Innovation in the public sector is the only possible response to fine-tune welfare services to new and changing demands and overcome policy impasses (Halmos et al., 2019; Misuraca & Colombo, 2016; Misuraca & Viscusi, 2015). According to a growing evidence, public innovation can be facilitated by organizational partnerships and multi-stakeholder collaboration (Sørensen & Torfing, 2011). Therefore, in order to achieve the innovative results required by wicked problems, public sector collaborations should attempt to build connections and capacities that redefine rather than simply span boundaries (Quick & Feldman, 2011). In response to this need, open innovation (Chesbrough & Bogers, 2014) together with the adoption of co-design methods - such as design thinking (Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018) - offer ways of intervention that are networked and distributed, built on relationships instead of transactions between organizations, and with a focus on co-creation (Lönn & Uppström, 2015; Ramaswamy & Ozcan, 2018) and social innovation (Cajaiba- Santana, 2014) as ways for value creation and value capture (Lepak et al., 2007). Using an empirically-grounded approach, this article aims to contribute to the research stream investigating how experience-driven design may fit in the innovation process in an organizational context and what are the measures that public organizations need to adopt in order to enable a co-design methodology and enhance creative capacity. The main issues investigated are guided by the following general research questions on the adoption of co-design approaches for service, organizational and social innovation: − What are the conditions, characteristics, and outcomes of applying co-design and design thinking (DT) in an organizational context? − What are the organizational measures (i.e. leadership style, change management, organizational learning, coordination mechanisms, etc.) that need to be adopted in public bodies - such as public libraries - in order to integrate design thinking practices in daily routines and organizational culture? And how can these practices be effectively developed and sustained over long term?