– The purpose of this paper is to report on how public service professionals cope with co-production as a way to produce and develop public services.
– The paper draws on the literature of co-production and collaborative public service innovation. The research approach was an explorative case study, presenting a pilot neighbourhood co-production project.
– Conflicting approaches to co-production with various implications are used simultaneously, causing uncertainly among the professional co-producers. When moving from rhetoric to practice there seems to be a lack of tools and methods for applying and utilising the possibilities of co-production. The processes of co-production and their implications should be thoroughly understood and managed throughout public service organisations, from politicians to frontline workers.
– The paper demonstrates that co-production calls for renewed organisational structures and managerial tools, especially concerning the evaluation of co-production. Focal managerial, organisational, cultural and processual notions for supporting professional co-production are provided.
– This paper makes an important contribution to the discussion of co-production, examining an important, yet understudied, perspective on public service professionals as co-producers.
