BUILDING TRUST THROUGH PUBLIC SERVICE CO-PRODUCTION? EVIDENCE FROM KHON KAEN PROVINCE, THAILAND Tatchalerm Sudhipongpracha, Ph.D.
[email protected] School of Global Studies Thammasat University, THAILAND Achakorn Wongpreedee, Ph.D.
[email protected] Graduate School of Public Administration National Institute of Development Administration, THAILAND Prepared for the VI International Conference on Public Organization (ICONPO VI) August 10-11, 2016 Thammasat University, Bangkok, THAILAND. PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT THE AUTHORS’ PERMISSION. Abstract Public service coproduction is believed to foster trust among citizens, but little empirical work is devoted to this assumption. This study fills the empirical gap by using data from an original survey of citizens (n = 1,799) in two municipalities in Northeast Thailand to examine the relationship between coproduction and trust in three policy areas: public works, public health, and environmental management. Our results suggest that coproduction does not necessarily induce citizen trust in all policy areas. In fact, coproduction of public works and environmental management were found to negatively affect citizen trust in local government. On the contrary, coproduction of public health activities, which require specialized knowledge in physical health, was associated with more trust in local government. Overall, coproduction in public works and environmental management increases citizens’ generalized trust in other citizens. This article concludes with a discussion of these findings, methodological limitations, and policy implications. Key Words: Coproduction, Local Government, Thailand, Trust in Government
INTRODUCTION Governments around the world are currently under fiscal stress. Prolonged economic stagnation caused by a series of financial and political crises has serious repercussions for local government finances. In light of these economic and fiscal pressures, the contemporary public management field emphasizes a variety of alternative public service approaches to promote citizen participation (Fledderus, 2015). Salient features of these alternative public service approaches include interagency collaboration, public-private partnerships, decentralization, and an
increased role for users as co-producers in public service delivery (Lindsey et al. 2014). Citizen coproduction of public services has in recent years evolved into an important tool of local public service delivery in North America and elsewhere in the Western hemisphere (Lyons, 2006). Many programs formerly carried out through the Weberian bureaucratic hierarchy are now coproduced by local government agencies and their citizens (Pestoff, 2012). Also, coproduction has important implications for representative democracy (Bovaird, 2007). The concept places citizens and communities at the center of government decision making, causing a fundamental
-2shift in the ways that government officials interact with their constituents (Sudhipongpracha & Wongpreedee, 2016). However, there are a variety of definitions and forms of public service coproduction. Ostrom (1996) and Ramirez (1999) broadly define coproduction as an approach to partnership in public service production between individuals or actors who belong to different sectors. For Bovaird (2007, p. 847), coproduction is defined as “the provision of services through regular, longterm relationships between professionalized service providers (in any sector) and service users or other members of the community.” These relationships can be supported by direct public subsidy, tax exemptions, direct government transfers, or in-kind contributions (Pestoff, 2012). The concept of coproduction has received extensive scholarly attention (Bifulco & Ladd, 2006; Aiken & Bode, 2009; Alford 2009; Verschuere et al., 2012). Yet, little prior research is devoted to the effects of coproduction on citizen trust and attitude towards government institutions (Verschuere et al., 2012; Fledderus, 2015). Furthermore, the existing empirical works This article attempts to bridge this research gap by examining the normative claim that trust in government is fostered when users are involved as coproducers of public services (Calabro, 2012; Fledderus et al., 2014). In this study, we used a survey questionnaire previously used by Parrado and colleagues (2013) to collect data from two municipalities in Khon Kaen province— one of the three largest provinces in Northeast Thailand. The original questionnaire was modified to focus on three policy areas in which coproduction has been purportedly used in Thai local governments: road construction, local environment, and health. Our analysis attempted to construct measures of citizen coproduction behaviour and to account for variation in coproduction behaviors and trust in each policy area by considering individual and contextual factors identified in previous research. Alongside this explanatory analysis based on individual predictors, face-to-face
