Windrum P., Koch P. (Eds.) Innovation in Public Sector Services: Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Management

Massachusetts, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2008. — 251 p.This groundbreaking book provides new key insights and opens up an important research agenda. The book develops a new taxonomy of the different types of innovation found in public sector services, and investigates the key features and drivers of public sector entrepreneurship. The book contains new statistical studies and a set of six international case studies in health and social services. The research shows that public sector organisations are important innovators in their own right. Economic growth and social development depend on efficient public sector organisations that deliver high quality services, are effectively organised, and have excellent interactions with the private sector, NGOs and citizens. Public sector innovation is complex, invariably involving changes in services, organisational structures, and managerial practices. Essential to successful innovation are the policy entrepreneurs and service entrepreneurs who develop, organise and manage new innovations. This book provides key lessons for these public sector entrepreneurs. Innovation in Public Sector Services fills a fundamental gap; explaining the dynamics of innovation and entrepreneurship in public sector services and is of great importance for researchers, academics and students interested in innovation, entrepreneurship and strategy management. It provides a stimulating read for anyone working or interested in health and social services.Figures
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Foreword
Issues in public sector innovation and entrepreneurship
Innovation and entrepreneurship in public services
New Public Management and cultural change: the case of UK public sector project sponsors as leaders
Structure, size and reform of the public sector in Europe
Survey of research on health sector innovation
Case studies
The adoption and diffusion of technological and organizational innovations in a Spanish hospital
Health innovation processes at the public–private interface
Innovation dynamics in hospitals: applied case studies in French hospitals Patient-centred diabetes education in the UK
Providing care to the elderly: political advocacy, innovation models and entrepreneurship in Oslo
Learning to innovate in a transition country: developing quality standards for elderly residential care in Slovakia
Conclusions: public innovation and entrepreneurship