Employee-driven Innovation in Welfare Services

There is a growing interest in both employee-driven innovation (EDI) and innovation in welfare services, but a lack of empirical studies addressing innovation from the employee perspective. Accordingly, this study was designed to contribute with well-grounded empirical knowledge, aiming to explore the barriers to and opportunities for participation in innovation experienced by employ-ees of the Swedish welfare services. In order to reach the aim, a qualitative thematic analysis of 27 semi-structured interviews with employees in four municipalities was performed. The study identified three main themes, with a great impact on the innovative performance of the studied organizations: support, including leadership and innovation processes; development, including creativity and learning; and organizational culture, which includes attitudes and communication, all es-sential ingredients in EDI. Experienced barriers for innovation were unclear or non-existing innovation processes with ambiguous goals, insufficient learning, and deficient organizational slack, thus creating a tension between day-to-day work and innovation and hindering reflection and exploration. Attitudes of colleagues and lack of communication were also barriers to implementing innova-tion, suggesting the need for better management support for a communicative and open culture