ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how certain problems about the public sector are represented within discourses on public sector innovation and how projects provide organisational solutions to these problems. This chapter is based on previous research on public sector innovation together with an empirical study of the Swedish discourse of public sector innovation. According to the innovation discourse, the public sector is rigid, self-absorbed and burdened by traditional politico-administrative relations, and projects offer a non-traditional organisation that may unleash the administration’s inherent creativity and potential. Projects speak to a rather vague, albeit widespread, anti-bureaucratic sentiment, without necessarily resorting to the much-criticised path of market solutions and new public management (NPM). Public sector innovation projects are thus seen as located beyond the dualism of hierarchy versus markets. However, this third way is still based on the premise that public sector organisations must pursue effectiveness, continuous improvement, and that the employees’ creativity and contribution cannot be unleashed within the ordinary, allegedly bureaucratic, organisation. In conclusion, this chapter argues that the main driver of public sector innovation projects is the representation of an inefficient public sector that must rid itself of traditional politico-administrative relations, where politicians take a step back and/or encourage the audacity of managers and employees to experiment and take risks.
