Collaborative Governance for Public Value: A Government-Led Framework of Social Innovation to Address Grand Challenges

Governments increasingly leverage cross sector partnerships (CSPs) to drive social innovation while maintaining accountability and public value. Yet public administration research has not fully integrated CSPs into governance oriented frameworks explaining how governments enable, adapt, and sustain systemic innovation over time. This study develops a recursive, government led framework that synthesizes public value and collaborative governance with institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and dynamic capabilities. Social innovation is conceptualized as a three stage process comprising: (1) Institutionalization—embedding CSPs within governance infrastructures through legitimacy building and participatory rulemaking; (2) Utilization—mobilizing distributed resources via co production and adaptive implementation; and (3) Transformation—scaling social innovation through multilevel coordination and policy diffusion. Drawing on Bolsa Família, the study shows how governments act as adaptive orchestrators that institutionalize collaboration, govern complexity, and sustain long term public value. The framework offers actionable insights for policymakers, public managers, civil society actors, and scholars designing and evaluating CSP based social innovations.