@phdthesis{01KMDH86PD381BF2BQXZR2TZ0G,
  abstract     = {{Despite decades of national and international commitments, such as the Dakar Declaration on Education for All, SDG 4 on quality education, and the introduction of Free Primary Education policies, access to quality primary education remains a persistent challenge in both Kenya and Nigeria. Many schools continue to operate under long-standing shortages of financial resources, inadequate infrastructure, limited teaching and learning materials, and insufficient government support. These constraints are further intensified by sociocultural barriers, poverty, gender disparities, recurrent droughts, and security threats, all of which undermine access to quality primary education.
Traditionally, the notion that “it takes a village to raise a child” embodied the communal ethos of shared responsibility for children’s learning and development in African communities. As challenges in basic education persist in many developing countries, national and international policy actors have sought to rekindle this ethos by creating formal mechanisms that connect schools with their surrounding communities. These mechanisms provide avenues for community members to contribute to school improvement. Consequently, co-production, where communities and the government jointly design, deliver, and assess public services, has re-emerged as a strategy for reconnecting schools with their communities.
Co-production of public services has gained prominence as a governance strategy, regarded for its potential to improve service quality, enhance citizen empowerment, deepen accountability, and promote collaborative problem-solving between state actors and communities. Yet, despite its growing recognition, the concept remains theoretically and empirically evolving, particularly in contexts where formal state structures are weak to meet citizens’ needs. Although research on co-production is expanding, examining who participates, why they participate, and what they contribute, there remains a notable gap in the leadership of street-level bureaucrats. 
As street-level bureaucrats, schoolteachers engage directly with students, parents, and community members, positioning them as pivotal actors in shaping co-production processes. However, limited attention has been paid to why and how these frontline actors operate to bring “the village” together to compensate for gaps in state support. An additional theoretical gap concerns the discretionary power of street-level bureaucrats in leading co-production. While the literature has sufficiently examined how discretion enables frontline actors to interpret and adapt policy rules during service delivery, we still know little about how discretion shapes their leadership in mobilizing people and resources to co-produce public services, and the extent to which such discretion enables or constrains participation in challenging environments. 
These practical and theoretical problems together give rise to the central research question:
How do the leadership styles of street-level bureaucrats influence their ability to mobilize and empower communities to participate in and contribute to co-production processes in challenging environments?
Three sub-research questions explore:
1.	The contextual factors that shape leadership styles and co-production.
2.	The specific leadership roles (functions and responsibilities) street-level bureaucrats adopt to implement co-production and how these roles evolve across stages of co-production; and
3.	The mechanisms through which leadership of street-level bureaucrats maintains the integrity and sustainability of co-production.
Using a comparative case study design, the thesis investigates multiple co-production initiatives across primary schools in Kenya and Nigeria. The findings are presented in three empirical chapters:
Section 1 (Chapters 1–3): Theoretical and Methodological Foundations
Chapter 1 introduces the research context, outlines the research problem and questions, and presents the thesis structure and contributions. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical and conceptual background. It discusses key theories and concepts of street-level bureaucracy, co-production, leadership styles, and leadership roles, alongside relevant debates in the literature. Chapter 3 outlines the methodological approach, detailing the philosophical orientation, research design, case selection, data collection, and ethical considerations.
Section 2 (Chapters 4–6): Empirical Analysis
Chapter 4 draws on 43 interviews, 17 case studies, and documentary evidence to examine the leadership approaches used by street-level bureaucrats to mobilize and empower communities. The chapter reveals that institutional factors (such as regulations and policies) foster collaborative and ethical leadership, and sociocultural and geographical factors (poverty, entrenched traditions, drought, insecurity, and location) enable transformational leadership through discretionary agency. Personal integrity in financial management further underscores the need for ethical leadership. This establishes the salience of an integrated leadership approach that blends the institutional mandate that enforces collaborative and ethical leadership styles and non-institutional factors that emerge through sociocultural barriers and geographical divides that necessitate a transformational leadership style. 
The chapter further highlights contextual similarities and differences across urban and rural Kenya and Nigeria. Similarly, it shows how integrated leadership styles can both facilitate and hinder co-production. It concludes that while transformational leadership can inspire empowerment, overreliance on discretion without collaboration can risk gatekeeping and community exclusion.
