Overlooking the front line: Impacts of front-line worker inclusion on implementation and outcomes of collaborative innovation

Policymakers acknowledge the need to drive innovation in health and social care, given the complex, “wicked” problems that such services are tasked with solving and the concept of collaborative innovation is proposed as a tool in which to reach solutions to these problems. Prior case studies have overlooked the element of front-line worker inclusion on processes of collaborative innovation. This research explores this element through a case study of an intermediate care facility in Scotland. This collaboration produced innovation, but the strength of the innovative solution was diluted by the omission of front-line workers in key phases of the innovation process. This paper contributes to the broader public administration literature by operationalizing a novel conceptual framework of collaborative innovation and by exploring the problematic implications of neglecting to include front line worker perspectives throughout the process of collaborative innovation.