Evaluating the Effects of Co-Production Initiatives in Public Service Organizations

A change from New Public Management to New Public Governance (NPG) does not occur overnight. This forces public service organizations to develop new hybrid organizational forms as strategic response to the current situation. In NPG the basic assumption is that coproduction will result in increased efficiency and effectiveness for public service organizations as a new organizational recipe. However, a recent review determines that only few empirical studies document these claimed effects. To enable the creation of more empirical evidence that establish the effects of co-production, the purpose of our study is to discuss how the outcomes of co-production initiatives can be evaluated. The goal of our study is to inspire scholars and practitioners to evaluate the outcomes of co-production and not least to document these, so a critical mass of data can be created that can be used to substantiate if and how the new organizational recipe ‘co-production’ is delivering what we are told – and what we hope for.