The concept of “wicked problems” has attracted increasing focus in policy research, but the implications for public organizations have received less attention. This article examines the main organizational and cognitive dimensions emerging from the research literature on wicked problems. We identify several recent approaches to addressing problem complexity and stakeholder divergence based on the literatures on systems thinking, collaboration and coordination, and the adaptive leadership roles of public leaders and managers. We raise some challenges for public management in some key functional areas of government—strategy making, organizational design, people management, and performance measurement. We argue that provisional solutions can be developed, despite the difficulties of reforming governance processes to address wicked problems more effectively.

Wicked Problems: Implications for Public Policy and Management

https://research-api.cbs.dk/ws/files/58401014/rony_medaglia_et_al_mapping_the_challenges_acceptedmanuscript.pdf

Mapping the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector: Evidence from Public Healthcare

This article explores how public managers can use insights about public sector innovation and public value governance to make more than incremental progress in remedying society’s most pressing needs. After outlining the features of public innovation, it considers some traditional barriers to achieving it. It then considers the usefulness of the public value framework for managers seeking to design innovative solutions for complex problems, and examines the type of leadership that is likely to foster collaborative innovation and public value. It finishes by offering levers for achieving innovation by adopting design logics and practices associated with inclusive, experimentalist governance.

/pdf/public-value-creation-through-collaborative-innovation-46kblv90qq.pdf

Public value creation through collaborative innovation

Although transformational change is a rather new topic in climate change adaptation literature, it has been studied in organisational theory for over 30 years. This paper argues that governance scholars can learn much from organisation theory, more specifically regarding the conceptualisation of change and intervention strategies. We reconceptualise the divide between transformational change and incremental change by questioning the feasibility of changes that are concurrently in-depth, large scale, and quick; and the assumption that incremental change is necessarily slow and can only result in superficial changes. To go beyond this dichotomy, we introduce the conceptualisation of continuous transformational change. Resulting intervention strategies include (1) providing basic conditions for enabling small in-depth wins; (2) amplifying small wins through sensemaking, coupling, and integrating; and (3) unblocking stagnations by confronting social and cognitive fixations with counterintuitive interventions....

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09640568.2016.1168288

Transformational change: governance interventions for climate change adaptation from a continuous change perspective

https://tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14494035.2017.1361634

Marcel Urner

Papers

Frame Reflection Toward The Resolution Of Intractable Policy Controversies