How Does Homeownership Shape Public Service Coproduction? Evidence from a Public Complaint System in Beijing, China

• Published date: 01 October 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/02750740241247565
• Author: Youlang Zhang,Wenzhao Li
• Date: 01 October 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

How Does Homeownership Shape Public

Service Coproduction? Evidence from a

Public Complaint System in Beijing, China

Youlang Zhang

1

and Wenzhao Li

1

Abstract

Homeownership has been widely regarded as a critical determinant of public participation in social science research.

However,the role of homeownership in public service coproduction has been under-researched. This study advances a theory

of public service coproduction that accounts for the effect of homeownership and its underlying mechanisms by theorizing

that homeownership increases coproduction participation by directly motivating individuals to protect their f‌inancial invest-

ments and indirectly improving their knowledge about government. Original data from a random telephone survey of 2,167

residents conducted in August 2022 in Beijing, China were used to test the hypotheses, and a series of analytical tools (e.g.,

weighted models, matching, and sensitivity analysis) were used to validate the theorized effects and mechanisms. Results con-

sistently show that homeowners are more likely to report public service complaints to the government than nonowners.

These f‌indings have important implications for future theoretical research and practical efforts to promote public service

coproduction.

Keywords

homeownership, coproduction, public complaints, Beijing

Introduction

Public service coproduction is the collaborative participation

of individuals with professional service agents in service pro-

vision (Ostrom, 1996; Pestoff et al., 2006; Nabatchi et al.,

2017). Public service coproduction is integral to everyday

life and vital for the implementation of public policy and pro-

vision of local public goods. Public policy and urban scholars

often highlight that extensive public participation is associ-

ated with the realization of core public values, such as

responsiveness, legitimacy, and equity (Bobbio, 2019;

Foroughi et al., 2023; Halvorsen, 2003; Jakobsen and

Andersen, 2013). However, individual participation in

public service coproduction varies across time and space

and, therefore, signif‌icantly inf‌luences these public values

(Nabatchi et al., 2017). Identifying the determinants of

public service coproduction participation can provide practi-

tioners and scholars valuable insights into improving policy

design, service delivery, and citizen-state interactions.

While prior research has made valuable contributions to

our understanding of the impact of individual traits such as

skills, intrinsic values, marital status, family composition,

and level of education on coproduction participation

(Voorberg et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2020), there remains a

notable gap in the literature concerning the role of personal

f‌inancial status in this context. For instance, residential

property represents the single largest asset for most individu-

als and is a critical f‌inancial component in many countries

(Agnew, 2018; Cui et al., 2016; Piketty, 2013; Schwartz

and Seabrooke, 2009). Numerous studies in the social sci-

ences have demonstrated that homeownership has signif‌icant

effects on various aspects of life, including subjective well-

being (Rohe and Stegman, 1994; Zheng et al., 2020), socio-

economic status (Galster et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2021),

demographic outcomes (Curtis, 2011; Eriksen, 2010;

Mulder and Lauster, 2010), and political participation (Hall

and Yoder, 2022; McCabe, 2013). Given this evidence, it

is reasonable to hypothesize that homeownership may inf‌lu-

ence an individual’s participation in public services.

This study contributes to the extant literature in multiple

ways. In our theoretical framework, we postulated that home-

ownership couldimprove public service coproductionthrough

two mechanisms. First, homeownership could motivate

1

School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China,

Beijing, China

Corresponding Author:

Wenzhao Li, School of Public Administration and Policy, Qiushi Building,

Renmin University of China, No. 59, Zhongguancun Street, Haidian

District, Beijing, 100872, China.

Email: liwenzhao@ruc.edu.cn

Article

American Review of Public Administration

2024, Vol. 54(7) 679–694

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740241247565

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individuals to protect their f‌inancial investments by actively

participating in public service delivery. Community charac-

teristics and public service quality or quantity are often cap-

italized in housing prices (Fischel, 2001, 2005; Li et al. 2019;

Marschall, 2004; Wen et al., 2017). Accordingly, homeown-

ers tend to prioritize improving local public services. Second,

owning a home often implies more residential stability and

social networks, which could enhance homeowners’knowl-

edge about government. Homeownership may decrease the

transaction costs associated with initiating contacts or collab-

orating with local public off‌icials.

From the empirical perspective, we used original data

from a recent random telephone survey involving 2,167

respondents in Beijing, China to test our hypotheses.

