Communication – the road to innovation : A qualitative case study of a municipality's use of social media for innovation

Sammanfattning: Social media for innovation have been used by organizations all over the world to involve users in the innovation process. However, it has not been studied to a great extent within the public sector. The public sector context is different from other organization and focus on innovation to improve citizens’ service. This study aims to investigate how the public sector uses social media for innovation purposes, by conducting semi-structured interviews with employees at a municipality. The study showed that the public sectors adoptions of social media in their innovation process are sporadically applied. It showed that they do involve users in innovation, but mainly through face-to-face meetings. Communication is the common denominator in both the innovation procedures and the social media usage within the public sector. In conclusion, communication can be the road to innovation for the public sector.