Abstract Summary
Urban regions face multiple societal challenges. Public organizations aim to face these challenges and create societal value. This may be achieved through open innovation. Stimulating circular economy is, amongst others, one of the policy goals associated with societal value. Yet, organizational capabilities are of key importance when implementing innovations for circular economy. These capabilities may be improved by leveraging open innovation practices. When we take the implementation of Industrial & Modular construction practices (IFD: Industrieel, Flexibel en Demontabel bouwen) as case to illustrate this, it seems that implementing circularity requires alignment in activities of actors at strategic, tactical and operational organizational-levels. IFD is an example of an open innovation process to deliver technical standards for uniform circular bridge design. In this case, contractors, suppliers, engineering companies and public organizations collaborate to absorb knowledge about IFD, adopt the innovation in pilots and adapt to more structural organization-capabilities for implementation on a larger scale. In this article, we give narrated reflections on the implementation of IFD and the programme Bridges and Quay walls in Amsterdam. We develop an analytical framework based on relevant academic literature to investigate organizational capabilities related to the innovation within public agencies. We use the framework as a guide to analyze the offer of open innovation to the programme, using IFD as a case. We discuss implications for future empirical research, drawing from action-research on implemented innovations in project practice.
