Public value creation through collaborative innovation

New forms of public leadership are needed to design and implement co‐production of public value. We draw on narrative analysis to explore the barriers to developing the capacity for co‐production of public value in disadvantaged and vulnerable Indigenous communities and find that existing norms not only crowd out efforts at reform, but can work against them. In particular, we find that upward accountability and a focus on expert knowledge are the most problematic for co‐production of public value. We focus on how more traditional practices of public administration mediated the achievements of public leaders in their co‐production efforts when Australian governments introduced strategies for partnership with Indigenous communities for services design and delivery. The analysis suggests that creating a broader enabling environment of supportive logics would allow public leaders to engage more productively with inherent tensions between old and new ways of working.

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating tensions in co‐production: A missing link in leadership for public value

Brown

Head

2018

“…While the steward protects the integrity of the collaborative process (Ansell and Gash ), the mediator helps to arbitrate and nurture the relationships between stakeholders (Ansell and Gash ) by managing interdependencies, building trust, and resolving disputes (Sørensen and Torfing ; Hartley et al ). The mediator also contributes to the construction of a common framework, while removing barriers to collaboration (Crosby et al ). The catalyst helps stakeholders to identify and realize value‐creating opportunities (Ansell and Gash ) by reframing problems based on new knowledge and promoting the exploration of emerging constraints and opportunities while encouraging transformative learning (Sørensen and Torfing ; Hartley et al ).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leading knowledge mobilization for public value: The case of the congestion charge zone (Area C) in Milan

Trivellato

Mariani

Martini

et al. 2018

The literature on public value creation has grown significantly in recent years. However, how such generation of public value is linked to the interaction between individual and organizational capabilities, and the role played by leadership in such interaction, is still underexplored. This analysis of the congestion charge zone (Area C) implemented by the Municipality of Milan in Italy explores this issue and highlights the role played by the knowledge orchestrator who, by assuming different leadership roles at different times, strives to create value through knowledge mobilization. Leveraging from existing resources, the knowledge orchestrator captures knowledge from the external environment and promotes collaboration among individuals and institutions, so as to generate a new reconfigured stock of knowledge. These activities nurture the capacity of public organizations to collaborate, produce innovations, and more broadly contribute to public value creation.

“…The politicians solicit input from actors inside and outside government, evaluate the quality of this input, and integrate new insights into their deliberations about how to solve pressing policy problems. Empirical examples of how politicians interact with relevant and affected actors are provided by Hendricks (2013), Ercan () and Crosby et al (). These studies demonstrate the benefits of interactive political leadership, defined as the process through which politicians identify, define and solve important policy problems through sustained interaction with public and private actors that provide the input and support that they need to take the political community forward.…”

Section: Democratizing Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

The democratizing impact of governance networks: From pluralization, via democratic anchorage, to interactive political leadership

Sørensen

Torfing

2018

Self Cite

Initially, governance networks were intended as tools for making public governance more effective. Yet, scholars have argued that governance networks also have the potential to democratize public governance. This article provides an overview of theoretical arguments pertaining to the democratizing impact of governance networks. It claims that the initial celebration of the pluralization of public governance and the subsequent call for a democratic anchorage of governance networks should give way to a new concern for how governance networks can strengthen and democratize political leadership. Tying political leadership to networked processes of collaborative governance fosters ‘interactive political leadership’. The article presents theoretical arguments in support of interactive political leadership, and provides an illustrative case study of a recent attempt to strengthen political leadership through the systematic involvement of elected politicians in local governance networks. The article concludes by reflecting on how interactive political leadership could transform our thinking about democracy.