Sustainable implementation of co-production: exploring conflicts and coping behavior employed by street-level professionals

• Date: 05 December 2023
• Pages: 91-107
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-06-2023-0211
• Published date: 05 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management
• Author: Nanna Møller Mortensen

Sustainable implementation of

co-production: exploring conflicts

and coping behavior employed by

street-level professionals

Nanna Møller Mortensen

Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg, Denmark

Abstract

Purpose –This study explores how street-level professionals translate and implement a co-production

strategy, formulated by top management, in their professional practices, focusing on conflicts that arise

during this process and the effectiveness of the coping strategies employed by these professionals to

manage them.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper is based on a lower-level inquiry into three care services in

Denmark. It adopted the translation perspective in organizational research to analyze the consequences of

street-level professionals’translation choices. Data were collected through interviews and observations.

Findings –This study found that street-level professionals’translation choices contribute to conflicts of

varying forms and extents. The finding suggests that the way conflicts are managed makes the difference

between the actual organizational change and the more symbolic acceptance of co-production.

Originality/value –This study contributes to discourses on challenges in co-production implementation by

deepening knowledge about the role of coping behavior and translation in sustainable implementation of co-

production.

Keywords Coping strategies, Organizational translation, Scandinavian institutionalism, Conflicting interest,

Street-level implementation

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Public organizations constantly encounter new ideas and concepts that offer potential

avenues for organizational development and the delivery of better services (Røvik, 2023).

Following the new public management (NPM) approach, public sector organizations have

adopted ideas from the private sector, such as lean and total quality management (Røvik,

2007;Sharma and Hoque, 2002). But a shift toward alternative models of public services, such

as new public governance (NPG), has brought forth a surge in new organizational ideas

(Palumbo, 2016;Torfing et al., 2016). Among these ideas, co-production has gained traction as

a strategy for involving service users in the design and delivery of public services to create

user-centered service processes (e.g. Bovaird and Loeffler, 2012;Fledderus, 2015;Osborne

et al., 2016;Tuurnas, 2021). However, the fundamental concept of co-production is that it

thrives when it is initiated from the bottom-up. Conversely, top-down strategies are

inherently challenging. This tension potentially explains why public service organizations

often perceive co-production as too conflict-ridden to be successfully implemented, despite its

popularity (Jasper and Steen, 2019;Nielsen and Monrad, 2023). Furthermore, the assumed

Sustainable

implementation

of co-production

91

The author would like to thank the participants at the IIAS study group on Co-production of Public

Services 2023 and the “Rhythm is Gonna Get You: the Tempo of Care Policy and Practice”symposium at

the Transforming Care Conference 2021 for valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript. In

addition, the author also would like to thank colleagues at Aalborg University and the anonymous

reviewers for their helpful comments.

Funding: This work was funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark (No: 6171-00046B).

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 29 June 2023

Revised 11 October 2023

Accepted 3 November 2023

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 37 No. 1, 2024

pp. 91-107

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-06-2023-0211

effects of co-production, such as increased service quality, user empowerment and broader

economic and social benefits, still require empirical confirmation (Pestoff, 2014;Voorberg

et al., 2015). Thus, until co-production is operationalized and translated to local practices, it

represents an ideology rather than an organizational practice (Brix et al., 2020;Durose et al.,

2013). The argument is that the success of co-production relies heavily on the translation

efforts of street-level professionals, who bridge the gap between organizational goals and

everyday practices (McMullin, 2023), and between potential and actual performances (Brix,

2021). But street-level professionals’willingness to engage in co-production and their ability

to handle conflicts arising from co-production implementation remain understudied (Agger

and Tortzen, 2022;Jasper and Steen, 2019,2022).

This article examined how street-level professionals translate a co-production strategy,

formulated by top management, into their professional practices. Here, translation refers

to the more or less deliberate transformation of a practice and/or idea that happens when

actors try to interpret, make sense of and implement co-production (Boxenbaum and

Pedersen, 2009;Røvik, 2011). Specifically, the research questions on which this study is

based are as follows: (1) To what extent do conflicts emerge as street-level professionals

translate a new co-production strategy into their practices? (2) What strategies do street-

level professionals employ to manage these conflicts, and how effective are these

strategies? By understanding how street-level professionals navigate co-production and

conflicts, this study contributes to a better understanding of challenges in co-production

implementation and how co-production becomes more than an idea and a management

ambition.

This article is organized as follows. First, this study establishes a theoretical framework

based on institutional theories and the concept of translation that was developed in

Scandinavian institutionalism. From this perspective, we can see that co-production

represents a “traveling idea”(Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996), which can provoke conflicts

and organizational ambiguities, as it is translated into a new setting. Thus, it provides a

foundation for understanding the implemented dynamics. Second, the case study and the

methodology underpinning the study are explained, and the research approach and data

collection are highlighted. The analysis focuses on how street-level professionals’translation

choices contribute to conflicts of varying forms and extents. Finally, the study concludes with

the narration of coping strategies and a discussion of the key implications and limitations of

the study.

Theoretical framework: Scandinavian institutionalism

The theoretical framework of this study is grounded in organizational institutionalism and

focuses on the translation of organizational ideas, par ticularly those of street-level

professionals (e.g. Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996;Røvik, 2023;Sahlin and Wedlin, 2008).

Conceptual foundations of organizational institutionalism

Researchers such as DiMaggio and Powell (1983) and Meyer and Rowan (1977) established

the conceptual foundations of modern organizational institutionalism. Their logic is that

organizational ideas prescribing how organizations, or their specific parts, should be

organized, can become popular because organizations mimic each other and adopt

fashionable trends to appear legitimate (Christensen et al.,2007;Lægreid, 2017;Røvik,

2002). The high rhetorical value of organizational ideas fascinates politicians and

administrative managers, who seek to use these ideas to seek legitimization and support

for specific agendas (Bentzen, 2019). However, the adoption of new organizational ideas

often involves substantial investments in resources and may result in implementation

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