Co-creation Of Public Services Research Articles

Co-Creation and Enhanced Youth Participation in Local Decision-Making: The Perception of Public Sector Readiness

The reverted demographic pyramid makes youth a decreasing percentage of our increasingly ageing population, leaving youth groups with less power and chances to influence the future of public policies and services through established participation channels. There is a potential risk of losing the interests of broader, including less heard, youth groups in democratic decision-making and implementation. Research evidence shows that we need to broaden knowledge and accountability towards these groups by including them more in co-creation to secure their trust and meaningful policy impact. One major way to improve trust in the public sector is by enhancing the abilities of professionals, managers, politicians and NGOs to co-create public and individual values with youth groups for better services and solutions instead of acting and making decisions on their behalf. Also, cross-sector collaboration among institutional units or stakeholders from different sectors on a local scale is often required to enhance the value of services or local community decisions. This paper explores from a comparative perspective the local government’s readiness for enhanced democratic participation and co-creation of public services and public value with youth. Based on document studies, interviews and cross-sectoral learning dialogues between engaged researchers, public sector and NGO representatives conducted in three countries – Sweden, Finland, and Estonia – the paper illustrates the current perceptions of public professionals and managers regarding their approach to co-creation with youth and the public sector roles, readiness and perceived gaps. The paper distinguishes between the municipal ambitions of enhanced youth participation and co-creation.

The Public Participation of Civic Initiative Groups during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Romania. An Exploration of Public Participation Definitions, Obstacles, and Opportunities

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to the daily lives of citizens, their interactions with their communities, the nongovernmental sector and the public administration, as well as threatening the continuity of the civic initiatives they had developed. This paper draws on the scientific literature on public participation and uses qualitative methods of inquiry (semi-structured interviews) to explore how external factors, in this case the COVID-19 pandemic, affected the public participation of citizens organised in civic initiative groups in Bucharest, Romania. One key contribution of the study pertains to the interplay between practice and the conceptual level of public participation. In this respect, the results showed that many members of civic group perceive it to be genuinely contradictory in practice in their definitions of public participation. However, their ideal visions of public participation in genuine democratic politics are markedly collaborative. The research showed that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on civic groups has been quite limited, adding obstacles to public participation but also enabling opportunities. In particular, it can be concluded that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing challenges. It should also be noted that co-creation of public services can be defined by a certain level of continuity, especially in the case of civic groups that were involved in co-initiation.

A Scoping Review of Empirical Evidence on (Digital) Public Services Co-Creation

The public sector is facing significant challenges regarding public services provision, including declination of users’ trust and limited resources. An alternative approach to traditional public service provision with the potential to address these challenges is the co-creation of public services. Co-creation promises to foster innovative solutions to provide high-quality services that respond to users’ needs. Considering this background, we aim at critically exploring public service co-creation via a scoping review, employing the PRISMA-ScR method. Our review focuses on 25 empirical studies out of 75 analyzed articles that examine the implementation of co-creation of (digital) public services and investigates how the empirical literature portrays the concept of public service co-creation. Our findings primarily suggest that co-creation can be implemented in a wide range of sectors and settings, to improve public services and to foster innovation, throughout the whole public service cycle, using a variety of digital, analog and hybrid co-creation tools and strategies. Yet, our review has also shown that there is still an implementation gap that needs to be bridged between knowing and doing in the context of public services co-creation in a digital setting.

Collaborative Innovation in Public Administration: Theoretical Background and Research Trends of Co-Production and Co-Creation

This paper presents the results of the content analysis of 139 Web of Science papers focused on collaborative innovation with external stakeholders of public administration, specifically on co-production and co-creation. The analysis included papers published between 2009 and 2018 and was based on a coding scheme consisting of 12 parameters grouped into four groups: paper descriptors, financial support of the research, methodological framework, and co-creation characteristics. The results reveal a considerable increase in researchers’ interest in co-production and co-creation in the context of public administration in the last few years. This is particularly the case in Northern and Western Europe, where Anglo-Saxon and Nordic administrative traditions dominate. Furthermore, the results show that co-creation is most often placed in the contexts of social policy and welfare, as well as health care. Over the selected period, research seldom addressed companies as a target group in the co-creation of public services—in comparison to citizens and internal users. More than three quarters of the papers observed were empirical and less than 20% were quantitative. In general, a lack of conceptual clarity was often identified through the interchangeable usage of the terms co-creation and co-creation and the low level of international comparison—the majority of the papers focused on case descriptions at a national level, even though collaborative innovation is strongly related to administrative traditions dominating in specific regions.

Co-Creation of Public Services; Levels of Customers’ Participation

Customer participation is one of the critical research issues in service management. This study draws on the client participation concept to explore the content and levels of customer participation in public services (Lithuanian elderships). By integrating Unified Service theory, Service Dominant logic, and using a research design with 12 interviews and 600 participating customer surveys, the study confirms the three level customer participation model, identifies four categories of participating customers and shows how sociodemographic characteristics affect customer participation level. Data suggest that public service providers need to pay attention to customer participation management (identification, selection, education and motivation).

Midstream social marketing and the co-creation of public services

Purpose This paper aims to highlight the importance of social marketing at the midstream (meso) level as a key component of a proposed model for co-creating public services. The model demonstrates how supportive relationships and conversations within and between service organisations, front-line service staff, social networks and clients are essential for the effective co-creation of health and welfare services and social marketing interventions. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper that uses network and services theory and a case study to show how the midstream social marketing approach and service co-creation can be applied in practice and how these concepts relate to upstream and downstream social marketing. Findings The case study demonstrates the powerful role of social networks, staff–client relationships and conversations in the co-creation of effective services and the improvement in communications, trust and understanding between service providers and the community. Practical implications The paper shows how service providers and social marketers can achieve co-created, customer-oriented services/interventions through the development of congruent, empathetic narratives, relationships and conversations. The case study demonstrates how this can be achieved in practice through staff training, the identification of “community communicators” and value-based targeting and communications. Originality/value The integration of conversations, relationships, values, services and midstream social marketing into a model for co-creation offers a valuable tool for social marketing and health/welfare service professionals.

Public administrators' engagement in services co-creation: factors that foster and hinder organisational learning about citizens

Citizens and public organisations are increasingly engaging in the co-creation of public services. To be successful, such co-creation efforts require public organisations to engage in organisational learning about citizens' value-creation processes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of such organisational learning, drawing on Payne, Storbacka, and Frow's framework about value co-creation management. A model consisting of five factors is suggested and tested via a survey administered to a sample of 204 local government administrators in Italy. The findings highlight the significance of two positive antecedents (public administrators' level of citizen orientation and expected benefits from co-creation) and three negative antecedents (perceived citizens' lack of competencies and experience, perceived biases in citizens' perceptions, and lack of resources) of organisational learning. From the managerial perspective, the model tested in this study can be used by public organisations to evaluate their level of organisational learning.