CASE STUDY $(30$ MARKS$)$

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Innovations in the Public Sector: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda

Innovation has become a topic of increasing interest to different people across various sectors$,$ such as business executives, policy makers and public managers $($Damanpour et al$.,2009).$ In the private sector the added value of innovation is predominantly legitimized by the fact that innovation enhances profit, thereby contributing to competitor advantage. In the public sector an increasing number of people embraces the idea that innovation can contribute to increase the improvement of service and problem$-$ solving capacity $($Damanpour & Schneider, $2009$ Walker et al$.,2011$ Walker & Boyne, $2006).$ The growing attention for public sector innovation has also been linked to specific reform movements, like the popularity of raise of NPM $($Hood$,1991$ Politt & Bouckaert, $2004$ Windrum & Koch, $2008),$ electronic government $($Bekkers & Homburg, $2005),$ the change$-$over from government towards governance $($Rhodes$,1996)$ and, most recently, the retreat of governments in relation to the large budget reductions that have taken place. At the same time governments also seek to improve their responsiveness to the needs of citizens, when looking at broader societal developments and problems that often have a $$wicked$$ character like ageing $($Mulgan$,2009).$ In this, innovation is even considered as $$a magic concept$($cfr$.$ Pollitt & Hupe, $2011)$ that is used to frame the necessary transformation of the public sector to improve not only its effectiveness and efficiency but also its legitimacy $($Bekkers et al$.,2011).$

Given the popularity of the public innovation concept, it is important to understand what we really know about innovation in the public sector. If we compare the attention that is paid to innovation as independent field and well$-$established of research and theory$-$building in the private sector business schools to the public sector, we see that the public sector $-$ despite this increasing attention $-$ is lacking behind. If we look at the public administration, we see on the one hand a small number of $($scattered$)$ researchers that have examined the innovativeness of public organizations, the patterns of the innovation process and the consequences of innovation across a range of different types of public agencies in a more empirical way $($Berry$,1994$ Borins, $2001$ Salge & Vera, $2009),$ often also in combination with examining the learning capacity of these organizations $($Walker$,2014).$

On the other hand there are also a number of publications that try to grasp the meaning and importance of public sector innovation in a more conceptual way $($Osborne & Brown, $20112013$ Hartley et al$.,2013),$ sometimes combing this with a more normative approach $($Bason$,2010).$ But how evidence based is our understanding about innovation in the public sector? $4$ In this paper we want to explore what the empirical grounding is of the knowledge that has been put forward in the scholarly literature on public sector innovation. Taking stock of this empirical based knowledge helps us to explore what a possible research agenda would be$,$ thereby contributing to the further institutionalization of the innovation theme in public administration studies. In doing so we define public sector innovation as $$the introduction of new elements into a public service $-$ in the form of new knowledge, a new organization, and$/$or new management or proccessual skills, which represents discontinuity with the past$($Osborne & Brown, $2005$: $4).$

In order to make a relevant inventory of the findings of the selected studies, and being aware of a wide range of meanings of public innovation, we make a distinction between three relevant components: innovation objectives, innovation as a

process $($including its influential factors which might hamper or stimulate innovation and the innovation types employed$)$ and innovation as an outcome. In doing so we build upon the well$-$known distinction that innovation consist of both a process and outcome $($Schumpeter $1942$: $83).$ The next question is then what do we consider as the innovation process? Damanpour $(1991$ see also Damanpour & Schneider, $2009$ Salge & Vera, $2012)$ argues that given the messy and multidimensional character of this process, in essence two main innovation processes can be distinguished: innovation generating processes and innovation adopting processes. When discussing possible influential factors later on in this article, we will focus on these two processes as being the main innovation processes. Our article adds to the literature in various ways. First, our article aims to provide an overview regarding the different components of public innovation. In doing so we try develop a more integral approach on public sector innovation, thereby not sticking to just one component, like for instance the role of leadership.

Second, we also looked more closely at the specifi