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Enabling social innovation assemblages: Strengthening public sector involvement
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Public sector interest in social innovation is rapidly growing around the world. However, only recently has substantial empirical research emerged to support practice. Through combining Community Economies research methods with emerging new public governance literature, this thesis makes a unique contribution to the field. A language politics is developed, based on two experimental conceptual frameworks. Using these, social innovation assemblages are explored, with a particular focus on social procurement relationships. Openings for performing new kinds of economy are established, offering a counter to ‘fast policy’ approaches and contributing to decentring prevailing discourses of intractable ‘wicked problems’.
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... Social procurement involves the deliberate creation of social value by purchasing goods and services [1]. While this idea is not new [2], McNeill [3] conceptualised social procurement as a social innovation because it strategically repositions the procurement function as a tool for addressing an organisation's social objectives through the creation of new hybrid assemblages between organisations in the public, private and third sectors. ...
... Although many construction researchers have recognised the vital role of champions in driving construction innovation, this research has been largely confined to the implementation of economic, technological, and environmental innovations [15][16][17][18][19]. While both Barraket et al. [1] and McNeill [3] recognise the critical role of organisational champions in driving social procurement, they do not elaborate on the functions of such roles. Aside from the work of Troje and Gluch [10,11] and Troje and Andersson [8], there has been little research into the role of social innovation champions in implementing social innovations, such as social procurement, in the construction industry or in other industry contexts. ...
There has been a recent proliferation of social procurement policies in Australia that target the construction industry. This is mirrored in many other countries, and the nascent research in this area shows that these policies are being implemented by an emerging group of largely undefined professionals who are often forced to create their own roles in institutional vacuums with little organisational legitimacy and support. By mobilising theories of how organisational champions diffuse innovations in other fields of practice, this paper contributes new insights into the evolving nature of these newly emerging roles and the motivations which drive these professionals to overcome the institutional inertia they invariably face. The results of semi-structured interviews, with fifteen social procurement champions working in the Australian construction industry, indicate that social procurement champions come from a wide range of professional backgrounds and bring diverse social capital to their roles. Linked by a shared sense of social consciousness, these champions challenge traditional institutional norms, practices, supply chain relationships, and traditional narratives about the concepts of value in construction. We conclude that, until normative standards develop around social procurement in the construction industry, its successful implementation will depend on external institutional pressures and the practical demonstration of what is possible in practice within the performative constraints of traditional project objectives.
... employment opportunities it offers (Loosemore, et al., 2022). The most common approach is the insertion of clauses in government contracts requiring construction companies to create training/employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups within building projects (Loosemore, et al., 2016;McNeill, 2017). Construction companies can either directly employ these groups or engage specialist organisations to do so. ...
In Australia, 9.4% of young people aged 15–24 are unemployed, more than double the national rate. The national employment services system in Australia has, however, not successfully tackled this issue. While some wraparound programs have been implemented to better address young people's needs, most are designed to find young people any job rather than being tailored towards a specific career. Despite governments encouraging solutions that involve cross‐sector collaboration with private businesses, the potential of industry‐specific solutions has been less well‐explored. Addressing this gap, this paper presents an in‐depth case study of how one major Australian construction company has implemented an industry‐specific collaborative wraparound program to address youth unemployment, called the Connectivity Centre model (CCM). The paper discusses the features of this model that make it distinctive compared to other programs supporting young people's employment. It also discusses how the policy context of social procurement (policies generating social value through procurement processes) and cross‐sector collaboration incentivise the model. The policy implications are explored, highlighting how models like the CCM offer a complementary alternative to other unemployment supports available to young jobseekers in Australia.
Points for practitioners
Social procurement policies incentivise private companies’ involvement in youth unemployment programs, including utilising their cross‐sector networks.
Private companies’ involvement enables youth unemployment programs that reflect the same benefits as wraparound programs in intensive/personalised support while providing more industry specificity.
