2 February 2017

The Call for Papers is now open for a themed issue of Public Management and Money, ‘Co-production of public services and outcomes’.

Deadline for submissions: 1 November 2017

This themed issue is specifically seeking contributions which focus on rigorously demonstrated results (positive and negative) from systematic initiatives and strategic approaches to improve outcomes through effective forms of user- and community-led co-production, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis.

All papers will be expected to set out clearly (if only briefly) their stance on the definition of co-production and how it differs from other forms of citizen engagement and to locate the co-production initiatives in their study within the general range of co-creation, co-governance, co-management, co-design and co-delivery approaches.

Furthermore, contributions which address these specific questions will be particularly welcome:

  • What are the main determinants of the results achieved in strategies and initiatives to make the most of co-production?
  • Which outcomes are especially likely, and especially unlikely, to be achieved through an enhanced co-production strategy?
  • How does co-production between citizens and public service providers and commissioners relate to the principles of public governance? For example, what are the effects on social inclusion and accountability?
  • What is implied by the ‘co-creation of value’ through co-production and how might it be conceptualised and evaluated?
  • How does the potential contribution of more systematic approaches to co-production vary across services, across communities and across service user groups?
  • What are the mechanisms by which co-production works (such as what is the theory of change, what are the pathways to outcomes)?
  • How does co-production work in complex adaptive systems, where models of cause-and-effect chains are not feasible?
  • What role does learning play both in enabling co-production and in impacting upon public policy and public service delivery?
  • What tools for implementing co-production are likely to be especially fruitful or unsuccessful (such as personalisation, asset-based community development, peer group support, and so on)?
  • What are the unintended consequences of an enhanced co-production strategy in public organisations and how might this ‘dark side’ be addressed?
  • What are the discrepancies between co-production as a planned strategy by public sector organisations and the way it is actually implemented?