interviews and focus groups with citizens and local officials were also used to show how public service coproduction has changed the relationships between citizens and their local government officials. This article begins with a review of coproduction theory and relevant research works. It then describes two municipalities from Northeast Thailand, as well as the data from our survey, including measures of coproduction behaviour and degrees of citizen trust in local government. Next, we present our statistical findings and a summary of qualitative evidence from the interviews and focus groups. This article culminates in interpretations, methodological limitations, and potential policy implications from our research for managing coproduction activities in a way that enhances citizen trust in government institutions. LITERATURE REVIEW Throughout most of the twentieth century, the public policy process was dominated by bureaucratic agencies (Orlansky, 2002). The appeal of this government-centric management model has faded over time due to social structural changes and economic development (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2003; Box, 2014). Public policies, programs, and services now involve a wider range of social issues and stakeholders. Coproduction in the Public Management Literature For the past decades, the “New Public Management (NPM)” initiatives have emerged to replace the traditional government-centric model of public management. Some of these initiatives were influenced by the business sector practices, such as quality assurance and performance management (Goertz & Gaventa, 2001). Other NPM-style initiatives were designed to reduce the size of government by contracting out certain public services and programs (Hood, 1991; Pollitt, 1991). Nevertheless, these NPM initiatives share the same limitations as the traditional model. Government managers continue to influence citizens’ role in the NPM-oriented
-3public service delivery (Bovaird, 2007). Since the 1990s, the coproduction concept has attracted widespread attention among the American communitarians as an alternative approach to the businessoriented NPM ideas (Etzioni, 1995). Based on the coproduction concept, community development efforts are more effective when government authorities engage local citizens in meaningful ways (King & Cruickshank, 2002). Self-help groups, community-based associations, and social support networks began to emerge in the western countries (Lyons, 2006). Also, a number of empirical works highlight the linkages between public service coproduction and social capital, which denotes “the set of trust, institutions, social norms, social networks, and organizations that shape the interaction of actors within a society and are an asset for the individual and collective production of well-being” (Stickel et al., 2009, p. 304). These works place emphasis on trust, reciprocity, and voluntarism among service users and providers as the resulting outcomes of public service coproduction (Putnam, 1995; Seligman, 1997; Moore, 2013). Apart from public service delivery, community development experts point out the increasing role of citizen groups in community visioning and strategic planning processes (Walzer & Sudhipongpracha, 2012). Thus, coproduction is not confined only to public service delivery and policy implementation, but also involves other phases of the public policy cycle (Bovaird, 2007). Public service coproduction can be classified into four distinct types (Sudhipongpracha & Wongpreedee, 2016): Co-commissioned activities include activities that involve planning, budget prioritization, and financial decision making (e.g., citizens’ agreement to user charges); Co-designing means citizen involvement in designing public service programs and activities through different channels, such as launching citizen satisfaction surveys, forming citizen advisory councils, and creating task forces that make recommenddations on specific policy issues;
Co-delivery can take two forms: comanaging and co-performing. The difference between the two forms is the degree of government involvement in service delivery. While coperforming has less government involvement than co-managing, both are still subject to government agencies’ rules and regulation; and Co-assessment includes co-monitoring and co-evaluation. One example is participatory rural appraisal (PRA), which is a collection of approaches that enable local residents to analyze and share their knowledge of living conditions in rural areas. Despite much theoretical interest in coproduction, most research has focused on case studies in which the organizational and managerial aspects are explored (Joshi & Moore, 2004; Bovaird, 2007; Alford, 2009). Relatively few studies have been conducted on individual citizens’ coproduction behaviors and attitudes (Parrado et al., 2013). In the current stream of research on public management, coproduction is perceived as a response to shortcomings in government performance, especially public service delivery. A vast number of research works have demonstrated that government performance leads to citizen trust and satisfaction with public services (Vigoda & Yuval, 2004; Cowell et al., 2009; Van Ryzin, 2011). In this line of argument, government underperformance is the main driver of distrust and propels citizens to take an active role in coproducing services that suit their needs. However, not many studies have established causal or statistical links between trust in government and improvement in government performance through alternative service delivery approaches, such as coproduction (Vigoda & Yuval, 2004; Parrado et al., 2013). Trust and Coproduction Citizens’ perceptions of government trustworthiness have important implications for the public management discipline (Yang
