Co-production Through ICT in the Public Sector: When Citizens Reframe the Production of Public Services
Co-production of public services is well known in the public management literature. Many studies show how co-production makes public services not only more efficient but also more effective. It the recent years, the development of several ICT applications
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Abstract Co-production of public services is well known in the public management literature. Many studies show how co-production makes public services not only more efficient but also more effective. It the recent years, the development of several ICT applications and projects have shown that ICT has the potential to make co-production an easy and common practice for all citizens, changing completely how services are delivered on a large scale. The research, after having presented some existing cases of ICTs application that favorite co-production, shows that using ICT for co-production might help the state to deliver public services that generate Public Value. The paper follows with an in depth analysis according to the Actor Network Theory to understand if co-production through ICT might induce structural changes in the public administration allowing in future citizens to be actively involved in the production of public services. The research will conclude by providing a proposal to implement permanently co-production in the public sector. Keywords Public administration theory Internet of things
Co-production Public value Actor network
1 Introduction and Context The term co-production was conceptualized to criticize the massive centralization of public management proposed by the dominant theories [1]. Elinor Ostrom, who originally coined the term co-production, won the Nobel Prize in Economy in 2009. She presents co-production as mix of activities that both public service agents and citizens contribute to the provision of public services [2]. However, only in the last
A. Paletti (&) London School of Economics, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 L. Caporarello et al. (eds.), Digitally Supported Innovation, Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation 18, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40265-9_10
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decade, the interest about public sector co-production has found new attention since academics and practitioners have increasingly realised that many public services need the co-participation of citizens to be completely effective. Although co-production has been largely discussed in the public administration literature, no references or contribution exists to account for the impact of ICTs on the co-production of public services. On the other hand, studies from other fields have seen in ICTs the capability to reshape existing models and frameworks, facilitating new connections within the community, establishing relationships that were not possible before, overcoming problems of geographical dispersion of users and facilitating enormously their participation [3, 4]. These characteristics show how ICTs are strategically important for the success of co-production in the public sector and in proposing new models of participation and of public administration. However, co-production has to be distinguished from volunteering because citizens act not only to help their community but also to provide services they need for themselves that do
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