scholarly journals New Public Institutional Forms and Social Innovation in Urban Governance: Insights from the “Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics” (MONUM) in Boston

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmelina Bevilacqua ◽  
Yapeng Ou ◽  
Pasquale Pizzimenti ◽  
Guglielmo Minervino

This paper investigates how public sector institutions change their form and approach to achieve a socially innovative urban governance. The “Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics” (MONUM) in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) proves a representative case of innovation in the public sector. As a new type of government agency, it is essentially an open innovation lab dedicated to innovative evidence-based policymaking. Following a new dynamic organizational pattern in urban governance, MONUM is conducive to project-oriented social innovation practices and horizontal multi-sectoral collaboration among the three societal sectors: public, private, and civil. Its results suggest that first, the peculiarity of MONUM lies in its hybrid and boundary-blurring nature. Second, new institutional forms that experiment with urban governance can rely on multi-sectoral collaboration. Third, MONUM has experimented with a systemic approach to social innovation following the “design thinking theory.” The MONUM case can contribute to the current debate in Europe on the need to harmonize EU policies for an effective social inclusion by promoting the application of the place-sensitive approach.

Author(s):  
Duan Wu ◽  
Chenxi Yao ◽  
Jiping Wang

Over the past decade, museums all over the world have faced increasing pressures to transform as a result of visitor changes and technological advancement. “Excellence and Equity: Education and Public Dimension of Museums” published by the American Association of Museums (AAM) describe that the museum has become an intermediary and public education centers for social inclusion. (Yuha Jung, 2011) In the economy of choice, it is no longer collections that drive the priorities of museums but rather the needs of communities. At the same time, museums increasingly rely on the interpretation of their resources to provide distinctive experiences that attract and engage visitors. New challenges lead to new applications. With this background, Innovation, which in essence can be defined as “the development of new customer’s value through solutions that meet new needs, inarticulate needs, or old customer and market” (Alshammari, A. A., Rasli, A., Alnajem, M., & Arshad, A. S, 2014) has become a key factor for the success of museum. Through case studies and analysis with multiple design methods in open innovation and social innovation, the research seeks to better understand the role of “innovation” in the interpretation projects in a modern museum perspective, and the role of strategic design in the transforming complicated context of modern museum to help reach out the most practical strategy. Moreover, the paper presents a new framework for innovation methods to be used in the modern museum context. The theoretical framework of the framework is based on three concepts: open innovation, social innovation, and innovative design thinking toolkit. The framework is structured to make innovation in the museum more replicable, scalable and operable, and it could be used as a planning tool to carry out innovation or evaluate innovation. This paper argues that museum innovation is a field of specialized interdisciplinary practice that exemplifies the highly collaborative and strategic nature of contemporary design practice. Designer’s role in this transforming context should be the leader, the facilitator, the generalist, the user advocate, and the analyst. This article is still at an early step in the challenges of museum innovation and the research will continue.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7885
Author(s):  
Kardina Kamaruddin ◽  
Indra Abeysekera

The New Public Management allows us to reflect upon whether intellectual capital helps public sector organisations meet their performance benchmarks. Sustainable economic performance gains importance from the public sector’s service ideal. Although there have been empirical endeavours using intellectual capital as operational variables, this study examines the theoretically informed relationship between the intellectual capital construct and its construct dimensions and the sustainable economic performance construct and its construct dimensions. The decision-making inputs of senior officials in the Malaysian public sector are vital for evaluating the relationship, as these officials are the individual strategists of the collective organisational strategy. The study conducted a survey that received 1092 usable responses and analysed them using the structural equation modelling research method. The findings showed a robust theoretical relationship between intellectual capital and sustainable economic performance. Furthermore, the study identified intellectual capital items that play a vital role in supporting public sector sustainable economic performance in Malaysia under New Public Management. The findings provide useful knowledge for public sector officials and policymakers, and for further research.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedetto Lepori

Abstract This article presents the conceptual and methodological design of a register of public-sector organizations, as well as a preliminary delineation of such organizations in Europe. Conceptual and methodological issues are discussed, as well as the potential usage of the register for interlining datasets and analysis. The significance of the register for research policy and evaluation studies is also discussed, as related with changes associated with New Public Management reforms.


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