What influences the willingness of citizens to coproduce public services? Results from a vignette experiment

Fabian Hattke,Janne Kalucza

doi:10.30636/jbpa.21.60

Fabian Hattke, Janne Kalucza

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.30636/jbpa.21.60

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Abstract

A growing body of literature has investigated the involvement of private and third-sector organizations in the provision and maintenance of public goods. Still, there is little empirical knowledge about the reasons for individual citizens to coproduce public services. Research discusses several motivational and situational factors as important antecedents. We elaborate on this framework and test the effect of the relationships proposed by the literature in a survey experiment by modelling a realistic coproduction situation in the context of city waste management. Our results show that general motivations are not a predictor of the individual willingness to coproduce, while context-specific self-efficacy, intrinsic, and prosocial motivation are. Furthermore, access to coproduction resources and expected personal benefits positively influence the willingness to coproduce, while performance delay has a negative effect. A post-hoc analysis identifies two distinct types of coproducers: a decisive type, whose willingness is most strongly influenced by intrinsic motivation; and a flexible type whose coproduction intention only depends on situational factors. These detailed insights yield valuable implications for public administrations that want to engage citizens in the provision of public goods.

Highlights

A growing body of literature has investigated the involvement of private and third-sector organizations in the provision and maintenance of public goods
In a 3x2 vignette experiment, we empirically investigated how motivational antecedents influence citizen willingness to coproduce and how motivation interacts with situational factors. 208 citizens were asked whether they would participate in the city’s coproduction initiative, which consists of an app and a hotline for citizens to report garbage dumping to the local authorities
Specific intrinsic motivation is lower, meaning that participants enjoy it less being involved in keeping the city clean

Summary

Introduction

A growing body of literature has investigated the involvement of private and third-sector organizations in the provision and maintenance of public goods. A post-hoc analysis identifies two distinct types of coproducers: a decisive type, whose willingness is most strongly influenced by intrinsic motivation; and a flexible type whose coproduction intention only depends on situational factors These detailed insights yield valuable implications for public administrations that want to engage citizens in the provision of public goods. Some studies suggested situational factors and showed that having access to resources (Jakobsen, 2013) and expecting personal benefits (Thomsen & Jakobsen, 2015) positively influence engagement in coproduction, whereas extrinsic rewards seem to have only marginal influence on the engagement of citizens (Voorberg et al, 2018). While rational choice theory can explain human behavior well in high-cost situations, its explanatory power is rather limited when trying to describe behavior in low-cost situations in which the individual’s preferences, traits, and motivations come into focus (Diekmann & Preisendörfer, 2003)

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