IMPLEMENTING PUBLIC INNOVATIONS IN NETWORK SETTINGS

Practitioners and scholars have devoted considerable attention in rece nt years to initiating public innovations-to the relative neglect of h ow to ensure the implementation of such efforts. Executing innovations over the longer term, particularly in complex network settings, can b e expected to be problematic. And yet networks are likely to be crucia l institutional settings for the implementation of public innovations. The analytic approach of game theory, used heuristically, can identif y a set of actions useful to public managers in enhancing prospects-th at sound innovations will succeed The implications of this inquiry run counter to some of the themes used as mantras in the recent reinventi on discussion and focus attention on the centrality of institutional i nfrastructure, trust, and obligation for innovative success into the f uture.