Public values? A systematic literature review into the outcomes of public service co-creation

ABSTRACT

Co-creation is viewed as a promising way to realize public values. Reviewing 88 items following the PRISMA-protocol we confirm that public service co-creation realizes public values in terms of better services and democratic quality of governance, not necessarily in terms of better relations between citizens and government. We find some preliminary evidence that co-creation might not lead to the same outcomes across different policy domains. Professional facilitation is of uttermost importance given the demanding nature of co-creation to attain positive outcomes, especially when working with vulnerable groups. We offer a conceptual framework to research public service co-creation conditions and outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-creation
• co-production
• outcomes
• public values
• public services

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful for the constructive feedback received at the TAD16 conference (Roskilde University), IIAS Study Group on Coproduction of Public Services meeting (Ghent University) and NIG Conference (Tilburg University) on this paper. A wholehearted thank you to Lieven Boelen, who was involved in the screening process as an independent screener.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Despite the broad definition of co-creation adopted in this paper allowing for an inclusive picture (cf. Müller et al. 2021), our focus is on the co-creation of public services. Scholars have increasingly also studied other instances of co-creation and co-production, such as knowledge co-production or the co-creation of policy in living labs. The former is related to citizen science and allows citizens to participate in scientific endeavours that can be geared towards governance, but also spans other domains, while the latter relates to the involvement of citizen in co-designing policies. Here, we focus on the active involvement of citizens in public services.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Steunpunt Bestuurlijke Vernieuwing.