Towards a practice-based approach to public innovation – Apollonian and Dionysian practice-approaches

This paper discusses how a practice-based approach to public innovation can provide an alternative, critical means of looking at public innovation. It unravels two ways practices can exist in relation to public innovation: Apollonian and Dionysian practice approaches. The Apollonian practice-approach is purposeful, speaking of the actors’ plans and interests and the rules of the game. In contrast, the Dionysian is a more spontaneous, bricolage-like approach to innovation that gathers people in an open space of innovation. Given these contrasting approaches further illustrated through two case vignettes, the paper argues that public innovation transpires not only through purposeful practices and plans but also more contextual public services changes. Research needs to capture both of these approaches and explore their impact on innovation. The paper concludes by outlining a research strategy for investigating practice-approaches in public service innovation and how a practice-based approach can add to our understanding of public service innovation. This article belongs to the Special Issue Public sector Innovation - Conceptual and Methodological Implications Guest Editors: Ann Karin Tennås Holmen (University of Stavanger) and Maria Røhnebæk (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences

On service innovation as an interactive process:A case study of the engagement with innovation of a tourism service

In the innovation studies literature, the process of innovation has been described as an interactive process that engages many different actors over time in the development and regeneration of goods and services. In the development and regeneration of tourism services, this often includes community actors. Yet, little attention has been paid to the way in which actors grasp the societal environment with which they interact, for example in intimate relationships or interactions with a wider community, and how such interaction formats may in turn affect the innovation process; for example, its desirability and visibility. The paper contributes to service and tourism innovation research by drawing on the concept of engagement to explain three cognitive formats of social interaction between innovators and their social environment. These are familiar engagement, engagement in plan, and engagement in justifiable action. The contribution to service and tourism innovation literature is to show how the varied capabilities of engagement impact innovation. Furthermore, based on a case study on a tourism service, the paper argues that the different formats of engagement typically must be combined and balanced in the innovation process