Defining and Measuring Coproduction: Deriving Lessons from Practicing Local Government Managers

Abstract

His current research focuses on issues related to strategic philanthropy, volunteer/non-profit management, corporate community involvement, voluntary energy as a natural resource and involved learning (life-long development by volunteering).

Exploring the Relationship Between Privatization in Public Service Delivery and Coproduction: Evidence from U.S. Local Governments

“…Because the four items assessing coproduction are binary, we calculate the tetrachoric correlations among the items and use this correlation matrix to perform exploratory factor analysis to identify the dimensionality of the underlying coproduction construct. The result strongly suggests that the four items load on one primary dimension, and this is consistent with the findings of a similar sample of public administrators (Brudney et al, 2022). To facilitate a more straightforward interpretation of the findings, we use the summative scale of coproduction rather than a latent trait model transformation which is mainly used for binary responses (Muthén, 1983).…”

“…Following the recent typology of various types of coproduction (Nabatchi et al, 2017; Brudney et al, 2022), we use four questions in the 2017 ICMA ASD survey to measure different types of coproduction—Does your local government involve individual citizens, groups of citizens, or citizens as a whole (i.e., the entire community) in: Planning services (i.e., decisions on service policies and funding). Designing services (i.e., decisions on how services will be arranged or organized). Delivering services (i.e., using citizens’ labor/expertise to help deliver services). Assessing services (i.e., seeking citizens’ online ratings or other reviews of services). We construct multiple dependent variables to measure coproduction. First, we create separate dummy variables based on these four questions to understand whether local governments involve citizens in the planning, design, delivery, or assessment of public service provision.…”

“…Following the recent typology of various types of coproduction (Nabatchi, Sancino, and Sicilia 2017;Brudney, Cheng, and Meijs, 2022), we use four questions in the 2017 ICMA ASD survey to measure different types of coproduction -Does your local government involve individual citizens, groups of citizens, or citizens as a whole (i.e., the entire community) in:…”

How to systematically analyze co‐production to inform future policies? Introducing 5Ws of co‐production

“…This ongoing yet still growing interest in co‐production led to a significant number of articles being published under the broad umbrella‐term of “co‐production”. As a popular concept that, arguably, can assist in enhancing local democracy and citizenship, creating collaborations and understanding between service users and service providers (Brudney et al, 2022), increasing social capital, and achieving desired outcomes and developing more efficient services (Uzochukwu & Thomas, 2018), co‐production has been embraced in a variety of studies describing different contexts and co‐production activities (Hall & Paul Battaglio, 2018). In addition to the wealth of studies commenting on co‐production in different geographical, socio‐political and economic contexts (Steen & Brandsen, 2020), many academic articles describe different forms of collaboration between citizens and the public sector without referring to co‐production, making it a complex field to analyze.…”

Raising Expectations: The War We Must Fight to Prevent One

“…We feature in this issue seven Research articles, three Viewpoint articles, and conclude with our much‐awaited symposium celebrating the enduring influence of Herbert Simon's Administrative Behavior on our field. We open with an article by Brudney, Cheng, and Meijs (2022). This piece is special to me—and to the coauthors—because Jeff passed away while this piece was under review.…”