This set of characteristics is unique and complementary within Australia's youth unemployment support landscape.
... They need support from many parties to start their new life. Thus, some study reported that the most successful method for supporting ex-offenders into employment are those which involve collaboration between governments, employers, non-government organization (NGO) and communities (McNeill, 2017). For example, government policies encourage collaboration, such as social procurement, have become a cornerstone of contemporary public policy in many countries, with the construction industry being a major focus (Loosemore, Bridgeman, & Keast, 2020;Raiden, Loosemore, King, & Gorse, 2018;Barraket, Keast, & Furneaux, 2016). ...
Employing Ex-Offenders has become one of the controversial topics of discussion these days. The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of hiring and supporting ex-offenders to re-join society and the workforce. The information for this paper was collected using published articles and news reports. The objective of this study is to encourage employers to hire Ex-offenders to be a part of society after taking part in rehabilitation training and discuss the advantages and challenges they face while returning to society. Therefore, to learn more about how NGOs and Governments are helping the ex-offenders to join the labour force and society. This study further revealed numerous factors that can positively influence effective reintegration from prison to community. Moreover, definitions of important key terms will help the reader understand this study's primary objective.
The role of the societies and their interaction with public administration is changing toward ever closer co-operation. Since 2009 scientific literature and the public administrations themselves have been increasingly exploring the changing and dynamic role of the recipient of public services, a client or a customer, as that of a partner in the provision of public services. In this article the authors propose a policy client-accordance index (PCAX) methodology to measure the relevance of a) policy planned results and policy-makers’ expectations in relation to b) clients’ intentions, and explore the co-production in the age of digitalization based on a case study. The idea of the article is to contribute to this necessity of new tools and approaches to facilitate the co-operation and co-production between policy makers and society. The main goal of the research is to analyse the applicability and challenging aspects of the feasibility of PCAX and to test the possible transfer of the developed methodology model for evaluating the relevance of any public administration policy to the intentions of the policy‘s respective target group, i.e., the client-accordance index of a given public policy. In the first and the second chapters of the article, mostly based on the findings of scientific literature analyses, the authors explore the increasing topicality and the need of changing awareness of a public a service and its provision. Further in-depth analyses are conducted on the possible methodological tool to measure the relevance between the policy makers’ decisions (expectations) and society‘s needs and intentions. In the concluding chapter of the article the authors summarize the development dynamics of societal reforms towards co-production, main implementation aspects of the concept and remarks on PCAX backed up by the findings of the approbation of PCAX elements in the actual case study.
The construction industry is the primary focus for social procurement policies in many countries. However, there has been little research into the drivers of social procurement policy adoption in this industry. To help address this gap in research, this paper reports the results of semi-structured interviews with fifteen social procurement professionals who are implementing social procurement into the Australian construction industry. Results reveal interesting historical parallels with the implementation of environmental sustainability initiatives. However, social procurement has yet to become normalized. There appears to be a high level of homogeneity in industry practice and while there is considerable scope for innovation, this is constrained by the prescriptive and ‘top-down' nature of social procurement policies in Australia which make it difficult for organizations to respond ‘bottom-up’ to actual community needs. It is concluded that the considerable untapped potential of social procurement policies to create social value currently depends on the intrapreneurial efforts of a small number of emerging social procurement professionals who are individually challenging the many institutional norms and practices which undermine the implementation of these policies into the construction industry.
Social procurement is re-emerging as an innovative collaborative policy tool for governments around the world to leverage their construction supply chains to help them address intransigent social problems such as long-term unemployment. Such policies challenge deeply rooted institutional norms and structures in the construction industry and research shows that they are being championed by a small and largely undefined group of social procurement professionals who suffer significant role conflict and ambiguity. Contributing new insights to this nascent research, this paper traces etymological definitions of champion roles, merging them with organisational theory to present a new typology of social procurement champions in the construction industry. Drawing on a thematic analysis of snowballed interviews with fifteen recognised champions of social procurement in the Australian construction industry, findings highlight four distinct types of social procurement champion: champions of organisations; champions of the concept; champions of people; and champions of a solution. It is found that there is no one pure type of social procurement champion. Rather, champions have to adapt their social procurement roles to the highly dynamic and varied organisation contexts in which they operate. These findings advance the emerging social procurement debate within and outside construction by highlighting the many different roles which are needed to implement social innovations like social procurement into a project-based industry like construction. It is concluded that organisations which see this as one person’s responsibility are likely to fail in implementing these new policy reforms.
