On the road to Agenda 2030 together in a complex alliance of Swedish public authorities
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On the road to Agenda 2030 together in a complex alliance of Swedish public authorities Klas Palm1 · Johan Lilja2 Received: 18 October 2019 / Accepted: 30 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This article describes cooperation between authorities and universities in order to increase innovation capacity and thereby achieve change in performance and execution for better contribution to a sustainable future. Through action research, the authors have developed new knowledge about dialogical organisational development as a method for increasing innovation capacity. The paper recognises that administrative and adaptive leadership must work together effectively if organisations are to function properly and that the complexity cannot be controlled with complicated systems; adaptation is more important than fixing administrative structures. There is a need for a dynamic relationship between the formal and the informal in organisations—between top-down administrative forces and complex, adaptive and emergent forces. The study also shows that there is a need for a wider range and simultaneous use of management models adapted to different contexts and needs. Keywords Sustainable development · Innovation management · Entanglement · Complexity · Leadership · Bureaucracy
1 Introduction The UN Agenda 2030 with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is universal. All countries are expected to implement the agenda at both the national and international level. The SDGs constitute a unique and challenged goal for socially, economically and ecologically sustainable development in the world. This requires a restructuring of the way society behaves. Public organisations need to be responsive, agile and renew their delivery. The sustainability challenges create challenges that are sometimes called wicked problems as it is difficult to see what happens in the system when trying to solve the problems. By solving * Klas Palm [email protected] Johan Lilja [email protected] 1
Department of Engineering Sciences, Industrial Engineering and Management, Uppsala University, Box 534, 751 21 Uppsala, Sweden
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Department of Quality Management and Mechanical Engineering, Mid Sweden University, 831 25 Östersund, Sweden
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one problem, one can create another. There is a need for new forms of problem solving given that clashes between wicked problems and traditional problem-solving systems often arise (Weber and Khademian 2008). Many public agencies today are not equipped for these changes. The multilateral Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has found through analysis that the public sector faces economic, social and environmental challenges and that this requires new ways of thinking about government and how it works (OECD 2014). The OECD confirms that innovation has a central role to play in supporting countries to navigate this landscape. However, public agencies seem to have difficulties coping with more radical development needs (Hartley 2005; Stacey
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