ARCHITECTING STRUCTURAL FLEXIBILITY IN DESIGN PROCESSES – A CASE STUDY OF PUBLIC SECTOR DIGITAL INNOVATION

Public sector organizations (PSO) are under pressure to undertake digital innovation in order to meet the challenges of a higher demand for service quality despite tighter budgetary restrictions. Effective digital innovation presupposes the flexible and appealing collaboration of heterogeneous actors possessing distinct knowledge loosely coupled in a complex service ecosystem. However, many PSOs lack access to employees possessing the specialized knowledge needed to execute digital innovation design processes and may thus need to seek external collaborations. This paper reports a case study of a PSO pilot project attempting to facilitate an inclusive design process for digital innovation. The study examines how teams comprising public sector professionals and private sector developers come to be involved and awarded agency during a digital innovation design process in the public sector. Findings indicate a need to architect conditions that allow for flexible provisional participation in the design process, thereby allowing novel collaborations to emerge, facilitating access to innovation intermediation and the integration of knowledge resources required for successful digital innovation. This paper contributes to our understanding of the setup and execution of digital innovation design processes in the public sector