Collaborative innovation in the public sector

Network-based collaboration between public and private stakeholders may bring about a renaissance in creative governance. In this book, Jacob Torfing draws on extensive research to analyze and promote the emerging field of collaborative innovation. His exploration of processes and the roles of specific systems combine the analytical and theoretical. The result is a collection of reflections and propositions that provides a much-needed blueprint for study in this emerging but still-unsettled field

Public sector innovation is important because the pressures of growing expectations from citizens, budget crunches, and a surge of complex governance problems cannot be solved by standard government solutions or increased funding. In order to innovate, government increasingly needs to collaborate with networks of partners across agency boundaries and especially with the nonprofit and private sectors to find new solutions. This interaction within a network can enhance creative and effective governance solutions. In this book, Jacob Torfing closely examines the link between network-based collaborative governance and innovation, proposes a framework for the study of collaborative innovation, and discusses this approach in light of theoretical insights from other disciplines and from examples of public innovation drawn from the United States, Europe, and Australia. This book will move scholars closer to being able to develop a theory of collaborative innovation