INNOVATION PRACTICES THROUGH KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS: PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION IN THE BRAZILIAN NAVY MANAGEMENT SCHOOL

The New Public Governance paradigm, which arose as a response to the needs of a public management that is oriented towards the satisfaction of real demands from citizens, has at its core the defense of networks as an essential element to the creation of public value. Assuming that an enabling public management environment, typical of this new context, permeates the management of the social capital, it is the social relations in the public sector that comprise an invaluable source of value creation. Therefore, this paper aims at investigating how the elements of the intellectual dimension may be articulated by public organizations in the process of solving real management problems, by means of knowledge networks. To this end, there has been carried out a participant observation (PO), which entailed the structuring and monitoring of the discipline “Improvement of Navy Logistical Support Processes”, conducted at the Brazilian Navy Management School and taught within the graduate certificate program for supply officers. The research results show positive impacts of knowledge networks as a source of public value creation, confirming previous studies on the development of practices of public governance, with a focus on the coordination of resources of human, social, and organizational capital.