CREATING PUBLIC VALUE IN CO-PRODUCTION

The last decades, citizens have been more involved as co-producers in the provision of public services. This means that they work together with governments in the development and implementation of policy. It is seen as a promising tool to create value, but on the other hand there also some tensions with co-production when it comes to the creation of public value because it changes the dynamics of the traditional government. That is why the aim of this study was to research how co-production between citizens and the government influences the creation of public value. The following research question has been drawn up for this: ‘’What is the influence of co-production on the creation of public value’’? In this study, the strategic triangle was used to define the way public value can be created. However, it turned out that this works slightly different in a co-production and therefore some adaptions were made to this triangle. To answer the research question a case study has been done on the project Mooi, Mooier, Middelland in Rotterdam. For this case study, semi-structured interviews have been carried out among involved citizens, public professionals and others. Furthermore, a document analysis has been carried out to gain insight into the process. The results showed that creating public value indeed works differently in co-production. It does offer good opportunities for the creation of public value, for example in involving citizens in determining the vision, establishing the internal legitimacy and attracting different sort of capacities. Despite of that, there also several things that bear potential conflict with creating public value such as getting agreement about the purpose, including people to the process and giving them all equal access the process, and in attracting financial resources. Based on this, the recommendation is to further explore the processes related to co-production and the creation of public value to draw lessons for this particular case but to also make it a learning place for other initiatives. Possible future research could focus on further exploring the strategic triangle in the case of co-production.