When innovation comes to town—the institutional logics driving change in municipalities

IMPACT

Innovation has become a buzzword of the contemporary public sector, yet the practical uses of innovation are diverse and sometimes conflicting. This article highlights four different innovation approaches and describes their use with examples from the municipal organization in Stockholm. These innovation approaches have different end goals, perspectives and logics that drive them. With a better understanding of the broad concept of innovation that is relevant within a city organization, municipal officials can make conscious decisions about their innovation practices.

ABSTRACT

Innovation is an increasingly influential agenda for municipalities to apply to multiple activities and objectives. This article presents an institutional logics framework to clarify the ways that municipalities use innovation to achieve their long-term ambitions. The framework consists of four approaches that co-exist within a single municipality: the business-enabling approach supports local economic growth, the organizational change approach focuses on improving internal processes and services, the attractiveness approach promotes the territory for investment, and the transformative approach engages with broader societal challenges. The framework clarifies how innovation is interpreted and practised by municipalities and reveals opportunities to enhance these activities.

KEYWORDS:

• institutional logics
• innovation
• innovation policy
• local governments
• municipalities
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully thanks Andrew Karvonen for his insightful feedback during the work with this article. Thank you also to Maria Håkansson for commenting on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vinnova, The Swedish Innovation Agency under Grant 2019-02711.