Beijing initiated an innovative public complaint system

reform in 2019, and this reform has gained popularity

among Chinese cities because of support from the central

government. Thus, systematic and timely f‌indings from this

case could contribute to predicting citizen-state interaction

trends in other Chinese cities. Moreover, given China’s

short history of housing privatization and relatively weak

property rights protection, our empirical f‌indings could

provide a lower bound for guiding future analysis on the

same topic in other countries with a longer history of privat-

ized housing and stronger property rights. Empirical results

consistently show that homeowners are more likely to

report public service complaints to the government through

a hotline phone call compared to nonowners. A series of ana-

lytical tools (for example, weighted models, matching, and

sensitivity analysis) were used to validate the theorized

mechanisms.

The organization of this article is as follows: First, we

provide a brief review of the literature on public service

coproduction, highlighting the limitations of existing

research. Second, we theorize the relationship between

homeownership and citizen coproduction, discussing the

underlying mechanisms. Third, we provide contextual infor-

mation on the public complaint system in Beijing, China.

Fourth, we explain the research design and report the empir-

ical f‌indings based on a series of statistical models. Finally,

we discuss the theoretical, empirical, and practical implica-

tions of the study, as well as potential directions for future

research, to conclude the study.

A Review of Public Service Coproduction

Research

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, scholars proposed the

concept of “coproduction”to theorize individual participa-

tion in providing public services by collaborating with

public employees, paving the way for subsequent systematic,

theoretical, and empirical analyses (Brudney and England,

1983; Gittell, 1980; Ostrom and Ostrom, 1977; Sharp,

1980). Coproduction involves multiple forms, such as

coplanning (e.g., attending a neighborhood planning

meeting), codelivery (e.g., participating in a community

cleanup), and comonitoring (e.g., reporting suspicious activ-

ities to the authority); (Zhang et al., 2021). Coproduction

tends to require individuals’inputs such as knowledge,

time, efforts, money, or resources (Brewer and Grabosky,

2014; Brudney and England, 1983; Zhang et al., 2020).

Coproduction is different from other types of public par-

ticipation. For instance, the difference between public

service coproduction (e.g., individual participation in a

local recycling program or residents’reporting of crimes to

police off‌icers) and political participation (e.g., electoral

voting, protests, or campaigns) is that the former directly

focuses on producing specif‌ic public goods, whereas the

latter directly focuses on pursuing political power or voice.

Moreover, although typical public service coproduction

activities tend to be viewed as active, voluntary participation

by residents (Brudney and England, 1983), they are still dif-

ferent from the so-called self-governance or voluntary collec-

tive provision of public goods because the latter does not

necessarily require the involvement of government

employees.

In recent years, an increasing number of coproduction

studies have aimed to explain why some individuals are

more willing to engage in public service coproduction than

others (O’Brien et al., 2017; Uzochukwu and Thomas,

2018; Voorberg et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2020). Previous

research has shown that multiple factors on the sides of gov-

ernments (e.g., organizational culture, resources, capacity, or

incentive structure) and citizens (e.g., knowledge, social

capital, psychological costs, or risk aversion) shape citizens’

attitudes and behaviors related to participation in public

service coproduction (Thomsen et al., 2020; Uzochukwu

and Thomas, 2018; Voorberg et al., 2015).

However, past studies have often overlooked the role of

personal f‌inancial status in public service coproduction. For

instance, homeownership, a signif‌icant indicator of personal

f‌inancial status, has typically been treated as a trivial dichot-

omous measure that needs to be controlled for, rather than as

the main focus of analysis in previous coproduction studies

(Marschall, 2004; Uzochukwu and Thomas, 2018; Young,

2022). As a result, the mechanisms underlying the effect of

homeownership on public service participation have not

been adequately explored and explained.

Nevertheless, as sociologists point out, homeownership

tends to create engaged citizens by directly increasing the

salience of the investment stakes or indirectly empowering

through homeowners’associations (Zavisca and Gerber,

2016). Therefore, examining the effect of homeownership

on public service coproduction is theoretically signif‌icant

and practically relevant as it deepens our understanding of

the individual-level origins of citizen-state interaction and

serves as a foundation for guiding future discussions on

housing policy and public participation. For instance, it

allows us to explore the intricacies of how a signif‌icant

680 American Review of Public Administration 54(7)