Collaborative Innovation, New Technologies, and Work Redesign

• Date: 01 March 2018
• Author: Marion Bennie,Emma Dunlop Corcoran,Colin Lindsay,Robert Van Der Meer,Johanna McQuarrie,Patricia Findlay
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12843

Collaborative Innovation, New Technologies, and Work Redesign 251

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 2, pp. 251–260. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12843.

Johanna McQuarrie is a research fellow at

the Scottish Centre for Employment Research at the

University of Strathclyde. Her research addresses

employee involvement in innovation, workplace

innovation, and job quality, with a current focus on

innovation in community pharmacy and in the food

and drink sector.

E-mail: j.mcquarrie@strath.ac.uk

Patricia Findlay is professor of work and

employment relations and director of the Scottish

Centre for Employment Research at the University

of Strathclyde. Her recent interests span workplace

innovation ( http://www.innovatingworks.org.uk ), job

quality, skills, and employer-employee partnerships.

She is coeditor of

Are Bad Jobs Inevitable? Trends,

Determinants and Responses to Job Quality in the

Twenty-First Century

(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

E-mail: patricia.findlsay@strath.ac.uk

Colin Lindsay is a reader in human resource

management and deputy director of the Scottish

Centre for Employment Research at the University

of Strathclyde. His research addresses workplace

innovation and progressive workplace practices,

public service management, and the impact of

employability policies. He publishes widely in

international academic and professional journals on

employment-related issues in public services.

E-mail: colin.lindsay@strath.ac.uk

Abstract : Stakeholders agree on the need to promote innovation in work organization in public services. This article

deploys the concept of collaborative innovation to discuss employees ’ and managers ’ experiences of a major technology-

driven work redesign project within National Health Service pharmacy services in Scotland. The authors draw on

extant literature on New Public Management (NPM) and collaborative approaches to innovation to frame more than

40 in-depth interviews with managers and employees. They find that key components of collaborative innovation—

related to joint problem-solving, interdisciplinary working, and mutual learning—were important to the success of

the redesign project and had positive impacts on job quality for some employees. The authors argue that researchers

and policy makers should look beyond NPM-driven models that have dominated some areas of the public innovation

literature to consider the potential added value of collaborative innovation to improving both work and service

delivery in the public sector.

Evidence for Practice

• Collaborative innovation provides a useful alternative to New Public Management–oriented approaches to

promoting innovation in public service workplaces.

• Including employees in collaborative decision-making processes can support creative problem-solving and

innovation.

• Work redesign that creates opportunities for interdisciplinary boundary spanning and cross-functional

learning can facilitate innovation.

• Care needs to be taken that work redesign programs intended to support innovation do not produce the

unintended consequence of limiting opportunities for learning and career progression.

Colin Lindsay

Patricia Findlay

Johanna McQuarrie

Marion Bennie

Emma Dunlop Corcoran

Robert Van Der Meer

University of Strathclyde

Collaborative Innovation, New Technologies,

and Work Redesign

P olicy makers, public sector managers, and

employees accept that there is value in

promoting innovative practices in work

organization and service delivery in public services.

Interest in public sector innovation has intensified

given the urgency of multifaceted, “wicked” policy

problems, an increasingly demanding public,

pressure on services as a result of population

aging, and the need to deliver efficiencies in the

face of budget austerity (de Vries, Bekkers, and

Tummers 2016 ). Indeed, for some advocates, public

innovation is a necessary “intelligent alternative to

blind, devolved across-the-board cuts” that might

otherwise cause lasting damage to public services and

demotivation among employees (Ansell and Torfing

2014 , 2).

These challenges are particularly intense in public

health services. For example, in the United States,

concerns about how best to respond to emerging

pressures on health services have played out in

debates around the sustainability of the Affordable

Care Act and Medicaid. In the nations of the United

Kingdom, where the National Health Service (NHS)

accounts for a substantial share of public spending

and is required to deliver publicly available health

care and medicines, a range of reform strategies

have been adopted in the hope of achieving greater

efficiency and innovation (Lindsay et al. 2014 ).

This article deploys the concept of collaborative

innovation to reflect on employees ’ and managers ’

experiences of a major technology-driven work

redesign project within NHS pharmacy services

in Scotland. Drawing on recent commentaries by

Torfing ( 2013 ) and Hartley, Sørensen, and Torfing

( 2013 ), this article finds evidence of New Public

Management (NPM) influences in the development,

management, and implementation of the redesign

project. However, we suggest that the emergence of

collaborative innovation—and especially employee-

led initiatives—was vital to the realization of the

project ’ s objectives and the mitigation of some related

problems in relation to work organization and job

quality.

Marion Bennie is professor of pharmacy,

Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical

Sciences, and chief pharmacist, Public Health

and Intelligence, NHS National Services Scotland.

Her research focuses on real-world clinical data

(pharmacoepidemiology) and designing and testing

novel health care intervention models to support

innovative clinical practice.

E-mail: marion.bennie@strath.ac.uk

Emma Dunlop Corcoran is a research assistant

at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical

Sciences. Utilizing qualitative research methodologies, her

research addresses better use of medicines, innovation

in pharmaceutical care services, and patient-reported

outcome measures for high-cost cancer medicines.

E-mail: emma.d.corcoran@strath.ac.uk

Robert Van Der Meer is a reader in management

science at the University of Strathclyde. His research

addresses the management of new technology

in health care settings, including both effective

technology implementation and workforce impact.

He publishes widely in international academic and

professional journals focusing on operations, product

and services management, and operational research.

E-mail: robert.van-der-meer@strath.ac.uk