Enabling social innovation assemblages through social procurement and new public governance frameworks
Abstract
Public sector interest in social innovation is growing rapidly around the world (Moulaert et al. 2013). The surge in activity has emerged, at least in part, in response to pressing social, environmental and economic issues and... [ view full abstract ]
Public sector interest in social innovation is growing rapidly around the world (Moulaert et al. 2013). The surge in activity has emerged, at least in part, in response to pressing social, environmental and economic issues and the increased recognition that many of these complex, inter-related ‘wicked’ and ‘squishy’ problems’ are unresponsive to traditional policy ‘levers’ (Sinclair & Baglioni 2014). Innovative approaches to addressing these issues also often interact awkwardly with traditional public sector decision-making frameworks and cultures.
The study on which this paper is based follows the Community Economies research tradition, which develops the pioneering work of J.K. Gibson-Graham (2006; Gibson-Graham & Roelvink 2009). In particular, I use the Diverse Economies Framework to inventory the agents and processes involved in what I identify through the research as ‘social innovation assemblages’. Key decision-making and negotiation points between the entities involved are drawn out using a second framework that combines adaptive lifecycle concepts (Moore et al. 2012), a domains of social change activity perspective (Nicholls & Murdock 2012), and a contextual specificity approach to growing and diffusing social value (Law 2004). These frameworks provide language tools designed to strengthen the efforts of those interested in enabling social innovation assemblages through public sector policymaking.
Reflecting the pragmatic orientation and exploratory nature of the investigation, a case study approach provided the overarching method for the study. The empirical research was undertaken iteratively, in two stages, with the second stage comprising an engaged research activity with participants from two ‘user groups’.
In this paper, I focus on the four in-depth case studies developed using the conceptual frameworks. Each of these social innovation assemblages is involved with different types of public sector social procurement. I demonstrate how the emerging new public governance (NPG) frameworks (Barraket, Keast & Furneaux 2016; Torfing & Triantafillou 2013; Koppenjan & Koliba 2013; Osborne 2006) can strengthen social procurement for social innovation, including through increasing transparency and accountability. Through each of the cases, I show how NPG frameworks can assist with navigating tensions between participatory approaches that share the ‘driver’s seat’, and the hierarchical decision-making structures and risk-averse cultures that are prevalent in the public sector and particularly in public sector procurement.
Through this analysis, openings for a new ethos in public sector policymaking are explored - an ethos that approaches social value through intentionally seeking to improve social relations. This ethos uses a language politics to counter ‘fast policy’ (Peck & Theodore 2015) approaches to enabling and diffusing social innovation. A key outcome of the study is demonstrating that public sector actors are more than ‘just part of the problem’, and that they can play dynamic and unique roles in decentring the prevailing discourse of intractable ‘wicked problems’ and in performing a new kind of economy.
Barraket, J., Keast, R. & Furneaux. C. (2016). Social procurement and New Public Governance. London, UK: Routledge
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2006). A postcapitalist politics. Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press
Gibson-Graham, J.K. & Roelvink, G. (2009). Social innovation for community economies. In: MacCallum, D., Moulaert, F., Hillier J. & Vicari Haddock, S. (eds.) Social innovation and territorial development. Farnham, UK: Ashgate
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Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D., Mehmood, A. & Hamdouch, A. (2013). General introduction: The return of social innovation as a scientific concept and a social practice. In: Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D., Mehmood, A. & Hamdouch, A. (eds.) The international handbook on social innovation: Collective action, social learning and transdisciplinary research. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar
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Peck, J. & Theodore, N. (2015). Fast policy: Experimental statecraft at the thresholds of neoliberalism. Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press
Sinclair, S. & Baglioni, S. (2014). Social innovation and social policy – Promises and risks. Social Policy and Society, 13, 469-476
Torfing, J. & Triantafillou, P. (2013). What’s in a name? Grasping new public governance as a political-administrative system. International Review of Public Administration, 18 (2), 9-25
Authors
- Joanne McNeill (Western Sydney University)
Topic Area
2. Social innovation and social entrepreneurship
Session
(01:00 - Thursday, 1st January)
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