Legitimacy of community-based social enterprises (CBSE) in service provision in rural areas

Purpose Municipalities seek new opportunities for co-producing services in rural areas. One potential partner is community-based social enterprises (CBSEs). However, whilst service co-production through CBSEs obscures the traditional roles of actors, it may lead to a legitimation crisis in local service provision. In this paper, the ways CBSEs are legitimised as service providers in rural areas are addressed from the CBSE and municipality perspectives. Design/methodology/approach Empirical data combine interviews with CBSE representatives and open-ended national survey responses from municipality decision-makers. The data analysis is based on a qualitative content analysis to examine legitimation arguments. Findings Results show that unestablished legitimacy and un-institutionalised support structures for co-production models build mistrust between CBSEs and municipalities, which prevents the parties from seeing the benefits of cooperation in service production. Research limitations/implications The research focusses on the legitimation of CBSEs in service co-production in rural areas. As legitimation seems to be a context-specific process, future research is needed regarding other contexts. Practical implications Municipalities interested in the co-production of services might benefit from establishing a collaborative and responsive (rural) service policy forum that would institutionalise new models of co-production and enable better design and governance of service provision. Originality/value Results will give new theoretical and practical insights into the importance of legitimacy in the development of service co-production relationships.