JeDEM Call for Papers: Special Issue 2015
ICT-Enabled Co-Production

Guest Editors

Mila Gascó, Institute of Public Governance and Management, ESADE Business & Law School, Spain
Maria Cucciniello, Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management, Bocconi University, Italy

Open innovation assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, in order to advance their technology. Open innovation, therefore, encourages organizations to search for solutions outside their organizational boundaries. Implementing open innovation in the public sector have a myriad of positive effects, including increased awareness of social problems, more effective practices based on broad citizen experience, and increased trust between government and citizens. At the core of the concept of open innovation in the public sector lies the active involvement of citizens into public sector activities. This involvement is often referred to as co-creation and co-production. Although these terms were introduced back in the 70s, recently they have gained a renewed interest as a result of technological developments, which have given citizens more control, allowing for new ways of interaction and involvement, particularly in public services delivery.

JeDEM Journal for eDemocracy is inviting submissions to the following topics:

The challenges of open innovation and/or collaborative innovation in the public sector

• The differences between co-creation (open innovation) and co-production (open services)
• The different types of co-production
• The characteristics of co-production initiatives
• The factors that influence co-creation and/or co-production with citizens
• The incentives that citizens have to be involved in co-production activities
• Comparing ICT-enabled co-production with co-production through non-electronic channels
• The role of open data and social media in co-producing public services
• Global perspectives: co-production as a phenomenon of developed countries versus co-production as a global phenomenon? Differences and similarities across countries, cities and regions
• Implications of co-production to public servants
• Co-production and the development of smart cities

Despite the general agreement about the benefits of co-production practices (Osborne & Strokosch, 2013; Bovaird, 2012, Glynos & Speed, 2012; Verschuere et al., 2012; Fuglsang, 2008), co-production is not easy. Voorberg et al. (2014, 3013) identify a variety of influential factors which they categorize into eight categories: four coming from the organizational side (compatibility of public organizations with citizen participation, open attitude towards citizen participation, risk-averse administrative culture, presence of clear incentives for co-creation) and four coming from the citizen side (citizen characteristics, user awareness/feeling of ownership, presence of social capital, citizens’ risk aversion).

Therefore this issue of JeDEM is additionally calling for submissions in these areas:

• Benefits of co-production practices
• Measuring co-production impact (in terms of organizational impact but, also, in terms of increased public value)
• The impact and the transformation brought about by ICT-driven co-production experiences
• Organizational barriers to co-production
• Differences between co-creation and co-production barriers
• Overcoming co-creation and/or co-production difficulties

Author guidelines

Length of paper: 7,500-12,000 words, all drafts have to be typed double-spaced, the format has to be Word for processing reasons.

JeDEM encourages scientific papers as well as case studies, project descriptions and reflections. Guidelines for authors and template can be found here.

Important Dates

Call out: 20 April 2015
Submission deadline: 30 July 2015
Start of peer review: 1 August 2015
End of peer review: 1 September 2015
Editorial decisions: 15 September 2015
Camera ready paper: 20 October 2015
Publishing: 30 October 2015

Submission page

JeDEM: Submissions

Contact

Judith Schossböck, Managing Editor
judith.schossboeck@donau-uni.ac.at

Further links

CEDEM Conference (Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government)
Centre for eGovernance at Danube University Krems
Blog Digital Government (Blog of the Centre for E-Governance)