Stakeholder engagement-as-practice in public sector innovation

Abstract

Despite the existing literature identifying the importance of stakeholder participation in public sector innovation, little is known about the practice of how stakeholders are engaged by public sector workers. The aim of this article, therefore, is to address this gap through an exploratory analysis of UK public sector innovation cases. By analyzing the micro-processes of engagement work, our findings illustrate different strategies that public workers adopt based on whether innovation derives from the top-down or bottom-up and whether stakeholders are managed or co-produce innovation. For each of these strategies we highlight the prevalence of four sets of practices that were identified as facilitating engagement – procedural, material, relational, and cognitive. Our findings have implications for the existing literature that looks at the “doing” of public sector management.