Let’s pack the backpack together: rethinking routines in public innovation as interactions and public value creation

Routines are an essential aspect of innovation processes as all new ideas must be implemented into daily routines to work. Previously, public management theory has understood routines as barriers to innovation that constrain collaboration due to inertia. This study aims to introduce a new understanding of routines as a precondition for innovation processes. By employing organizational theory and public management theory, we investigate routines through the micro-processes involved. Based on findings from an ethnographic fieldwork study involving the introduction of at-home chemotherapy, we suggest a rethinking of the notion of routines by explicating intra- and inter-organizational interactions and value creation.