COPRODUCTION OF PUBLIC SERVICES: INDIVIDUAL VERSUS COLLECTIVE CUSTOMER PARTICIPATION

Abstract

Customer participation in the coproduction of services is recognized as a topical
subject of scholarly research in both public and private sectors and as a concept
erasing the boundary between market-based logics of development and traditional
theories of public administration. Nonetheless, in the scholarly literature there is no
common agreement regarding the conception of customer participation in the coproduction
of services. There is no integrated approach merging the conceptions of the
coproduction of services as treated from the marketing and public administration
points of view. This article aims at defining the conception of customer participation
in the coproduction of public services, which integrates the approaches of marketing
and public administration. The most important dimensions differentiating the conception
of the coproduction of services in different disciplines are identified. One of
such conceptions is individual and collective participation of customers. When presenting
the essence of individual and collective customer participation, the author
identifies the aspects that highlight the boundary between the coproduction of services
and other forms of civic participation and that enable the specification of an integrated
approach to this concept.