Innovation bureaucracies: How agile stability creates the entrepreneurial state

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UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) Working Paper Series: IIPP WP 2019-12

Authors

• Rainer Kattel | Deputy Director, Professor of Innovation and Public Governance, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
• Wolfgang Drechsler | Honorary Professor, UCL Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose; Professor of Governance, Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
• Erkki Karo | Associate Professor of Science and Technology Policy, Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

Reference

Kattel, R., Drechsler, W. and Karo, E. (2019). Innovation bureaucracies: How agile stability creates the entrepreneurial state. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper Series (IIPP WP 2019-12). Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/wp2019-12

Abstract

In this paper, we offer to redefine what entrepreneurial states are: these are states that are capable of unleashing innovations, and wealth resulting from those innovations, and of maintaining socio-political stability at the same time. Innovation bureaucracies are constellations of public organisations that deliver such agile stability. Such balancing acts make public bureaucracies unique in how they work, succeed and fail. The paper looks at the historical evolution of innovation bureaucracy by focusing on public organisations dealing with knowledge and technology, economic development and growth. We briefly show how agility and stability are delivered through starkly different bureaucratic organisations; hence, what matters for capacity and capabilities are not individual organisations, but organisational configurations and how they evolve.