Operationalizing Co-Production in Public Services Delivery: The contribution of service blueprinting

Abstract

We have argued for public services to move away from product-dominant logic towards a service approach. By taking a services orientation, the experience, inter-organizational, and systemic nature of public services delivery can be considered along with the role of the service user as a co-producer. In this article, we unpack how co-production can be operationalized through the application of service blueprinting. This article presents an example within higher education where the creation of a blueprint brought together staff and students to focus on the design of student enrolment, resulting in improved student experience and supporting co-production.     

Collective Action and the Sustainability of Co-Production

Abstract

This article addresses the sustainability of citizen/user participation in the provision of public services, often referred to as co-production. Co-producing public services not only promises to limit cost, but it also requires a change in the relations and behaviour of public servants and citizens/users, in order for the latter to make a long-term commitment to co-production. The article notes that Olsen proposes two logics of collective action, not just one. Focusing on small group interaction can provide an important strategy for achieving sustainable co-production, particularly of enduring welfare services. However, Ostrom criticizes too simplistic approaches based on size alone for promoting social cooperation in collective action situations. She proposes seven structural variables of importance in resolving social dilemmas. Several of them can also be perceived as factors that facilitate sustainable citizen participation in co-production. Some additional factors are also considered important for sustainable co-production, like the nature of the service itself, organizational diversity, a dialogue between the staff and clients, and facilitating small group interactions in large organizations. This article concludes that governments should develop more flexible, service-specific and organization-specific approaches for promoting co-production, rather than looking for simple ‘one size fits all’ solutions to the challenges facing public service delivery, particularly of enduring welfare services. It also proposes a research agenda on sustainable co-production.     

Why People Co-Produce: Analysing citizens’ perceptions on co-planning engagement in health care services

Abstract

The aim of this article is to comprehend the motivation of citizens to co-produce. More specifically, it considers citizens’ motivations to engage in co-planning activities of health care services. The article brings together theoretical insights and empirical data. First, we integrate insights from different strands of literature. We combine literature on citizen participation, political efficacy, co-production, volunteerism, public service motivation, and customer engagement to offer a first understanding of citizens’ motivations to actively engage as co-producers of public services. Next, empirical data are derived from one specific case: citizens participating in client councils in health care organizations. Q-methodology, a method designed to systematically study persons’ viewpoints, is used to distinguish different perspectives citizen have on their engagement in co-production. Our analysis of citizens’ motivations to engage in client councils enables us to identify four types of citizen co-producers, which we label: the semi-professional, the socializer, the network professional, and the aware co-producer. Implications for future research studying citizens’ motivations in a broader range of co-production cases are discussed.     

Collaboration,Co-Production,Networks: Convergence of theories

Abstract

This article suggests a framework to study service delivery networks that draws on the theories of collaboration, co-production, and networks combined. We introduce four dimensions of co-production under ‘coproduction-oriented collaborations’. This framework allows us to ‘zoom in and zoom out’ when we study networks. Using the case method approach, the framework is applied to analyse four networks in Singapore. Findings suggest that network process, network structure, and characteristics of actors are crucial to a network’s performance and coproduction’s effectiveness. This article also offers implications for practice that in certain contexts the usage of these concepts is for managerial effectiveness and not for enhancing democratic values.     

Co-Production,Interdependence and Publicness: Extending public service-dominant logic

This article argues that while the idea of public service-dominant logic (PSDL) has much to offer, there remains room to extend it. First, the article fine-tunes the argument that co-production is unavoidable in services management, by categorizing the different things co-producers provide and analysing their interdependencies. Second, it seeks to account for collectively consumed public value, which is neglected in PSDL. Third, it recognizes that far from ‘delighting’ customers, many public services entail applying the coercive authority of the state to those with whom they deal. The article proposes a reconceptualization of the notion of ‘client focus’.     

Restoring Trust Through the Co-Production of Public Services: A theoretical elaboration

Abstract

Co-production, the involvement of clients in the delivery of public services, is believed to foster trust. However, there is insufficient research on this topic to prove what is at present merely an assumption. This article gives theoretical insights into this relationship. First, it is identified that co-production relates to identification-based trust. Second, the most important theoretical mechanisms are identified that link the two concepts: increasing self-efficacy and the creation of trust networks. A third step is to move towards a more contingent perspective. This involves not only favourable conditions, but also obstructions to trust-building, such as crowding-out motivations and free-riding.     

