Public Sector Organizations and Cocreation With Citizens: A Literature Review on Benefits,Drivers, and Barriers

ABSTRACT

Cocreation has captured the attention of public managers and policymakers and yet the literature focusing in the public sector is still relatively dispersed. In this literature review we present a contextualized analysis of the potential reasons that lead public sector organizations to cocreate with citizens and identify potential barriers that may hamper the adoption of cocreation in public settings. The analysis undertaken allowed us to conclude that the topic is increasingly capturing the interest of researchers, although the state of the literature is characterized by a reduced heterogeneity in research methods. We classified cocreation benefits in the public sector as innovation related, improved decision-making, and symbolic related, and we categorized the drivers for cocreation according to three broad categories: external, relation-specific and internal. Finally, we identified potential barriers of cocreation, including structural, organizational, and behavioral barriers.     

重大突发公共卫生事件科技研发应急体系运行机制研究

在突发事件应急管理过程中，科技研发支撑作用十分关键，亟需建立突发公共卫生事件科研应急体系长效运行机制。基于科技研发应急体系的复杂性、适应性特征，从主体属性和体系架构两个层面入手，分析重大突发公共卫生事件科技研发应急体系的复杂适应系统特征，运用复杂适应系统理论模型和动态闭环螺旋模型，研究重大突发公共卫生事件科技研发应急体系运行机制。研究发现，重大突发公共卫生事件背景下，科技研发应急体系具有复杂适应系统的7个基本特征，是典型的复杂适应系统；科技研发应急体系中，科研攻关专家组、诊疗医院、科技部门等科研主体具有各自内部模型，并通过6大标识进行聚集；科技研发应急体系存在事件—需求引导、主体协同、资源交互、成果转化机制。同时，新冠病毒肺炎疫情应对实践表明，疫情防控救治进程中科技研发应急体系存在并遵循上述运行机制。     

重大公共危机中科研协同团队识别研究——以诊断试剂为例

遴选合适的科研机构以整合成科研协同力量对于应对重大公共危机，尤其是对于防治和遏制新型冠状病毒肺炎等重大紧急疫情至关重要。首先，构建科研力量协同整合潜在对象识别理论模型，并在此基础上构建识别方法。以突发重大公共危机中的诊断试剂科研攻关为研究对象，以诊断试剂领域科研力量协同整合作为案例进行实证研究。最终识别出7个协同合作群组及29个关键核心机构，而且可将其整合为针对不同科研攻关需求的科研力量。结果还表明，在整合诊断试剂领域科研力量时，高校是与其它机构衔接的主要核心纽带，来自国家层面的科研院所及军队系统机构可以提供有力支持，而高新技术企业也是不可忽视的重要力量。     

如何降低科技行政审批腐败发生率——模型、机理与实现路径

科技行政审批在缺乏有效的制度约束下，极易引发腐败行为。通过构建科技行政审批与腐败发生率关联机理模型，经过相关性分析、内在一致性与EFA检验以及二阶验证性因素分析，拟合出结构方程模型路径系数。结果显示，市场激励型科技行政审批能够直接影响腐败发生率，命令控制型科技行政审批与市场激励型科技行政审批都可以通过科技行政审批人员滋生消极腐败的公共服务动机进而产生腐败行为，市场化程度提升带来的外在影响相对于内在公共服务动机变异对于腐败发生率增加的影响表现得更加显著。因此，针对不同类型科技行政审批，可实施差异化腐败预防控制机制，转变审批人员公共服务动机，阻断腐败发生的中介，深化科技行政审批制度改革，推进审批制度化、标准化、规范化建设，精简优化科技行政审批流程，提高审批集约化程度，以效能提升倒逼腐败发生率下降。     

《土地管理法》成片开发征收标准的体系阐释

研究目的:阐明《土地管理法》成片开发征收标准的核心要旨及其体系构成。研究方法:规范分析法,文献分析法。研究结果:成片开发标准应当以促成公益目的实现为核心要义,并秉持系统思维,既要明确其面积范围、用地构成及类型、补偿方式等基本构成要素,还应建立征收权行使之事前、事中、事后全过程动态监控机制。研究结论:成片开发征收入法本身具有权宜性,待土地要素市场化配置机制更加健全,成片开发征收完成特定历史时期使命之后应退出公益征收范围。     

Rotating group representatives and group members’ requests in repeated public goods game

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effect of group representatives on contribution behaviour in response to group members’ requests in repeated public goods games. Data came from 135 students in 15 groups enrolled in the experiment, grouped in the following treatments: no group representatives (NR, NRG) and group representatives (R1, R2). We also tested initial requests wherein the group members’ initial requests (i.e. NRG, R2) mediated the positive relationship between individual-level contribution preferences and group contributions. We used a fixed-effects GLS regression and IV regression to analyse the effect of group representatives and group members’ requests. The results indicated the following: (a) rotating group representative/group members’ requests was related to group contributions at the session (within-members) and group (between-group) levels; (b) the reactions to members’ requests positively predicted group contributions; (c) subjects in the no group representatives treatment formed their requests by relying more on previous group contributions than subjects in the group representatives treatment, who relied more on the previous group members’ requests; and (d) the initial requests explained long-term contribution levels, which resulted in variations in group contributions observed between the NRG and R2 treatments. Our findings highlight the role of rotating group representatives in stimulating cooperation among members, while group members’ requests impel individuals to make contribution decisions at the group level.     

