Although much has been written about public sector innovation in the last two decades, we still do not fully understand how public sector organizations become innovative. Therefore, this study inductively explored how four Norwegian municipalities developed innovation capabilities. I found that public sector organizations develop two forms of innovation capability in a path-dependent manner: low-routinized innovation capability and highly routinized innovation capability. In the former, dynamic managerial capabilities in the form of individuals’ entrepreneurial and leadership skills comprise the source of innovation capability. In contrast, in the latter, innovation capability emerges from dynamic organizational capabilities, that is, a set of innovation-stimulating routines, processes, tools, and structures. Notably, I found that regardless of the form of innovation capability, both spur the continuous development and implementation of various radical and incremental public sector innovations. Based on these findings, this study offers several contributions to the literature on public sector innovation and to the dynamic capabilities research agenda.

尽管在过去的二十年里，有关公共部门创新的文章很多，但我们仍然不完全了解公共部门组织如何进行创新。因此，本研究归纳地探索了挪威的四个市政当局如何发展创新能力。我发现公共部门组织以依赖路径的方式开发两种形式的创新能力：低常规化创新能力和高度常规化创新能力。在前者中，以个人的创业和领导技能形式出现的动态管理能力构成了创新能力的来源。相反，在后者中，创新能力来自动态的组织能力，即一组刺激创新的例程，流程，工具和结构。尤其，我发现，无论创新能力的形式如何，两者都会刺激各种激进和渐进的公共部门创新的持续发展和实施。基于这些发现，本研究为有关公共部门创新的文献和动态能力研究议程做出了一些贡献。