The Multiple Facets of Co-Production: Building on the work of Elinor Ostrom

Abstract

This article revisits Elinor Ostrom’s pioneering formulation more than three decades ago of the notion of co-production, which remains foundational, but closer scrutiny reveals further unexplored potential. This article focuses on the two parts of the term ‘co-production’, namely, its ‘production’, aspect with its sense of a process of turning inputs into products, and its ‘co’ aspect, with its sense of some kind of relationship. Both aspects have multiple facets, which are in some respects at odds and in others congruent with each other. The article canvasses ways of combining, trading off, and/or choosing between them.     

Realizing public values: enhancement or obstruction? Exploring value tensions and coping strategies in the co-production of social care

ABSTRACT

We examine the potential of co-production to enhance or obstruct the realization of public values by analysing what value tensions co-producers experience and what coping strategies they follow. In-depth study of a social care initiative in Flanders shows that co-production enhances the realization of values relating to services delivered, relationships between public servants and citizens, and the democratic quality of the service delivery process. However, public servants and citizen co-producers experience tensions between values, such as efficiency, individual freedom of co-producers, reciprocity, and inclusion. In trying to deal with these value tensions, public servants are found to follow a variety of coping strategies, whereas citizen co-producers tend to escalate tensions or avoid coping with them. The type of coping strategy followed, however, influences if and what values are ultimately represented in the service delivery process and its results.     

Co-Production and the Co-Creation of Value in Public Services: A suitable case for treatment?

Co-production is currently one of cornerstones of public policy reform across the globe. Inter alia, it is articulated as a valuable route to public service reform and to the planning and delivery of effective public services, a response to the democratic deficit and a route to active citizenship and active communities, and as a means by which to lever in additional resources to public service delivery. Despite these varied roles, co-production is actually poorly formulated and has become one of a series of ‘woolly-words’ in public policy. This paper presents a conceptualization of co-production that is theoretically rooted in both public management and service management theory. It argues that this is a robust starting point for the evolution of new research and knowledge about co-production and for the development of evidence-based public policymaking and implementation.     

Accommodating a Foreign Object: Federalism,coordination and performance management in the reform of German employment administration

Abstract

This paper uses the case of the reform of the German employment administration to explore the usage of performance management approaches within multi-level governance settings. It traces the adoption and accommodation of the performance management approach to govern the joint service centres (called ‘Jobcenter’) at the local level within the multi-level administrative coordination regime in Germany’s federal system. A contribution is made to nascent debates about the potential of managerial tools in systems of negotiated decision-making. The paper shows how performance management is adapted to the institutional logic of multi-level administrative coordination and serves as a facilitator of cross-level coordination.     

Co-Production in Developing Countries: Insights from the community health workers experience

Abstract

Co-production nowadays ranks high in global development strategies of international and philanthropic organizations. Although long-standing experiences in developing countries can provide a relevant contribution to the co-production theory, it is necessary to verify what contextual and conceptual conditions might alter the existing theoretical models. This article makes a theoretical contribution by modelling propositions that can withstand logical and empirical scrutiny. The literature is reviewed to identify key co-production concepts, their interrelationships, and the underlying assumptions. A longitudinal case study is analyzed to expand the existing theoretical propositions. Policy implications for scaling-up programmes are drawn.     

A Systematic Review of Co-Creation and Co-Production: Embarking on the social innovation journey

Abstract

This article presents a systematic review of 122 articles and books (1987–2013) of co-creation/co-production with citizens in public innovation. It analyses (a) the objectives of co-creation and co-production, (b) its influential factors and (c) the outcomes of co-creation and co-production processes. It shows that most studies focus on the identification of influential factors, while hardly any attention is paid to the outcomes. Future studies could focus on outcomes of co-creation/co-production processes. Furthermore, more quantitative studies are welcome, given the qualitative, case study, dominance in the field. We conclude with a research agenda to tackle methodological, theoretical and empirical lacunas.     

(Co)-Contamination as the Dark Side of Co-Production: Public value failures in co-production processes

Co-production is associated with the expanding role that citizens and other third-party actors assume in the development and delivery of public services. While there are benefits to co-production, there are also challenges. This study draws from the marketing literature on value co-destruction to describe the processes in co-production of public services that can negatively affect public values from regular producers and users. We refer to this public value failure as co-contamination. Two case studies are used to explore some of the ‘dark sides’ of co-production. Our analyses reveal the co-contaminating aspects of this process and offer implications for public managers.     

