The MIO Model. A Guide for Innovation Support in Public Sector Organisations

Abstract

The realisation that public sector innovation is imperative has not yet been matched by fully developed knowledge of how to support it. As a response to gaps in the existing theoretical and practical knowledge concerning how to support innovation in the public sector, the paper suggests a tentative model for designing innovation support in public sector organisations, the MIO model. The model has been developed as a practical theory and is based on extensive empirical research into innovation and innovation support in Swedish local government, and it is theoretically informed by an integration of innovation studies and theories on organisation and workplace learning. Rather than prescribing ex- actly what to do and how to formulate innovation support, the MIO model focuses on the core conditions for informed and locally embedded innovation support.