Assessment of OECD Better Life Index by incorporating public opinion

Well-being has a multidimensional nature as it depends on multifaceted factors such as material conditions and quality of life. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed the Better Life Index (BLI) as part of the OECD Better Life initiative to facilitate the better understanding of what drives well-being of people. The BLI is a three-level hierarchical composite indicator that covers several socio-economic aspects. In this paper, considering the entire hierarchical structure of the index, we introduce a bottom-up procedure for the aggregation of the components at each level. We formulate the assessment of BLI as a multiple objective programming (MOP) problem that facilitates the implementation of different concepts to derive different aggregation schemes. We incorporate the data from previous years into the normalization process of the indicators, to take into account the discrepancy on their observed values and smooth their deviations across the years. Also, we consider the public opinion about well-being that is captured from the worldwide responses in the web platform of OECD BLI. We incorporate the public opinion into the assessment models in the form of weight restrictions. In this way, we reduce the effect of compensation that might be imposed by the adopted modelling approach. We apply our methodology to the data of 38 countries (35 OECD and 3 non-OECD economies) for the year 2017. Our findings illustrate that the public opinion in the form of weight restrictions can effectively drive the optimization process and depict the collective preferences to the BLI scores.     

Public and private healthcare services: What drives the choice?

This paper has explored patients' propensity to consume private healthcare services. We based our analysis on the typical tangible and intangible (for instance, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and staff empathy) domains of the SERVQUAL and SERVPERF methods. These variables may influence patients' decision-making when they choose between the public and private sectors. We combined factor analysis (to obtain a set of latent factors related to perceived quality) and a partial proportional ordered logit model to estimate the probability that a patient would access private healthcare services. To test the main hypotheses, we used data from a stratified sample in Sardinia, a peripheral region of Italy. Findings revealed that private and public healthcare are substitutes, especially for primary/specialised services. Patients who used public healthcare frequently and had a low income were unlikely to change to private healthcare or to recommend private services. ‘Responsiveness’ and perceptions on ‘tangibles’ were key in determining the probability that a patient would choose and recommend private services. This paper offers a multifaceted framework that can be used in future research to generalise these findings, especially in insular regions that are constrained by mobility.     

Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the public sector: A bibliographic analysis

Entrepreneurial ecosystems represent an active and growing area of research. Recognized as a contributor to foster regional competitiveness by stimulating economic growth and promoting innovativeness, interest in the concept spans across disciplines. Despite evolving and inter-disciplinary discussions on entrepreneurial ecosystems, a comprehensive understanding of the research directions and latest developments in the field is elusive. At the same time, a clear understanding of the current lay of the land is necessary to assist in public sector decision-making and policy development. To address this gap, this bibliometric study presents a bibliographic analysis of extant literature in the field, as referenced as the focal topic of concern in academic journal articles spanning 1995–2019. The aim is to provide an overview of the origins of the entrepreneurial ecosystems concept in literature, to offer insight into key concepts that have emerged in research over the past twenty-five-years. The paper employs bibliographic techniques to track knowledge, identify trends, and highlight the primary emerging patterns and conceptual clusters. The analysis offers a map of the covered territory and facilitates the identification of gaps and under-researched areas in the field, with a particular focus on public sector interaction. Using the visualization of similarities, VOSviewer, software tool, citation, co-citation, co-authorship, as well as the co-occurrence of keywords are presented to offer a comparative overview of the diverse representation of entrepreneurial ecosystems developments across disciplines, countries, institutional clusters, networks and teams.     

Improving spatial accessibility to regional health systems through facility capacity management

In austerity times, the general interest to reduce costs and improve efficiency levels often resulted into local cuts to public expenditure and profound reorganizations of existing service networks, especially in sectors like healthcare. In Italy, a recent reform prescribed the reconfiguration of time-dependent (i.e. emergency) hospital networks with the aim of improving patients’ accessibility conditions. In order to evaluate the impacts determined by this reorganization, we perform a spatial analysis in which we consider the distance from the closest facility as an accessibility measure. Results obtained from the spatial analysis confirm that users effectively benefit from the reorganization process but also that further improvements are possible, especially for the worst served ones. To this end, we also propose solving a mathematical programming model aiming at redistributing the capacities, i.e. the supply of beds, among the hospitals of the network seeking to maximize users’ accessibility. The realized computational experiments show that averagely better and even more equitable accessibility conditions could be obtained by containing the deriving reorganization costs.