Lea Hennala

Clashes as potential for innovation in public service sector reform

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the ongoing dynamics of the public service sector reform through an embedding process of a municipal enterprise from the field of basic social and health care services – a pilot model in Finland.Design/methodology/approach – The framework of a multi‐level perspective on transitions is used to describe the change process. At the lowest level of this perspective are the experimental niches acting as “seeds of change” represented by the case organisation, a municipal enterprise operating in the basic social and health care sector. The data consist of 16 thematic interviews with the key persons of the operating system, analysed with the principles of content analysis.Findings – The examination uncovers diverse pressures affecting niche level innovations and manifesting as clashes and controversies between old and new ways of thinking, but these clashes can also act as a platform for innovations when opened up, analysed and facilitated.Practical implications – ...

Brokerage functions in a virtual idea generation platform: Possibilities for collective creativity?

Abstract The open innovation approach emphasizes the importance of service and product users as a source of novel ideas. An essential question is how user-driven innovation is conducted. Information and communications technology offers various new opportunities and means of acquiring information about users and engaging them in innovation activity. This study investigates brokerage functions in a virtual environment where people with diverse experience, areas of expertise and perspectives collaborate. The research question is how brokerage functions are able to create possibilities for collective creativity. The study focuses on the front-end stage of an innovation process: the ideation phase in a virtual idea generation environment, in which fruitful and fresh ideas based on users; or potential users’, needs are sought for in order to support the innovation process.

Customers as Innovators in Senior Service Markets: An Examination of Innovation Potential and Characteristics

This study investigates aging customers as innovators in senior service markets by their innovation potential and characteristics as innovators in development of well-being services. The study focuses on an initiative to develop the service concept of a foundation providing homes for aging people in Finland. The participants generated ideas on housing and rehabilitation services. Organizations would benefit from engaging users in the improvement of their services. This study provides an example of how that could be put in to practice. The study complements the managerial discussion concerning customer involvement and combines research on user-driven innovation as well as business and service development. It is of interest to managers and other actors in various organizations’ service innovation activities, innovation researchers, and researchers in service science and various aspects of aging.

Challenges of Bringing Citizen Knowledge into Public Sector Service Innovation

User-driven innovation is an essential part of practice-based innovation. This study, which belongs to user-driven service innovation research, attempts to find out what kinds of challenges there are pertaining to a municipal resident-involving service innovation approach in the public sector. This research question is approached from the points of view of both the municipal resident and the public authorities. With the municipal resident point of view we aim to find out how the municipal residents as service users are disposed towards having the possibility to personally participate in the service development activities, and from what kinds of positions the service users produce a voice to support service development. The public authority point of view examines how the customer-driven service development approach is perceived by the developer authorities, and from what kinds of positions the developer authorities listen to the message compiled from the users’ voices. As a result we present six challenges of the service user-involving service innovation approach. The case study is based on the qualitative analysis of four research datasets.