There is a pressure for the public sector to promote innovation but the research-based insights into how public sector organizations innovate is still low. Managers are in a constant balancing act between the conflicting demands of exploit and explore where the public sector are challenged by the disruptive nature of innovation. This paper explores the embedded innovation capabilities in a municipal organization by identifying enablers/barriers which affect the readiness to innovate.
The study is a qualitative, instrumental case study based on interviews with managers in a Swedish municipality which investigates the antecedents to innovation, which in turn contributes to knowledge on the managerial balancing act between exploit/explore in an empirical setting. The paper identifies a balancing act which risks defaulting towards optimization rather than innovation because of barriers for innovation being seen existing while enablers are assumed. There is a contested meaning behind innovation, making the balancing act between the known and the unknown which leads to a low readiness to innovate.