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) Thirdorder reformative change, existing service provision is reformed to satisfy citizens' demands.

False promises of co-production in neighbourhood regeneration: the case of Dutch community enterprises

“…Studying this aspect of co-production is crucial to understand their responses to requests and proposals from active citizens, and to identify shared and opposing interests. In sum, there is a lack of empirical knowledge on practices leading towards (or diverting from) co-production in the context of community entrepreneurship (see also Daskalaki, Hjorth, and Mair 2015;Gofen 2015). This article will fill this gap by assessing the responses of local governments and housing associations to nascent Dutch CEs, through the lens of co-production.…”

“…serious deficiencies in a particular area which need to be addressed and where the perception is that other agencies are unlikely to provide solutions' (Bailey 2012, 26-27). These deficiencies may relate to social, economic, and demographic issues such as deprivation, poor health, inadequate housing, or a lack of community facilities (Peredo and Chrisman 2006;Gofen 2015). Thus, many CEs arise in response to social and financial challenges which affect deprived neighbourhoods that are former urban regeneration target areas, where regeneration programmes have come to a stop after policy changes (Bailey 2012).…”

Collaborative housing and housing providers: towards an analytical framework of multi-stakeholder collaboration in housing co-production

“…As observed by scholars like Gofen (2015) and Needham (2008), a series of successive shifts in these roles and relationships have occurred since the days of the post-war welfare state in Western European societies, when citizens where viewed as 'recipients', 'subjects' or 'users' of public services. From the mid-1980s onwards, a 'customer' orientation to citizens has become the norm, viewing them as 'consumers' (Clarke, 2007) or as 'customers' (Mathiasen, 1999) who should be 'served, satisfied, and provided with a choice between alternative service providers' (Gofen, 2015, p. 405).…”

“…This can be described using Gofen's (2012Gofen's ( , 2015 concept of 'entrepreneurial exit', which denotes 'the proactive initiation, production, and delivery of alternative service by citizens, mainly for their own use' (Gofen, 2015, p. 405).…”

Transforming Municipal Services to Transform Cities: Understanding the Role and Influence of the Private Sector

“…For example, public sector entrepreneurs may be driven to solve a sustainability related challenge such as water pollution or rising consumer waste production because it is in the public interest, while private sector entrepreneurs may be driven to solve the same problems because of a perceived market opportunity. When urban residents act as "citizen consumers" [25] and entrepreneurs in their own right [26], we must understand and account for the shift in political dynamics that accompanies this [27,28].…”