Social innovation - en potentiell möjliggörare : En studie om Piteå kommuns sociala innovationsarbete

Sammanfattning: An increase in societal challenges is creating more pressure for the public service to meet the needs of its citizens and from the society in general. The greatest challenges that Piteå kommun face are the ageing population and the need of competence provision. This essay aims to examine how Piteå kommun utilizes social innovation. The empiric material has been collected through a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with key figures in Piteå kommun who are well versed in the use of social innovation. The theoretical framework, from which the analysis is based on, is based on Murray, Caulier-Grice och Mulgan’s (2010) theory of the social innovation process. The main results show that the informants share aconsistent view of what an innovation friendly climate should consist of, but how to get there is blurry and difficult to put in to words. The result also show that a politically governed organization faces a challenge when it comes to long-term efforts of social innovation since systematic change is dependent of a stable innovation process to get substantial effect. Among the informants, and in earlier research, social innovation is attributed a wide meaning which can either leads to boosted creativity and ideas or create uncertainty and a disinclination to make use of social innovation in different workplaces since the term seems unfamiliar. Suggestions for further research is examining and comparison of the utilization of social innovation in other municipalities. Another area that can be researched further is how the social innovation process is featured in the nonprofit sector and the private sector, which can lead to insights in how the sectors can collaborate between each other more easily.