Chapter 5 identifies and compares the specific leadership roles and responsibilities adopted and combined by street-level bureaucrats during different stages of co-production. It utilizes 19 interviews and 7 case studies. Consequently, three transformational roles: strategizers and pathfinders, resource mobilizers, and cultural navigators are proposed, which contribute to implementing co-production. These roles are most visible during co-commissioning, co-design, and co-delivery stages, but less so during co-assessment, where limited community involvement threatens accountability and transparency. The chapter concludes that fostering co-production relies less on institutional design and more on how street-level bureaucrats strategically combine these transformational roles to mobilize and empower collective actions.
Chapter 6, guided by Ansell and Gash’s (2012) contingency collaborative leadership framework (Steward, Mediator, Catalyst), explores how street-level bureaucrats maintain the integrity and sustainability of co-production. Drawing on 43 interviews and documentary analysis, the chapter finds that street-level bureaucrats leverage institutionalized co-production to mitigate institutional deficiencies. In doing so, the analysis proposes an expanded leadership roles framework, distinguishing two clusters of leadership roles:
1.	Professional roles (resource guardians, convenors and organizers, trust and consensus builders, and secretaries) are prescribed by policy to uphold procedural integrity; and
2.	Transformational roles (strategizers and pathfinders, resource mobilizers, and cultural navigators) rely on the discretionary powers of street-level bureaucrats and contribute to sustaining co-production as a strategy for addressing challenges facing public services in challenging environments.
The chapter establishes that while co-production can mitigate institutional deficiencies, it can also expose street-level bureaucrats to unethical behaviors such as corruption and exclusion. Thus, it concludes that professional roles can safeguard the integrity of co-production, while transformational roles can drive its sustainability. However, misuse of funds, exclusion of stakeholders, and lack of transparency can undermine both.
Section 3 (Chapter 7): Synthesis and Conclusion
The final chapter integrates findings to answer the central research question. It presents an integrated leadership framework that illustrates how street-level bureaucrats can combine diverse leadership styles, actions, and responsibilities to mobilize and empower communities in resource-constrained, culturally entrenched, and geographically hard-to-reach rural communities. The chapter discusses the implications for theory, research, and practice, and identifies pathways for future research.
Finally, in conclusion, this thesis bridges several gaps in the literature on co-production and public leadership. It provides comparative empirical evidence from Kenya and Nigeria, establishing how leadership functions in challenging environments. First, it reinforces the understanding that leadership in co-production is context-dependent, shaped by institutional imperfections (e.g., legal and policy provisions, funding constraints, infrastructure deficits), sociocultural barriers (e.g., poverty, traditional norms, apathy), and geographical challenges (e.g., remoteness, insecurity, and drought).
Second, it identifies the integrated leadership framework that combines collaborative, transformational, and ethical leadership styles and roles. The term Integrated Leadership Framework emphasizes that street-level bureaucrats do not rely on a single leadership style; rather, they integrate rule-bound, procedural, and accountability-oriented professional roles with motivational, empowering, and change-oriented transformational roles. This integration is particularly important in co-production, where street-level bureaucrats must both uphold institutional norms and cultivate trust, participation, and shared purpose among community members. The framework highlights the dynamic interplay between structure and agency, formal authority and relational engagement, making it a conceptually robust and context-appropriate way to describe leadership in challenging environments.  The thesis concludes that institutionalized co-production is not a silver bullet, but a dynamic process that is sustained by the leadership of street-level bureaucrats who combine collaboration, discretion, and integrity to mobilize and empower communities for collective actions. The thesis opens new avenues for future research to explore how these leadership dynamics may apply across other policies, such as healthcare, sanitation, and climate adaptation, and how integrated leadership can influence co-production outcomes across diverse policy areas and contexts.}},
  author       = {{Muhammad Bello, Mansur}},
  keywords     = {{Street-level bureaucracy, leadership, co-production of public services, primary education, Kenya, and Nigeria}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{XXVII, 221}},
  publisher    = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration}},
  school       = {{Ghent University}},
  title        = {{Mobilizing and empowering for collective actions : a comparative study of leadership in co-production in challenging environments}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}