Innovation Frames: Governments Making Sense of New Decentralizing Technologies

There is a global sensemaking going on regarding new decentralizing technologies, with labels like blockchain, SSI and Web3 facilitating the discourse. Like many other institutions, governments are engaging in early innovation processes to learn what role they can and will play. There are, however, many ways that groups of government actors can make sense of such innovation. Based on a qualitative, interpretative, case study of two different types of government organizations (a state agency and a municipality) I show that early innovation with new decentralizing technologies can be framed differently by government actors along several dimensions: 1) application vs. infrastructure, 2) incremental vs. future oriented, 3) technology as driver vs. technology as trigger, 4) use case vs. institutional design, and 5) low vs. high material engagement. From this I propose a concept of innovation frames in public sector innovation. With this concept I contribute to knowledge on early innovation work with technologies that are new-to-the-world, and where the potential scope is wider than organizational processes. The insights overall inform future research on public sector innovation as it highlights the importance of being sensitive to early phases, the novelty of technology, and infrastructural change.