FROM HEROINNOVATORS TO DISTRIBUTED HEROISM

Abstract

Building on the literature on collaborative leadership, this paper explores the roles of individual persons in processes of public innovation. On the basis of a literature review, a heuristic model is developed that consists of roles at different levels (entrepreneurial leadership versus innovation realization) and in different phases (idea generation, selection, testing, scaling-up, and diffusion). The value of this model is explored through an in-depth, longitudinal analysis of a police innovation in the Netherlands. The empirical study underlines the value of the model and shows that, although individual hero-innovators may not exist, distributed heroism does.