Innovation in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors

"De Lancer Julnes and Gibson have assembled a collection that provides a much needed antidote to the view that it is only the private sector that innovates. From municipal planning and technological innovations, through coaching in community colleges and measuring culture value in museums, to collaborative governance arrangements, this collection showcases the wealth of innovation occurring in the public and not-for-profit sectors. The contributions address how to conceptualize and study innovation, explore how innovations come to be and how organizations choose, describe how they are implemented in the face of challenges, and finally, discuss how innovation success can be judged. It is a must read for anyone interested in this topic." –Jenny M Lewis, University of Melbourne

"Public managers are expected to be innovative and "do more with less," but actual innovation cannot be reduced to a checklist. Patria de Lancer Julnes and Ed Gibson’s textbook demystifies innovation. Innovation in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors is rich in current, practical demonstrations that inspire and provide lessons in how to be innovative. It is ideal as a text for professionals in training as well as practitioners." –Alan Lyles, University of Baltimore

"An excellent compendium of cases from the nonprofit and public sectors that moves us well beyond traditional approaches to innovation that assume organization-centric perspectives, top-down leadership, centrally-resourced funding, and official channels of communication. These cases and their analyses point us toward the next generation of research and practice—a network-centric perspective on innovation that requires trans-organizational leadership and cross-boundary collaborations among a network of stakeholders. This shift is welcomed and much-needed in today’s dynamic environment. It affords a much more nuanced understanding of innovation in all of its complexity." – Nancy Roberts, Naval Postgraduate School