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Aron-Levi Herregodts, imec-MICT-Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, Stephanie Van Hove, imec-MICT-Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, Annabel Georges, imec-MICT-Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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Abstract
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Rapid technological advances have profoundly influenced the means for communication and collaboration, with more emphasis on collaboration and knowledge exchange for innovation, as can be witnessed in the growing body of literature dealing with distributed innovation (Sawhney & Prandelli, 2000), and more specific forms of distributed innovation such as open and user innovation (Chesbrough, 2003; von Hippel, 2005). In the private sector, these principles have been translated to different innovation practices, although research into the optimal implementation and management of them is still ongoing. However, the public sector is lagging behind in evolving towards more open, agile and user-centered innovation approaches.
A small, but growing area of research is looking into innovation intermediaries that assist public sector organizations in fostering citizen-driven innovation. Living Labs (Schuurman, 2015) and (public sector) innovation labs (Tõnurist et al., 2015) are separate organizations that foster innovation in the public sector. However, these entities, which share a lot of common ground, but also display radically different characteristics, act as separate organizations from the public sector (Schuurman & Tõnurist, 2016). Within this paper we explore a different avenue, as was suggested by Bommert (2010) who pleads for new forms of innovation to overcome bureaucratic and closed ways of innovation. We discuss the potential of public sector intrapreneurship by means of innovation bootcamps, organized by open and user innovation intermediaries. In this paper, we explore this approach by means of one specific case study in the Flemish public administration.
The bootcamp itself consisted of different phases: 1) idea submission (N=100) and selection (N=34); 2) 5-day bootcamp with intro to open and user innovation principles and techniques; 3) pitching (N=10) and selection of winning ideas (N=5).
The pre and post selection and evaluation was made by a group of leading civil workers from different public sector organizations. During the bootcamp idea owners as well as allied participants rated the ideas four times during the bootcamp. The author team was involved during the whole bootcamp and was present during the jury meeting, which allowed to capture the discussion and dynamics of the decision making process, thus this paper fits in the context of action research. Hence the ideas were scored multiple times during the bootcamp on originality, feasibility, effectiveness, governmental strategic fit and citizen value by the leading civil workers, the participants as well as the author team rated (Dean, Hender, Rodgers & Santanen, 2006). These qualitative observations and quantitative data collections allowed to construe the evolution of idea ratings, the idea alliances and in-group dynamics.
The results support the following: First, the traditional bureaucratic ways of closed innovation are still persistent in the public sector, as appeared from the scores and comments from to leading civil workers during the evaluation of the ideas. Second, the introduction of open and user innovation principles helped the participants to enhance their ideas in terms of value for the citizen and in terms of feasibility. Third, actual involvement of citizens in co-creation activities reflects an overall increase in terms of the value for the citizens of the ideas, but there was a big difference between the different project teams. This difference could be related to the composition of the teams and the personalities of the team members.
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