Public sector innovation: value creation or value loss?

This paper explores the value dimension of public innovation in the light of practitioners’ values and asks why there seems to be a clash between innovation imperatives and workplace practices in the public sector. The paper contributes to the research on public innovation from a practice perspective by providing evidence from an ethnographic field study on innovation in social and health care studies in Denmark. These studies are part of the vocational education and training (VET) system, which combines coursework at a college and internship in the elder care sector. The study is thus cross-organisational and involves two key welfare areas characterised by rapid change, and in which innovation imperatives are substantial. The analysis shows that values are, to a large extent, articulated and acted out when practitioners encounter innovation imperatives. At the same time, in a range of ways, practitioners initiate innovations grounded in their values. The main point put forward is that the value dimension of public innovation must be understood not only in terms of value creation (economic or non-economic), which frontline practitioners are required to contribute to, but also as value-based practices and clashes between practitioners’ values and the values associated with innovation imperatives.