LOST IN TRANSLATION: Street-level professionals as crucial translators of co-production

Co-production is currently becoming widespread as a strategy for involving service users in the design and delivery of public services to improve quality and deliver social benefits. Thus, a growing number of street-level professionals are tasked with implementing and facilitating co-production. Yet studies have shown that co-production can challenge the working culture of street-level professionals and cause conflicts and value tensions to arise. This study presents empirical evidence on how street-level professionals translate a co-production strategy into practice and handle conflicts that thereby arise. The study’s findings suggest that how these conflicts are coped with can make the difference between actual organizational change and more symbolic acceptance of co-production. The study contributes to the small but growing number of studies focusing on how street-level professionals’ choice of coping strategies affects co-production. Additionally, it contributes to Scandinavian institutionalism by examining the consequences of different translation patterns and hence, explaining why some translations succeed, while others fail.