How Does Citizens' Perceived Self-Efficacy Affect Coproduction? Evidence From an Experiment

This paper examines experimentally how citizens’ perceived self-efficacy affects coproduction. Today, citizens play a central role in the production and implementation of public services (Brandsen et al. 2012). Research has... [ view full abstract ]

This paper examines experimentally how citizens’ perceived self-efficacy affects coproduction. Today, citizens play a central role in the production and implementation of public services (Brandsen et al. 2012). Research has shown that citizen coproduction can improve the quantity, quality and effectiveness of public services (Pestoff 2006; Marschall 2006). Thus, coproduction holds a significant potential to improve public services and it is therefore important to understand when citizens coproduce.
Yet, although studies have identified several positive effects of involving citizens in public services (Brannan et al: 2006; Bovaird 2007; Jakobsen 2012; Ostrom 1996), it is less clear what makes citizens coproduce (Vershuere et al. 2012: 1096). Most scholars agree that citizens’ resources and motivation are important factors (Alford 2002, 2009; Porter 2012; Jakobsen 2012; van Eijk & Steen 2014). However, recent studies indicate that citizens’ perceived self-efficacy has a significant influence on whether citizens engage in coproduction or not (Parrado et al. 2013; Thomsen 2015). Self-efficacy is defined as an individual’s conviction that one can successfully execute a given behavior re-quired to produce a given outcome (Bandura 1977: 103). Theoretically, Bandura was the first to argue that perceived self-efficacy determines when people choose to engage in an activity as well as the effort and persistence they put into the activity (Bandura 1986). Therefore, the effects of perceived self-efficacy are central to understand when studying coproduction or other behavioral phenomenona. This is especially the case, as people’s perceived self-efficacy is not a constant concept (Jourdan 1993), but can change over time depending on (un)successful experiences among other things (Bandura 1977).
However, previous research that study the effects of perceived self-efficacy on coproduction suffer from potentially serious endogeneity issues, as motivation to coproduce and earlier experiences with coproduction can affect people’s perceived self-efficacy. Hereby, we cannot determine if there is a causal relationship between perceived self-efficacy and coproduction. To solve this endogeneity issue we need to test the effects of perceived self-efficacy on coproduc-tion experimentally.
This paper overcomes the methodological challenges and hereby contributes to the coproduction literature by experimentally examining the effects of perceived self-efficacy on coproduction. To do this, we have conducted a large N survey-experiment on Danish high school students. By presenting the students with knowledge tests of varying difficulty, we manipulate their perceived self-efficacy. Furthermore, we manipulate the feedback that the students received regarding their performance on the knowledge test to be either positive or negative. The treatment thus consists of both a manipulation of the difficulty of the test as well as the feedback received from the test. Following the treatment, we measure the students’ willingness to coproduce by participating in teaching and mentoring programs for younger students.
The results strongly indicate that the manipulation of the test difficulty and feedback that the students receive have the expected effects on students’ perceived self-efficacy. Furthermore, the experimental manipulation of perceived self-efficacy has a significant effect on the students’ willingness to coproduce.