How citizen coproducers cope with public value creation conflicts: a survey experiment

• Date: 18 April 2023
• Pages: 236-252
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-04-2022-0089
• Published date: 18 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management
• Author: Sylke Jaspers,Koen Migchelbrink

How citizen coproducers cope with

public value creation conflicts:

a survey experiment

Sylke Jaspers

Public Governance Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, and

Koen Migchelbrink

Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam,

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract

Purpose –In coproduction, citizens may be confronted with a conflict between creating user value and a more

collective understanding of public value creation. In order to deal with conflicts experienced as trade-off

situations, coproducers follow various coping strategies leading to different results. This study aims to gain

insight into what drives the choices for coping strategies, which are valuable for understanding the role of

citizen coproducers in public value creation.

Design/methodology/approach –This article studies the effects of citizens’external efficacy and trust in

public servants on citizen coproducers’preferences for coping strategies. The study presents a vignette

experiment among n5257 citizens involved in the temporary use of vacant spaces in Flanders, Belgium.

Findings –No statistically significant effects of external efficacy and trust in public servants on respondents’

preferences for coping strategies are found. The results show that irrespective of the level of external efficacy or

trust in public servants, citizen coproducers prefer to ask for help from the public servant involved in the

project.

Originality/value –This result draws attention to the need for facilitation and guidance from public servants

and the servants’organizations to help citizen coproducers balance out these otherwise paralyzing value

conflicts. Moreover, the lack of statistically significant effects of trust and external efficacy is a valuable finding

for literature. The result shows that, in the drivers of coproduction behavior, there is no consistent relationship

between citizen trust in government or external efficacy and coproduction behavior.

Keywords Coproduction, Coping strategies, External efficacy, Trust, Public value creation

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Public servants invite citizens to coproduce services to create better outcomes and public

value from public service delivery (Bovaird, 2007;Bovaird and Loeffler, 2012). One of the

remaining conundrums in public value creation theory is “the balance between individual and

social/public value in public service delivery”(Osborne, 2017, p. 229), as these are potentially

at conflict and regular service providers are burdened with the task of balancing both when

aiming to create better outcomes (Bovaird, 2007;Needham and Carr, 2009;Brandsen and

Helderman, 2012). More recently, empirical studies on this balance have grown (e.g. Rossi and

Sanna, 2019). Studies show that in coproducing public services, citizens, similar to other

service producers, can be confronted with a conflict between user value for the coproducer

and social value for the broader community (Jaspers and Steen, 2021). However, little is

known about how citizen coproducers cope with these conflicts and insights into this process

could be helpful for theory and practice. This article studies the preferences of citizens for four

often-mentioned coping strategies: two trade-off strategies, an asking-for-help strategy and

an avoidance strategy (Steenhuisen, 2009;de Graaf et al., 2016).

IJPSM

36,3

236

Funding: This work was funded by the Research Foundation –Flanders under (No: 11C2418N).

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0951-3558.htm

Received 2 April 2022

Revised 29 September 2022

Accepted 12 December 2022

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 36 No. 3, 2023

pp. 236-252

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-04-2022-0089

In the organizational and political psychology literature, scholars have focused on

personality traits and individual differences to explain how individuals behave when facing

value conflicts (e.g. Van Lange, 1999). We extend this line of research and examine two

personality traits as determinants for coping strategies of citizen coproducers in value

conflicts: trust in the public servant facilitating the coproduction activity and external

efficacy. First, trust is a beneficial psychological construct in solving value conflicts (Dawes,

1980;Kramer et al., 1996;De Cremer et al., 2001). Second, external efficacy, or an individual’s

perceived impact on participation, is identified as a driver of pursuing a desired outcome (e.g.

Verba and Nie, 1991) when faced with value conflicts.

This article examines the effects of citizen coproducers’trust in public servants and external

efficacy on their choice for coping strategies when dealing with a public value conflict between

user value and social value.

We present the findings of a vignette experiment on the effects of external efficacy and

trust in a public servant on citizen coproducers’preference for coping strategies when dealing

with a perceived conflict during coproduction activities. We surveyed (n5257) citizen

coproducers from these projects and randomly assigned them to evaluate a vignette of a

coproduction value conflict between creating user value and social value in which levels of

external efficacy and trust in public servants were systematically manipulated. Participants

were asked to rank four coping options: a trade-off in favor of social value creation, a trade-off

in favor of user value creation, asking for help from a public servant and avoiding the conflict

situation. We analyzed the results of this experiment using rank-ordered logistic regression

(ROL) analysis. The results show that irrespective of the level of external efficacy or trust in

public servants, citizen coproducers prefer to ask for help from the public servant involved in

the project.

Coproduction and the cocreation of public value

Brandsen and Honingh (2015, p. 428), define coproduction as “the direct input of citizens in the

individual design and delivery of a service during the production phase”. We follow their

definition. Scholars have identified various forms of coproduction activities (Bovaird, 2007;

Meijer, 2014;Brandsen and Honingh, 2015;Nabatchi et al., 2017). Although scholars

distinguish between “coproduction”, taking place during the implementation phase of a

public service and “cocreation”, taking place in the service design phase (Voorberg et al., 2014;

Brandsen and Honingh, 2018, p. 13), we follow Bovaird and Loeffler’s (2012) suggestion to use

the term coproduction for citizen-government collaboration throughout the policy cycle

(when an initiative includes both the codesign and the codelivery of a service). We also follow

the conceptualization of enhanced coproduction, which conceptualizes coproduction where

citizens and service users are given a more fundamental role for codesigning and cocreating

services (cf. Strokosch and Osborne, 2016).

The aim of coproduction is similar to that of regular servicedelivery: to create publicvalue

(cf. Nabatchiet al., 2017). The concept of public value(singular) (cf. Moore, 1995) representsthe

added value created through the activities of public organizations and officials and is

“sometimespresentedin terms of normativeaspirations for a ‘goodsociety’” (Hartleyet al., 2017,

p. 672; Stoker, 2006;Rutgers, 2015).It can be distinguished fromthe concept of “public values”,

whichrefers to values that representthe “normativeconsensus aboutthe rights [and obligations

of citizens ...] and the principles on which governments and policies should be based”

(Bozeman,2007, p. 13). Following the definitions of coproduction and public valuecreation, we

refer to public services as being coproduced and public valueas being (co)created.

Coproduction brings a specific context to public value creation. Multiple actors, including

citizens, cocreate public value in the coproduction of a service (Bryson et al., 2017). Bovaird

and Loeffler (2012, pp. 1126–1127) provide a framework for public value in the context of

Citizen coping

with public

value conflicts

237