Hidden pressure: the effects of politicians on projects of collaborative innovation
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523221094778 |
| Author | Charlotte Van Dijck,Trui Steen |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Hidden pressure: the
effects of politicians on
projects of collaborative
innovation
Charlotte Van Dijck and Trui Steen
Public Governance Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium
Abstract
Collaborative innovation is increasingly put forward as a way of addressing the many
wicked problems our society faces today. This article focuses on how politicians indir-
ectly affect projects of collaborative innovation and whether stakeholders experience
them as helpful or hindering to the project. The impact of politicians on projects of col-
laborative innovation are compared across four cases and throughout three project
phases (set-up, implementation and sustainment). The results show six ways in which
politicians can help projects of collaborative innovation: by providing funding, by making
a project a political priority, by connecting stakeholders, by resolving stakeholder con-
flicts, by unblocking red tape barriers and by extending a collaborative network legitim-
acy. Furthermore, stakeholders perceived politicians as potentially hindering
collaborative innovation projects in three ways: through the adjustment of the project
goals, through the loss of a project’s‘neutral’status and through blocking or obstructing
a project.
Points for practitioners
One important point to take away for practitioners is that there appears to be a strong
focus among stakeholders on the potentially hindering effects of politicians on collabora-
tive innovation projects (CIPs). Yet, across the four cases, the positive impact of political
support played a bigger role. While some of these findings can be case specific, it shows
that public servants may benefit from being more open-minded about the potentially
positive impact of politicians on CIPs.
Corresponding author:
Charlotte Van Dijck, Parkstraat 45, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Email: Charlotte.vandijck@kuleuven.be
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2023, Vol. 89(4) 996–1011
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523221094778
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Keywords
Collaborative innovation, political pressure, political support, public administration,
public sector innovation
Introduction
Collaborative innovation is increasingly put forward as a solution for the many wicked
problems our society faces today (Wegrich, 2019). Several recent studies have focused
on the role of politicians in such collaborative innovation networks, but they have
been limited in focus. These studies uncovered drivers for the involvement of political
actors (Ansell et al., 2017), as well as risks (Mu and Wang, 2020) and boundary-spanning
opportunities (Sørensen et al., 2020). This article focuses on how stakeholders in collab-
orative innovation projects (CIPs) experience the effects politicians have on such pro-
jects. Politicians, in this study, refers to elected politicians who hold office on the
governmental level(s) (local, regional and federal) where the projects are executed, and
are competent for the subject matter of the project (e.g. the Minister of Social
Inclusion, a mayor).
Political support is often identified as vital in collaborative innovations (Ansell et al.,
2017; Lopes and Farias, 2020). Studies indicate that CIPs hold challenges specific to their
collaborative aspect, where political support can be instrumental (Bommert, 2010; Lopes
and Farias, 2020). Effective combinations of politicians and senior administrators are
important for innovation (Lewis et al., 2018). Yet, while studies claim that political
support is vital, it is not discussed in these studies in what ways politicians can affect
CIPs (cf. Lopes and Farias, 2020).
Research on political leadership rarely takes place in a collaborative innovation
context (Torfing and Ansell, 2017; Wegrich, 2019). In addition, studies that combine
these two elements tend to focus on why politicians engage in collaborative governance
(Sorrentino et al., 2018), how they might benefit from it (Torfing and Sørensen, 2019) or
how politicians can strengthen their leadership through engaging in CIPs (Torfing and
Ansell, 2017). These studies, however, do not focus on the effects politicians have on
such projects.
This article aims to contribute to the collaborative innovation literature by exploring
how politicians can affect collaborative innovation and whether stakeholders experience
this as helpful or hindering. Through in-depth interviews, we inquire into how elected
politicians affected the CIPs during different phases of the projects since studies indicate
that different phases of the innovation process pose different challenges (Cinar et al.,
2019). This sets our research apart from previous studies that focus purely on the imple-
mentation/adoption phase (Jun and Weare, 2011).
First, the current literature is summed up in the state of the art section. Next, four cases
in the Belgian public sector are compared. The discussion shows how the effects of
elected politicians can be compared across the cases and across the project phases. The
conclusion lists up our main findings.
Van Dijck and Steen 997
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