@phdthesis{01KB4PERS31NMA14HB4AXKMKW6,
  abstract     = {{Over the past decades, governments have increasingly embraced the idea of co-creation – the collaboration between different public and private stakeholders in public service provisioning. Built on the premise that combining different perspectives, experiences, and resources can produce better services, co-creation has been advanced as a response to complex societal challenges. Yet, critics point to its potential “dark sides”, such as blurred accountability, rising transaction costs, reinforced inequalities, and (over)burdening participants. While the potential of co-creation is heralded, it remains unclear whether and under what conditions positive outcomes materialise. Adopting a mixed-method design set in Flemish local governments, the dissertation combines qualitative and quantitative evidence to provide a rich contextual understanding, generalisability and applicability. The dissertation is guided by two overarching research questions: How can the outcomes of co-creation be conceptualised? Which factors impact the outcomes of co-creation, and how?

Chapter 1 conceptualises the outcomes of co-creation as specific public values (hence, public value co-creation) and identifies four distinct sets of influencing factors: service domain, governance context, project characteristics, and individual characteristics. Chapters 2 and 3 address these questions through analyses of specific co-creation projects. Chapter 2 explores whether co-creation across different service domains leads to different outcomes through an embedded case study. Sectoral logics and governance arrangements seem to shape which types of public value can realistically be achieved: people-oriented domains tend to foster a broad realm of public values; technical domains mostly enhance performance-oriented values (e.g. efficiency). Chapter 3 applies fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to 20 co-created care projects in Flanders to identify the organisational pathways leading to public value co-creation. The analysis reveals equifinal configurations of conditions – combinations of adequate organisational structures, culture, and resources – with adequate organisational resources emerging as necessary conditions for public value co-creation. 

The Chapters 4 and 5 examine citizens’ perceptions of co-created versus regular public services through large-N vignette experiments. Chapter 4 compares citizens’ outcome perceptions of co-created services against regular services across three dimensions of public value: service, relationship, and democratic quality. The results show that citizens tend to evaluate co-created services more positively. Positive outcome perceptions are associated with higher levels of internal and external efficacy, trust, and the perceived ease of engagement. Chapter 5 extends this inquiry by examining the sustainability perceptions of citizens with regards to co-creation, understood as sustainable outcomes (continuing to deliver value), sustainable processes (arrangements that can be maintained over time), and capacity-building in terms of skills and knowledge. The findings indicate that citizens perceive co-created services as more sustainable than regular ones, again influenced by efficacy and trust. Respondents with participatory experience evaluate regular services more critically, suggesting that prior participation experience shapes citizens’ perceptions of the status quo.

Theoretically, this dissertation refines the conceptualisation of public value co-creation by expanding and empirically validating (1) a categorisation of public values into service-related, relationship-related, and democratic quality public values, and (2) a conceptualisation of sustainability as a multidimensional concept. Methodologically, it demonstrates the complementarity of a systematic literature review, comparative case analysis, configurational approaches, and experimental designs in advancing context-sensitive theory-building. Practically, it offers a conceptual and diagnostic framework for assessing public value outcomes, helping practitioners determine which public values they aim to enhance and which enabling conditions they need to strengthen. Public value co-creation is posited as a balancing act that depends on the specific service domain, governance context, project design, and individual characteristics of the actors involved. Overall, the dissertation concludes that while co-creation is not a panacea, when deliberately and contextually designed, and adequately facilitated, it can indeed make public services better together.}},
  author       = {{Acar, Léon}},
  keywords     = {{public services,co-creation,public value,public administration,public management,participation}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{XXXIII, 274}},
  publisher    = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration ; Catholic University Leuven. Faculty of Social Sciences}},
  school       = {{Ghent University}},
  title        = {{Better together? Exploring public value co-creation in public services}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}