Managing collaborative innovation in public bureaucracies

Abstract

Public planners are increasingly recruited to manage collaborative innovation processes, yet little research examines how they handle the tensions arising from managing innovation within public bureaucracies. Drawing on theories of collaborative planning, network governance, and public innovation, this article develops a taxonomy of management roles involved in collaborative innovation. Based on an empirical study of frontline planners engaged in urban regeneration projects in Copenhagen, the article explores how planners experience and cope with tensions between bureaucratic institutional logics and the demands of collaborative innovation.