Why Citizens Engage in Co-Production: A Theoretical Framework and Experimental Evidence

Co-production has been embraced as a robust strategy to improve service quality and create public value. Despite growing interest in citizens’ motivations to engage in co-production, there remain some major gaps in the literature. This study proposes a theoretical framework of factors that influence co-production and offers experimental evidence as to the effects of those factors from an online survey experiment with a sample of 1,297 Koreans. The findings show that public service motivation, driven by normative motivations, is associated with greater willingness to co-produce. We find little effect of monetary or non-monetary rewards, input legitimacy, or individual characteristics such as education or income. The findings suggest that to cultivate successful co-production, governments must depart from the traditional short-term approaches to citizen engagement based on instrumental motivations and instead promote normative motivations to develop public support for co-production over the long term.