-4& Holzer, 2006). Trust is generally defined as “the belief that others, through their action or inaction, will contribute to my/our well-being and refrain from inflicting damage upon me/us” (Offe, 1999, p. 47). This paper focuses on citizens’ trust in local government institutions, as well as their trust in other citizens. In this context, trust is operationalized as the extent to which citizens say they trust their local governments and other people. Even though this operationalization may sound simplistic for such a complex concept, most research works on trust use measures that are framed around the antecedents of trust (Fledderus, 2015). Taylor-Gooby (2008) argues that we should consider two bases on which people decide to trust or not to trust: a cognitive base and an affective base of trust. Taylor-Gooby further argues that the current NPM-style reforms have overemphasized the cognitive base of trust by relying on objective standards and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), while ignoring the affective base that expresses itself through the interaction between government officials and citizens. Such interaction is central to the concept of coproduction (Fledderus, 2015). Apart from the cognitive-affective distinction of trust, Grimmelikhuijsen and colleagues (2013; 2014) offer a three-dimensional conceptual framework for measuring trust. This framework is predicated on the assumption that citizen trust depends on three characteristics of the government institutions: competence, benevolence, and honesty. Competence refers to citizens’ perception that governments have the skills and resources to implement policies and provide essential services (Heatherington, 1998). This competence dimension of trust is linked to government performance. Benevolence denotes a view that government agencies serve the public interests at heart (Levi & Stoker, 2000). The honesty dimension of trust reflects citizens’
perception that their governments do not attempt to hide information from the public (McKnight et al., 2002). Public service coproduction is essential to the building of citizen trust (Fledderus et al. 2014). Coproduction activities have the potential to encourage both government professional staff and citizens to understand and respect each other’s goals and interests, thereby leading to citizens’ affective trust in government (Lewicki et al., 2006). This argument resonates with Needham (2008) who points out that coproduction “can be a therapeutic tool (building trust and communication between participants, allowing bureaucrats and citizens to explain their perspective and listen to others)” (p. 223). In short, citizens’ coproduction of public services has a positive impact on the relationship between governments and their citizens, resulting in higher trust in local governments and their fellow citizens. This leads to the two fundamental hypotheses of his study: H1. Citizens’ participation in coproduced public services will lead to an increase in citizens’ trust in local governments. H2. Citizens’ participation in coproduced public services will lead to an increase in their generalized trust (trust in other citizens). Coproduction “for All Seasons”? Not all public service programs and policy sectors are conductive to coproduction (Parrado et al., 2013). Lowi (1964) argues that different types of policies (i.e., distributive, redistributive, regulatory) have differentiated effects on how policy decisions are made and implemented. Haas (2004) also points out that policy areas in which service providers are highly professionalized, such as healthcare, are
-5likely to be less conducive to coproduction other policy areas. Parrado and colleagues (2013) assess Haas’ proposition by examining how three distinct policy areas— community safety, local environment, and public health—affect citizens’ coproduction behaviors in five European countries. The research team concludes that highly professionalized services trigger less coproduction because health professionals are likely to be more reluctant to let citizens partake in the service coproduction. This finding is consistent with past studies, which reveal that government officials’ varying degrees of specialization determine how public services are designed (Dunston et al., 2009; Porter et al., 2010). In other words, health policy requires specialists with specialized knowledge in physical health and curative strategies. Workers in the community safety and local environmental policies have less specialized education and few professional qualifications to fulfil. Since the highly specialized public services are likely to be dominated by professional staff, citizens’ perception of local government trustworthiness in delivering those services may be different from the less specialized services. For instance, in the health policy area, citizens may feel uneasy about their limited role in influencing policy decisions and may become distrustful of their local governments. Having a voice in the design and delivery of public services—beyond a basic level of receiving instructions from government officials—is essential to developing cognitive and affective trust among citizens (Simmons, 2011; Brandsen & Helderman, 2012; Pestoff, 2012). Thus, we draw the following hypothesis: H3. Citizens’ participation in coproducing highly specialized public services
