Open Innovation in the Public Sector: Review and Integration of the Management and Public Administration Literatures

This paper develops linkages and bilateral influences between the “open innovation” paradigm and research in Public Administration. To this end, the article aims to investigate the different areas of interest of the Public Administration literature to understand how scholars in the field have interpreted open innovation, further identifying the key characteristics of open innovation adopted in the public sector, with a specific focus on e-government, digital governance, and their impact on public management. We perform a literature review from 1995 to 2016, connecting and integrating the Management and Public Administration literatures on open innovation, currently mostly developed in silos, considering topics such as inclusive management, organizational control mechanisms, information use and production, and the dynamics of value creation and production for open innovation in the public sector. We anticipate that the results will help draw new avenues of research for academic researchers as well as tracks of useful actions for practitioners in the public sector.