Middle-managers role in supporting public sector innovation - Shared spaces and directionless collaboration

Middle managers have an important, but rarely recognized role in supporting innovation. This paper follows a group of middle-managers in a Swedish municipality over a five-year period in an attempt to understand middle managers role in innovation support, what they do and what they need. The study identifies that the creation and maintenance of innovation space as crucial for supporting innovation by others. Innovation support in this case where trough trust-based management rather than conscious promotion of innovation. This study also identified potential problems concerning the relationships with other parts of the municipality external to the innovation space. The results highlight a need to look further into concepts such as co-governance and the continuous management which supports employee driven innovation.