will lead to a decrease in their trust in local governments. CONTEXT Situated in the heart of Thailand’s northeastern region, Khon Kaen province has the second largest number of local governments per 10,000 population in Thailand. Currently, there are 225 local government units in Khon Kaen, including one provincial administrative organization (PAOs), 53 municipalities, and 171 subdistrict administrative organizations (SAOs). To test our two hypotheses, two municipalities in Khon Kaen are used as case studies to assess the effects of citizens’ coproduction behaviors on their trust in municipal governments. These two cases are chosen because each municipality has adopted a variety of public service coproduction programs in which municipal residents are encouraged to take an active role. Also, the two cases represent two different contexts of municipal government: urban and rural areas. The Khon Kaen Metropolitan Municipality (KKMM) is a large urban municipality famous for its city forum, which has been an important venue for municipal residents to engage in the policy-making and budgetary processes for decades. In sharp contrast, the Nam-Phong Subdistrict Municipality is a rural local jurisdiction with a majority of residents working as rice farmers. In years past, however, citizens in both municipalities have been politically active in local government affairs. Both the KKMM and Nam-Phong municipality first adopted coproduction for political and administrative reasons. With population exceeding 100,000 over the past decade, the KKMM has become administratively complex. The KKMM is currently divided into 93 precincts, each led by an elected community leader. More than a decade ago, the KKMM was split along the lines of power struggle between two local political groups. The feud came to an end with the two fractions’ merger. To bolster this new alliance, the KKMM executives launched the “Small Municipalities within a Large Municipality”
-6program in 2005, including a variety of coproduction projects that allow community leaders and local residents to participate (Appendix A). The KKMM community members may make cash or in-kind contributions to the coproduction projects. For instance, each community leader is given the responsibility to collect garbage disposal fees within its jurisdictional boundary. Then, the KKMM officials collect the fees from each community leader. For road maintenance, local residents and their communities can take part in every procedure that does not require specialized knowledge in construction engineering. The KKMM is charged with providing sufficient resources and equipment for the maintenance projects. In Nam-Phong municipality, public service production has proceeded in a smaller scale. With 4,984 population and 12 communities, Nam-Phong is a typical Thai rural locality with a serious revenue problem. In 2012, the Nam-Phong mayor launched his municipal service coproduction campaign modelled after the KKMM’s “Small Municipalities within a Large Municipality” program. The motive behind this initiative was political: the mayor dismissed all his deputy mayors and political appointees prior to launching the coproduction program. To consolidate his mayoral authority, the Nam-Phong mayor adopted several coproduction initiatives to reach out to community leaders and ordinary citizens (Appendix A). For example, the Nam-Phong municipality’s road maintenance project allows citizens to work with the municipal public works department in repairing road shoulders and patching potholes. In this project, community leaders are given information on the unit costs of road construction and maintenance. Citizens in each community serve on a committee overseeing all road repairs. The Nam-Phong municipal government provides the concrete mixture and mixer, while citizens serve as road construction workers. Apart from providing construction materials and equipment, the Nam-Phong municipal government trains a group of selected citizens to serve as their communities’ road construction supervisors.
METHOD This study uses a quantitative method to examine the effect of public service coproduction on citizen trust toward local governments in two different municipalities in Northeast Thailand. The quantitative data came from a survey used by Parrado and colleagues (2013), which we modified to match the local government context in Thailand. A major modification was three key policy areas in which coproduction plays an important role in local governance. While the original questionnaire covered public safety, the environment, and health, our survey included coproduction activities in public works, public health, and local environmental management. The survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews in the two municipalities from October-November 2014 by the authors with the following numbers of respondents: 1,011 in the KKMM and 788 in Nam-Phong. These random samples were enhanced through quotas by socioeconomic parameters, such as gender, age, area of residence (urban or rural), and education. SURVEY DATA AND MEASURES Our dependent variable is citizens’ trust in their respective municipal governments and in their fellow citizens. Trust in municipal governments was evaluated according to respondents’ perceptions of the two municipal governments’ benevolence, honest, and competence. Based on past research by Grimmelikhuijsen and colleagues (2013), each perception dimension was measured using a five-item Likert scale, where 1 corresponds to strongly disagree and 5 strongly agree (See Appendix B for survey questions). Similarly, trust in other fellow citizens or generalized trust was measured using a five-item Likert scale. The Cronbach’s alphas for the four dimensions of trust are 0.765 for benevolence, 0.817 for competence, 0.911 for honesty, and 0.886 for generalized trust.
