Navigating Landscapes for Digital Innovation: A Nordic Government Agency Case

Abstract

Nordic public sector organizations offer a rich context to understand activities related to digital innovation. In this paper, we report on a recent qualitative case study carried out in a Nordic government agency. We focus on the early-stage innovation activities at a case organization that investigates blockchain-related technology. We show how a concept of navigating landscapes can help to understand and theorize these dynamics. Our findings distill organizational activities into three types: 1) navigating need-solutions landscapes, 2) navigating organizational landscape, and 3) navigating competence landscape. These findings are of interest to IS scholars as well as practitioners interested in public sector innovation involving emerging decentralized technologies (EDTs).