There is a growing interest in both employee-driven innovation (EDI) and innovation in welfare services, but a lack of empirical studies addressing innovation from the employee perspective. Accordingly, this study was designed to contribute with well-grounded empirical knowledge, aiming to explore the barriers to and opportunities for participation in innovation experienced by employees of the Swedish welfare services. In order to reach the aim, a qualitative thematic analysis of 27 semi-structured interviews with employees in four municipalities was performed. The study identified three main themes, with a great impact on the innovative performance of the studied organizations: support, including leadership and innovation processes; development, including creativity and learning; and organizational culture, which includes attitudes and communication, all essential ingredients in EDI. Experienced barriers for innovation were unclear or non-existing innovation processes with ambiguous goals, insufficient learning, and deficient organizational slack, thus creating a tension between day-to-day work and innovation and hindering reflection and exploration. Attitudes of colleagues and lack of communication were also barriers to implementing innovation, suggesting the need for better management support for a communicative and open culture. Opportunities were found, including commitment to innovation and willingness to try new ideas, but the employees must be given the mandate and sufficient time to develop the potential that emerges from continuous learning, time for reflection, and user dialogue. The conclusion was that incremental innovations existed, but the full potential of these did not benefit the entire organization due to inadequate communication and lack of innovation processes. The study improves our understanding of how employees regard their involvement in innovation. It also discusses how to make better use of employees’ resources in innovation processes and contributes to important knowledge about EDI in the public sector. On the basis of our results, we suggest a model of EDI for use in practice.

Research on public sector innovation is still limited, and increased knowledge of innovation processes is needed. This article is a based on a study of the fulfillment of innovation policies in Swedish municipalities and gives a first-hand, empirical view of the complexities of innovation in the public sector. The study took place in four municipalities in central Sweden. The municipalities varied in size and organizational forms. Interviews and policy documents were used for data collection. The results showed that the innovation policies were not followed by action, which may be described as not mobilizing dynamic capabilities to create innovativeness. Thus, dynamic capabilities such as learning and HRM were not used in conjunction with innovation. Particularly amongst senior management there was a negative attitude towards the innovative capacity of their organization. Middle management saw possibilities. However barriers such as extensive control systems removed the focus from innovation. Communication lacked between senior management and middle management regarding innovation. The conclusion was that innovation, as both concept and practice, was not fully embraced by the municipalities. It is suggested that a generative leadership, opening up for communication within the organizations, especially between employees, could be beneficial and that a common understanding and definition of the innovation concept is needed.  Integration of top-down processes with bottom-up processes, such as employee-driven innovation, is also suggested.