Social‐Psychological Context Moderates Incentives to Co‐produce: Evidence from a Large‐Scale Survey Experiment on Park Upkeep in an Urban Setting

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Natalia Letki,Trui Steen
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13340

Research Article

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Abstract: This paper presents evidence that the relevance of incentives to co-produce depends on the social-

psychological context under which actors operate. We propose that context (including community attachment, trust

in local authorities, ethnic diversity, unemployment level, and population density) moderates effect of incentives

(utility of the co-produced service, monetary and reputational rewards, and social norms). Through a survey

experiment carried out in 593 urban locations across 13 countries, we show that willingness to co-produce increases

with community attachment and decreases with ethnic diversity of the local area. The relevance of utility and social

norms as determinants of willingness to co-produce depends on the social-psychological context. Reputational and

monetary rewards have limited effect, and their relation to the context is less clear. All incentives are largely irrelevant

when actors operate in cooperation-conducive circumstances, where co-production is a value in itself. However, their

importance as “tools” to encourage co-production arises under challenging contexts.

Evidence for Practice

• Social-psychological context matters: willingness to co-produce increases with community attachment and

decreases with ethnic diversity of the local area.

• When the social-psychological context is conducive for co-production, actors do not need to be incentivized

since they see co-production as a value in itself.

• Policy efforts should focus on contexts that are unfavorable for co-production. In such circumstances, utility

and social norms can be used to encourage participation. Policy makers can, for example, demonstrate the

utility of the service/good or facilitate actors’ communication about their involvement to friends, relatives,

and neighbors.

• In contrast, providing reputational or monetary rewards will do little to increase engagement in

co-production.

Ordinary people are increasingly appreciated

as valuable contributors to public

service delivery. This is reflected in the

growing body of research on the determinants and

consequences of co-production, i.e. public services

being delivered by public agencies in cooperation

with residents (Brandsen and Honingh 2015).

Co-production is “an umbrella concept that captures

a wide variety of activities” that involve lay actors,

next to state actors, aimed at improved service

delivery (Nabatchi et al. 2017, 769). Its collective

utility is particularly high where public agencies’

efforts are insufficient. It also allows resources saved

due to people’s input to be redirected to other goals.

However, some circumstances make mobilization

of ordinary people particularly difficult. Diversity,

poverty, and urbanization have long been recognized

as factors that hamper public goods production,

including co-production (Twigger-Ross et al. 2003;

Vigdor 2004). Similarly, lack of affiliation with the

local community and distrust toward local authorities

make participation in co-production unlikely

(Thijssen and Van Dooren 2016; van Eijk and

Steen 2014).

Substantive part of research on co-production

has focused on mechanisms that can be applied

to stimulate people joining in the provision of

public services. For some of them, co-production is

valuable in itself and they engage in it independent

of any individual benefits (Sharp 1978). Others

respond positively to utility derived from the

services produced, material or immaterial rewards,

or the benefit of “fitting in” the social context

(Alford 2002; Pestoff 2012). In this article, we

propose that social-psychological context is crucial

for ordinary people seeing co-production as a value

in itself, as well as for their interpretation of the

available incentives to co-produce. Our proposition

builds directly on the literature emphasizing the

Social-Psychological Context Moderates Incentives to

Co-produce: Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey Experiment

on Park Upkeep in an Urban Setting

Natalia Letki

Trui Steen

University of Warsaw

Public Governance Institute

Trui Steen is a Professor “Public

Governance and Coproduction of Public

Services” at KU Leuven Public Governance

Institute. She is currently Vice-Dean

Research at the KU Leuven Faculty of

Social Sciences and Director of the Doctoral

Program Social Sciences. She is interested

in the study of involvement of citizens

in the co-production of public services,

collaborative innovation, public values,

and local governance. She is a co-chair of

the IIAS Study Group on Co-production of

Public Services.

Email: trui.steen@kuleuven.be

Natalia Letki is an Associate Professor

at the Faculty of Political Science and

International Studies, University of Warsaw.

She researches attitudes and behavior

toward public goods, including tax and pro-

environmental behavior and co-production,

as well as social capital, social trust, and

corruption. She also has an extensive

experience in research on ethnic minorities,

and party policy and electoral strategy in

post-Communist countries.

Email: n.letki@uw.edu.pl

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 5, pp. 935–950. © 2020 The Authors.

Public Administration Review published

by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of The

American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13340.

935

936 Public Administration Review • September | Octobe r 2021

importance of psychological (attitudes, beliefs) and sociological

(social structure’s effect on actors’ position and interactions) factors

for how incentives operate in the collective action context (Dietz

et al. 1998; Klandermans 1984). When psychological and social

context is favorable for person’s engagement, individual incentives

are largely redundant, while under challenging conditions they can

be successfully applied to encourage participation. We use data from

a survey experiment conducted in 593 urban locations across 13

East-Central European countries to show that not only does social-

psychological context affects willingness to co-produce, but also it

conditions the relevance of incentives.