A context-based service matching approach towards functional reliability for industrial systems

ABSTRACT

As service-oriented computing is commonly used in industrial systems to deal with the continually changing business environment, matching processes with existing services becomes one of the most important phases in constructing, integrating and optimizing information systems. The precision of semantic service matching becomes a critical factor in ensuring the correctness of functionalities in system processes. However, the dependability of semantic service matching cannot be warranted in complex contexts. To improve semantic service matching for industrial systems, a context-based semantic service matching approach named ‘Process-Based service MatchMaker’(PBMM) is proposed in this paper. It selects the suitable services for the process from candidate services through taking the dependencies of related services process into consideration.     

Pricing the cloud: a QoS-based auction approach

ABSTRACT

Cloud computing is an evolutionary technology that offers on-demand resources and elastic services through the Internet. Most providers adopt fixed-price mechanisms (e.g. pay-as-you-go). However, a few providers have recently employed auction-like approaches to price cloud services. Meanwhile, cloud consumers pay more attention to Quality of Service (QoS) such as availability, which measures how well a service is performed. This paper proposes a novel auction approach that can efficiently allocate resources according to customers’ QoS preferences. The QoS-based pricing can generate more revenue than a fixed-price strategy. This research lies at the intersection of cloud computing, economics, and information systems.     

Expect the unexpected: examining the shaping role of entrepreneurial orientation on causal and effectual decision-making logic during economic crisis

ABSTRACT

While many firms operate in dynamic environments, the competitive conditions faced by firms during an economic crisis are especially unstable and turbulent. We examine firm strategic decision-making in this distinctive context and investigate the question of whether causal and effectual logic provide similar paths to performance during such challenging economic times. Further, we examine the potential impact that a firm’s level of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has upon the relationship between managers’ predominant decision-making logic and their firm’s overall performance in this crisis. To test these relationships, we employ a robust national random sample of 447 Russian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) collected from 2015 to 2016 during a period of economic crisis. Our results indicate that EO plays an important moderating role, shaping the nature of the relationships between managers’ decision-making logic and financial performance. Moreover, additional analysis identifies the presence of a non-linear relationship between both logics and the performance of SMEs.     

Civic Engagement in the Performance Evaluation of the Public Sector in China: Building horizontal accountability to enhance vertical accountability

Abstract

This article accounts for the logic of building of an accountability mechanism with elements of civic engagement in an authoritarian regime. It is elaborated by a performance evaluation programme ‘Democratic Review of Administrative and Business Style’ (DRABS) in Wuhan in central China. The author argues that the DRABS does help form government agencies’ responsiveness to the public with various public scrutiny instruments including mass media and the internet, and that it is more accurate to frame the mechanism as having the function of building horizontal accountability to enhance vertical accountability.     

Citizens’ Entrepreneurial Role in Public Service Provision

Abstract

In public service provision, citizens are conventionally reactive, portrayed as ‘users’, ‘customers’, ‘co-producers’, or ‘participators.’ Occasionally, following dissatisfaction, citizens themselves proactively create alternative services, namely, entrepreneurial exit (EE). Laymen then become providers of previously governmental professional services. Drawing upon six EE manifestations, findings suggest that if the newly-introduced service gains social acceptance, existing provision may change in one of the three modes: (a) First-order incremental change, legitimization of EE as an alternative service provision; (b) Second-order participative change, increased public participation in service provision fostered by EE; and (c) Third-order reformative change, existing service provision is reformed to satisfy citizens’ demands.     

Political Authority and Bureaucratic Resilience

Abstract

Consumerism and choice have become prominent ideas in the design and delivery of public services. Often perceived as a way to improve the quality and value of public services, potential downsides and areas of concern that relate to a consumerist approach are frequently ignored. This review essay takes a critical stance on the application of a consumerist discourse to public service provision and management by exploring four key areas of concern: definitional problems, questions about the concept's transferability from a private to a public sector setting, the problematic nature of ‘choice’, and difficulties associated with implementing consumerist ideas within public service contexts..     

Beyond the Berlin Wall?: Investigating joint commissioning and its various meanings using a Q methodology approach

Abstract

Joint commissioning has been extensively alluded to in English health and social care policy as a way of improving services and outcomes. Yet there is a lack of specificity pertaining to what joint commissioning actually is and what success would look like. In this paper we adopt a Q methodology approach to understand the different meanings of joint commissioning that those involved in these arrangements hold. In doing so we get beyond the more orthodox interpretations of joint commissioning found in the literature although the appeal of joint commissioning as a ‘good thing’ is still prominent across these accounts.