Local government is the governmental level being closest to the citizens. Even if innovations in the form of e.g. reforms might be initiated at national level, it is most often at the local they are implemented. Moreover,... [ view full abstract ]
Local government is the governmental level being closest to the citizens. Even if innovations in the form of e.g. reforms might be initiated at national level, it is most often at the local they are implemented. Moreover, local government has often the mandate to take own initiatives for innovation. Cities have become important actors in the development in the world. The local level is often a front runner when it e.g. comes to work on climate change. When the global or national level has problems on agreements there are cases where cities work together and create their own agreements, e.g. the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy within the European Union. With an understanding of the importance of the local level for sustainable development we find it necessary to study innovation at a local level in more detail. Also, we can consider innovation policy at local level as something different from national innovation policies where focus is on R&D, while at the local level the focus often is on solving concrete, local problems.
An overview of studies of innovation at local government level might therefore provide new knowledge on the special characteristics of “citizen-close” innovation in the public sector. Thus, this paper has it focus on public sector innovation at the local government level which can be understood as city, town or municipal level.
Using the De Vries et al. (2016) review as a benchmark, the aim of this paper is to conduct a conceptual analysis of innovation in local government, by a systematic literature review. A general conclusion of this preliminary draft is that the study of local level public sector innovation is still at an early, scattered level, predominantly characterized by case studies of individual cases. There is an obvious need of more comparative research, regarding cases, levels, preconditions, scientific methods, etc. It is our hope that we with this paper take a first little step in this direction.