International migrant and refugee numbers are at record levels and continue to grow. The construction industry is a major source of potential employment for migrants and refugees and emerging social and sustainable procurement policies in many parts of the world are also requiring construction supply chains to employ refugees and migrants as a condition of public sector contracts. However, there is virtually no research into the barriers that refugees and migrants face in seeking decent employment in the construction sector. Addressing this important gap in knowledge an exploratory survey of refugees' and migrants' job-seeking experiences in the Australian construction industry is presented. Results show that by far the greatest barrier to employment is lack of construction industry experience, followed by poor recognition of previous skills and experience. Recent migrants and refugees and those with the greatest previous experience of working in construction face the greatest barriers in finding decent work. Men from an Arabic background also experience greater difficulties than other cultural groups. It is recommended that policy-makers develop more initiatives to provide work experience and engage with construction employers about the challenges which refugees and migrants face in finding work in construction.
This paper provides an overview of a doctorate study that is exploring relationships between social
innovation, local and regional development, and public policy and programs. The study design
reflects the ‘social plasticity’ orientation core to social innovation theory and practice. This is
demonstrated, in part, through the exploration of a ‘language politics’ that seeks to position enabling
social innovation as a key strategy for generating more sustainable forms of local and regional
development.
Drawing on the work of key theorists, a typology is being developed to characterise social innovation
activity across three aspects - social relations dynamics, diverse economic agents and processes,
and social market dimensions. In this paper, the typology is outlined and demonstrated through
application to case examples that are being developed as part of the study. Generative workshops
with ‘users’ have been held - exploring responses to the typology and social innovation concepts
more generally - and a discussion on emergent themes is provided.
The strategies adopted by governments and public officials can have dramatic effects on peoples’ lives. The best ones can transform economic laggards into trailblazers, eliminate diseases, or sharply cut crime. Strategic failures can result in highly visible disasters, like the shrinking of the Russian economy in the 1990s, or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. This book is about how strategies take shape, and how money, people, technologies, and public commitment can be mobilized to achieve important goals. It considers the common mistakes made, and how these can be avoided, as well as analysing the tools governments can use to meet their goals, from targets and behaviour change programmes, to innovation and risk management. Written by Geoff Mulgan, a former head of policy for the UK prime minister, and advisor to governments round the world, it is packed with examples, and shaped by the author’s practical experience. The author shows that governments which give more weight to the long-term are not only more likely to leave their citizens richer, healthier, and safer; they’re also better protected from being blown off course by short-term pressures. The book is essential reading for anyone involved in running public organizations - from hospitals and schools to national government departments and local councils—and for anyone interested in how government really works.
Drawing on twelve compelling international contributions, this important book argues that traditional technocratic ways of designing policy are now inadequate and instead suggests co-production as a more democratic alternative. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and students.
Public procurement is widely used to promote objectives of an economic, environmental and social nature, such as the economic development of disadvantaged social groups. This article elaborates a detailed taxonomy of such “horizontal” policies. This study is valuable, first, to facilitate analysis of the practical phenomenon of horizontal policies and of the policy implications of different approaches and, second, to illuminate and develop the relevant regulatory frameworks under national and international regimes. The taxonomy is based on three key distinctions between the following: 1. policies limited to securing compliance with legal requirements and those that go beyond such requirements; 2. policies applied only to the contract awarded and those that go beyond it; and 3. nine different mechanisms by which policies are implemented in the procurement process.