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Trust among co-producers of public services and the impact of transparency
Date Issued |
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2020 |
The co-production of public services as a process requires parties to cooperate in creating new or improved existing public services and in the delivery of these services. As any other social process, it is expected to be built on trust, benevolence and the balance of interests. Trust between cooperating parties, and between the parties and users of final co-production services is crucial. In other words, trust among stakeholders is expected. The potential benefits of co-production lie in the involvement of qualitatively different stakeholders, who to some extent are interested in the result and have the required resources (human resources, financial, know-how, etc.) to contribute. Together with obvious benefits, co-production as a process brings a challenging task to balance the different interests, expectations, demands and maintain trust among co-producers and the users of public services. The paper is based on a conceptual analysis and the analysis of scientific literature; no empirical data was analysed. It provides the definition and the main features of co-production, and analyses the impact of trust among the stakeholders and the role of transparency. Despite the fact that co-production can cover different areas, the article is limited to co-production of public services.