Realizing public values: enhancement or obstruction? Exploring value tensions and coping strategies in the co-production of social care

Sylke Jaspers and Trui Steen

Public Management Review, 2019, vol. 21, issue 4, 606-627

Abstract: We examine the potential of co-production to enhance or obstruct the realization of public values by analysing what value tensions co-producers experience and what coping strategies they follow. In-depth study of a social care initiative in Flanders shows that co-production enhances the realization of values relating to services delivered, relationships between public servants and citizens, and the democratic quality of the service delivery process. However, public servants and citizen co-producers experience tensions between values, such as efficiency, individual freedom of co-producers, reciprocity, and inclusion. In trying to deal with these value tensions, public servants are found to follow a variety of coping strategies, whereas citizen co-producers tend to escalate tensions or avoid coping with them. The type of coping strategy followed, however, influences if and what values are ultimately represented in the service delivery process and its results.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14719037.2018.1508608 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpxmxx:v:21:y:2019:i:4:p:606-627

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rpxm20

DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2018.1508608

Access Statistics for this article

Public Management Review is currently edited by Stephen P. Osborne

More articles in Public Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().