

Ondertitel:a configurational approach on conditions of collaborative innovation in public service delivery

Governments around the world are in need of new approaches to develop public services. Both pressures from the environment, such as the rise of complex problems which have no obvious solutions (e.g. financial crises, global warming, pandemics), the rise in demand for customized services and the general increase of citizens’ expectations, and pressures from within government, such as the government’s desire to deliver services of high quality, increase the need for innovative services. However, governments also realize that their own resources and capacities are limited, and that tackling complex issues requires collaborations with other stakeholders. By collaborating with private sector actors and service users, governments are able to access valuable resources and capabilities, enhance creative synergies, and create broad support to implement new services. Such a ‘collaborative innovation’, in which innovation is produced out of the collaboration between multiple external actors, is the main focus of this dissertation. This dissertation studies how configurations of conditions influence innovation through collaborations. The argument is made that conditions of collaborative innovation on the level of the involved organizations, the partnership, and the users influence how innovation is achieved through collaboration. These assumptions are tested in multiple organizational settings, such as public service organizations, public-private partnerships (PPPs), and public-private eHealth collaborations. This dissertation searches how particular combinations of conditions from multiple levels of analysis impact collaborative innovation, and sheds light on relevant questions regarding the dynamics of the collaborative innovation process. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected and analysed to generate the conclusions of this dissertation, and multiple research methodologies were used. The general findings of the dissertation show that a configurational approach to conditions of collaborative innovation is valuable in understanding the interconnected features of collaborative innovation. Such an approach allows to generate rich insights on the processes and dynamics of collaborative innovation. The approach shows how diversity in partnerships is a double-edged sword for innovation, how control structures reinforce partnership processes, how opposite generative processes of collaborative innovation act simultaneously on innovation, and how user involvement is contingent on the roles the users take on during the innovation process.

Jaar van publicatie:2022

Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis

Toegankelijkheid:Open