We begin with defining co-production and discussing how

incentives are expected to encourage it. Next, we review the

literature to explain types of social-psychological context as

determinants of willingness to co-produce, and discuss how the

effect of individual-level incentives differs depending on these

contexts. We then present our data and research design, and the

analysis. In the final sections, we discuss the results and their

implications.

Theoretical Framework

Co-production

Defining co-production as the collaboration between public

sector professionals and service consumers in the production of

public services (Brandsen and Honingh 2015) leaves it open if

this collaboration is done individually or collectively (Brudney

and England 1983). As co-production refers to alternative service

delivery, wherein people at least in part produce their own services,

and the state involvement is direct or indirect, e.g. through

financing or regulation (Pestoff 2012). Collaboration may be

initiated top-down by the government, or may be a bottom-up

initiative. Examples of co-production may thus include a local

government responsible for the upkeep of a public park inviting

local residents to give a hand, as well as (a group of) residents taking

the initiative to clean up a public park.1 People may supplement or

substitute professional service providers: they may contribute to the

core production process of a public service (e.g. parents acting as

“reading mom or dad” as a direct contribution to teaching) or may

be involved in a complementary service (e.g., parents helping in

the school’s kitchen) (Brandsen and Honingh 2015; Pestoff 2012).

Examples of co-production can be found in diverse policy fields,

such as health care, social services, education, urban renewal,

community building, or safety. It is a challenging phenomenon to

study, since co-production in different fields “comes with specific

challenges, opportunities and practices” (Brandsen et al. 2018, 7).

People’s Engagement in Co-production

The most relevant question in co-production literature relates to

identifying the factors that make people engage in it. Here, we

make a novel contribution by systematically showing that different

social-psychological context characteristics determine willingness

to co-produce, and that under conditions that are unfavorable for

co-production, individual-level incentives are more influential.

Pestoff (2012, 1110) explicitly links individuals’ motivation to

co-produce social services with the private value they receive as

service users. This motivation depends then on the extent to

which the service affects a person herself, her family, or loved-

ones. The perceived individual utility of a service thus pushes her

to co-produce. Alford and Yates (2015) show that in three policy

areas—public safety, the environment, and health—co-production

activities with high levels of personal benefits are performed more

often than activities producing largely public value. “Self-interest is

not paramount (…) but it does appear to be a factor in why citizens

co-produce” (p. 171).

Literature is sceptical about the impact of financial incentives on

co-production. Based on four case studies, Alford (2002, 44) argues

that willingness to co-produce “is difficult to foster through an

economic exchange.” Vanleene et al.’s (2017) study of participation

in a community development project finds monetary rewards to be

of little influence. In an experiment seeking to establish if financial

rewards stimulate co-production of services for refugees, Voorberg

et al. (2018) find that only substantial financial incentives have an

effect, and that this effect is very small, thus financial incentives do

not provide a cost-efficient instrument to stimulate co-production.

Research into the effect of interventions on pro-social behavior

in the context of public goods has demonstrated that monetary

rewards have at best a modest effect on participation (Kraft-Todd

et al. 2015), or even crowd-out pro-social behavior (Gneezy and

Rustichini 2000).

In contrast, reputational rewards have been shown to effectively

encourage participatory behavior, as “actors behave pro-socially

in order to develop an altruistic reputation” (Simpson and

Willer 2008, 37). Reputation is so important that it makes people

act strategically to earn it, thus, it is one of the most powerful

mechanisms stimulating cooperation in the context of public goods

production (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003). The power of reputational

reward has been demonstrated on the example of charity offers

(Bereczkei et al. 2007; Milinski et al. 2002), more broadly defined

charitable behavior (for a review, see Bekkers and Wiepking 2011),

and environmentally friendly behavior (Griskevicius et al. 2010).

“Normative” social influence takes place when people want to

comply with the group’s expectations (Deutsch and Gerard 1955).

When the group cannot be used as a point of reference, for

example, because of its low cohesiveness, behavior of others has

an informational influence (Deutsch and Gerard 1955). Presence

of strong norms implies conformity that is central to normative

influence, while fuzziness of the context implies an informational

effect, yet the outcome is the same: an actor follows the behavior

of others. Observability of behavior in line with descriptive norms

has been shown to be highly efficient for eliciting public goods

contributions (Kraft-Todd et al. 2015; Krupka and Weber 2009).

Similarly, studying resident’s reporting behavior, Clark and

Brudney’s (n.d.) detect a “diffusion effect”: living near highly active

co-producers increases one’s own likelihood to co-produce. Thijssen

and Van Dooren’s (2016) study of residents’ reporting behavior

finds that in neighborhoods with a higher number of neighborhood

initiatives more people take part in co-production. Co-production is

thus “contagious”, as people follow the example of others.

Putting Willingness to Co-produce in Context

Decisions about any social action, including co-production, are

always made in context (Matsuba et al. 2007). How utility, rewards,

and norms are “weighted” depends on the social-psychological