New development: Enhancing regional innovation capabilities through formal public service communities of practice

Abstract

Public services have recently experienced a 'perfect storm', dealing with challenges including the task demands of COVID-19, increased financial pressures derived from the pandemic and its impact on future revenue flows, obligations to meet 2030 Net Zero targets, and Brexit repercussions. These challenges have highlighted the requirement for public service organisations (PSOs) to enhance their innovation capabilities (Arundel et al. 2019). Existing literature evidences the value of supporting open innovation in the public sector (Mergel & DeSouza, 2013), the value of Communities of Practice (CoPs) within formal development programmes (Smith et al. 2018), and the efficacy of design thinking in developing new service solutions in collaboration with users (Harhoff & Lakhani, 2016). However, limited formal programmes are available to PSOs that enhance the capabilities required to develop solutions to their challenges. This paper presents a novel programme for PSOs that combines the above theories with an underpinning Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977) pedagogy. The authors found no published evidence of similar inter-organisational programmes that support PSOs to co-design regional new service solutions that embed CE principles.