Scholars and practitioners alike have spent decades emphasizing why citizen participation and collaboration with government are important to promote accountability, trust, and responsiveness (Nelson and Wright 1995; King,... [ view full abstract ]
Scholars and practitioners alike have spent decades emphasizing why citizen participation and collaboration with government are important to promote accountability, trust, and responsiveness (Nelson and Wright 1995; King, Feltey, and Susel 1998; Weeks 2000; Irvin and Stansbury 2004; Fung 2006; Fugini and Teimourikia 2016). Recent literature shows that governments in many countries are using information technology to facilitate citizen participation (Meijer 2011; Kim and Lee 2012; D. F. Norris and Reddick 2013; Clark, Brudney, and Jang 2013; Linders 2012). If citizens are to act as partners with public administrators in building more democratic and effective governments (O’Leary and Bingham 2009; O’Leary, Van Slyke, and Kim 2010) -- i.e., they are to be “coproducers” of services -- it is vital that we understand who is participating in these new technological methods of citizen-government collaboration and the degree to which participants are representative of the broader societies in which they reside.
This research examines the characteristics of coproducers in the digital age through a focus on an increasingly common form of citizen-government interaction: citizen participation in “311 systems.” These systems give citizens one number to dial (311) to reach their local governments for service requests/referrals as an alternative to clogging 911 emergency call centers with non-emergency matters. Although 311 systems began as exclusively telephone-based, as information technology has advanced governments have added connections to the internet, social media, and dedicated smartphone applications to their 311 systems. Scholarly research examining these advanced 311 systems has been limited (Mazerolle et al. 2005; Clark, Brudney, and Jang 2013; Clark and Shurik 2016; Linders 2012; Thomas 2013; Clark et al. 2016; Bontis 2007), and only a handful of studies have considered government use of smartphone technology (Fioretti 2010; Ganapati 2011; Traunmüller 2011; Floreddu and Cabiddu 2012; Clark, Brudney, and Jang 2013; Clark and Shurik 2016; Clark et al. 2016). Prior research, moreover, has not investigated the representative aspects of coproduction utilizing advanced information technologies.
Grounded in the coproduction literature, in this research we derive hypotheses regarding the representativeness of use of 311 systems and test them empirically based on time-series survey data, as well as other information, tapping citizen utilization of 311 in San Francisco, California. The findings suggest that the participants in 311-enabled coproduction differ from those found in other types of coproduction. According to our analysis of surveys of San Francisco residents, older populations and those with more education are not over-represented in 311 use, a finding contrary to some earlier coproduction studies. The results also demonstrate that lower income groups are, to some extent, participating at higher than expected levels, thus suggesting that this form of coproduction may offer a new way to engage communities with lower participation rates in other coproduction types. We also find that Blacks are participating at higher rates than predicted, though Asians are participating at lower levels than expected. We conclude by examining the implications of our analysis for stimulating use, and representativeness, of coproduction cross-nationally.
D3 - Co-production in the design and delivery of public services: The role of internal and
