The capacity of the state to act on its goals is seen in the ability to stave off or at least navigate pressure from various groups and forces in society (Skocpol 1985). | The abilities to assess and adjust policies and implementation practices are intrinsically important to such policy frames as missions or socio-economic transitions (Kattel and Mazzucato 2018). Such abilities have been brought together under the umbrella term of ‘dynamic capabilities’, defined as ‘the ability of an organisation and its management to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address rapidly changing environments’ (Teece, Pisano and Shuen 1997)

Importantly, routines are not good or bad: there is not one single ideal routine to be obtained or learned. In this view, dynamic capabilities play the role of changing or renewing existing organisational routines; and dynamic capabilities are patterned organisational behaviour of learning and change — in other words, also routines (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000; Zollo and Winter 2002).

Piening concludes a literature review of dynamic capabilities in the public sector by offering a similar definition: dynamic capabilities can be ‘described as bundles of interrelated routines which, shaped by path dependency, enable an organization to renew its operational capabilities in pursuit of improved performance’ (Piening 2013). | There is almost no existing literature or research on how to assess dynamic capabilities in the public sector.

| | | | | | | | Wolfgang Drechsler & Rainer Kattel (2020) Debate: The developed civil servant—providing agility and stability at the same time, Public Money & Management, 40:8, 549-551, DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2020.1729522 | A moving target So, developed civil servants are a moving target as our world changes, regarding what we can do (digitally) and what we have to and want to do (ecologically), or have forgotten to do (socially). It is not enough, however, to attempt facing technological challenges with ‘start-uppy’ organizations replacing Westminster bureaucracy—nor is it an option to retain the latter for routine, equitable deployment but without a new emphasis on risk-taking and contemporary and future competences. In fact, as experience and reflection show, we need both, and we need both at the same time. It demands high-level judgment power, resolve, tenacity and funding to develop such a civil service—but, if this sounds difficult and expensive, the alternative is failing to meet the challenges of our times. | | | | | | | | | | | Stephanie Francis Grimbert, Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia & Ville Valovirta (2024) Transformative public procurement for innovation: ordinary, dynamic and functional capabilities, Public Management Review, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2024.2326079 | | One of the main factors hindering the effectiveness of innovation policies is the lack of capabilities at the administrative level (El-Taliawi and van der Wal Citation2019; Haque et al. Citation2021; Obwegeser and Müller Citation2018), which is the level at which policies are implemented (Magro, Navarro, and Zabala‐Iturriagagoitia Citation2014).

While the literature has provided evidence about the aspects influencing the management of innovation at the corporate level (e.g. Felin et al. Citation2012; Teece, Pisano, and Shuen Citation1997), ‘insufficient attention has been paid to where the equivalent level of public-sector capacity comes from and its dynamic evolution over time’ (Mazzucato and Kattel Citation2020, 260). As argued by Borrás (Citation2011), Mazzucato and Kattel (Citation2020), Haque et al. (Citation2021) or McLaren and Kattel (Citation2022), identifying strategic capabilities is necessary to avoid policy failure, which may emerge due to weak administrative capacity. | | | | | | | | | | Mergel, I., Ganapati, S. and Whitford, A.B. (2021), Agile: A New Way of Governing. Public Admin Rev, 81: 161-165. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13202

Also a 2018 paper… https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740624X18302107?casa_token=wfpdUsclbb0AAAAA:tl0d4oVJNOiu0xv0kiy2e_2jjYnzMkCUs2e-Fb5MM8IEW8cZ1OOMQPrawXlotFPtZk7ipFEyPNM | | | | | - Agile Is Antithetical to Many Typical Bureaucratic Line Organizations

• Agile Requires a New Form of Leadership
• Agile Requires New Forms of Contracting and Procurement

Agile requires at its core a change in rigid bureaucratic cultures (top-down, zero failure). This is no small feat. Generations of civil servants have been trained to follow the hierarchy principle. They have been told to obey a command and control structure without questioning the legitimacy of its decision-making model. They have learned to stick to their guns in assigned roles and leave innovation up to the upper echelons. Change in organizational culture is hard, especially if there are no incentives to change. We know that there are many internal organizational and cultural features that influence these changes and the adoption of new reform elements (Greve et al. 2019; Jun and Weare 2011; Venkatesh et al. 2003) | | | | | | | Vinnova casebook | | | | | | The mission-design framework is a four-stage process that fuses strategic design, participative cultures and complex systems practice within the overarching framework of mission- oriented innovation.

— Mission-oriented innovation has the potential for transformative systemic change. Yet it cannot deliver without fundamentally innovating the ways in which we innovate. | | | | | | Vinnova handbook | | | | | | This overall methodology follows a modified form of design process. Design processes are typically characterised as a series of opening and closing arcs, with wide-ranging activities exploring relevant terrain. These generate various forms of analysis and knowledge through interaction and dialogue, before synthesis closes in on tangible concepts that can embody the most meaningful characteristics discovered in the prior phase. These concepts are tested and refined as prototypes, with insights shaping subsequent design and delivery. And then repeat. Crucially, the process continues, with active learning from delivery in order to inform the next iteration. So the design process flows from Angles to Missions to Prototypes, starting from a broad exploration of the terrain and reducing down, through a series of steps, to prototypes on the ground. | In a reversal of some consider the mission-oriented innovation process to be, the Vinnova method has explored how to build consensus about what missions should be through collaboration, via co-design processes for networks of stakeholders, users, and citizens.

The learning from these activities forms missions with purpose, legitimacy, and momentum, and builds a sense of what can be achieved within systems. These are then lifted to a national political level, such as via the Swedish ‘strategiska samverkansprogram’, national collaboration programmes led by the government.

The process puts participation first, and then heads towards politics. Of course, in reality, politics—in our context, the practice of shared decision-making about shared concerns—is inherent in every stage. In essence, however, we want to learn from action in order to approach our layers of formal governance with the best possible insights. Rather than ask for a mission before we understand what it is, or what it can be, we work to frame the mission, co-design it and test in collaboration, and build political capital, of all kinds, as we go.

| | | | | Donella Meadows: Leverage points: places to intervene in a system:

https://donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Leverage_Points.pdf | | | | | | | | | | |