-7These numbers reveal a high degree of internal validity for our trust variables.
organization that works to improve the environmental quality.
Our main independent variable is citizens’ participation in coproduction activities, which we divide into three policy areas as previously explained. In each of the three policy areas, the survey inquired about five representative coproduction activities and the extent to which respondents took part in these activities measured in a five-item Likert scale, where 1 equals never and 5 frequently. The five activities in each area were summed up to form an index. The Cronbach’s alphas for the three policy areas are 0.871 for public works, 0.782 for public health, and 0.885 for environmental management.
Prior to deploying the survey, the questionnaire was tested with a group of citizen representatives and local officials in each municipality. The survey attempted to cover a mix of coproduction behaviors that were motivated by self-interest, as well as those that were altruistic in nature. Though imperfect, these indices of coproduction offer a reasonable proxy measurement of the behavioural aspect of coproduction, as well as policy-relevant coproduction activities.
For public works, the five activities are: (1) helping the municipal government build and maintain road shoulders, (2) working with neighbors and other community members on speed bump construction and maintenance, (3) working and helping the municipality with minor road construction, (4) taking part in the public service facility construction (e.g., community centers), and (5) helping the municipality in the river and canal dredging projects. For public health, the activities are: (1) changing to a healthy diet, (2) joining the municipality-sponsored healthy diet campaigns, (3) participating in physical exercise groups, (4) consuming alcoholic beverage in moderation and joining the campaigns for reduction in consumption of alcoholic beverage, and (5) serving on community health supervisory boards. For environmental management, the activities are: (1) helping the municipality collect garbage collection fee, (2) telling other people and neighbors not to drop garbage or let their pets foul the street, (3) trying to reuse and recycle your household garbage, (4) maintaining and beautifying the external part of your house, and (5) participating in a group or
Also, to isolate the effects of coproduction on trust, this study employs common demographic background variables commonly used in public administration research, such as age, gender, income, and education. RESULTS: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS As seen in Table 1, citizens in the two municipal areas evaluated the three dimensions of trust in local governments differently. Nam-Phong municipality has higher levels of trust than the KKMM, especially in the competence area. Similarly, the Nam-Phong residents reported a higher level of generalized trust than their counterparts in Khon Kaen. The remaining variables in Table 1 are our independent variables or hypothesized determinants of citizen trust. For our main independent variable, the level of citizens’ coproduction engagement in each policy area is higher in the KKMM, particularly in the environmental management area. In addition, the survey measured various demographic background variables that, as discussed earlier, might influence citizen trust (Table 1). On average, our survey respondents from the two municipalities do not differ much in terms of their age and gender. However, differences between the
-8two areas come from income and education levels. Respondents from the KKMM show a markedly higher income level than the Nam-Phong citizens. This can be explained by the fact that Khon Kaen is a metropolitan area with extensive commercial and financial activities, while Nam-Phong is a rural area where agriculture is the main
source of income and employment. This urban-rural divide also expresses itself in the difference in education levels between Khon Kaen and Nam-Phong.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics Khon Kaen Municipality n = 1,011 Variables Min. Max. M SD Citizen Trust (Index of 5 items): 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree Trust of local government benevolence 1.00 5.00 2.55 0.98 Trust of local government honesty 1.00 5.00 2.41 0.90 Trust of local government competence 1.00 5.00 2.97 0.91 Generalized trust (Trust in fellow citizens) 1.00 5.00 2.77 0.74 Coproduction behavior (Index of 5 activities): 1 = never does any, 5 = does all 5 always Public works 1.00 5.00 3.25 0.76 Public health 1.00 5.00 3.27 0.76 Environmental management 1.00 5.00 3.20 0.73 Demographic characteristics (Controls) Age 18 76 44.85 16.41 10,000 55,000 Average monthly income (In Thai Baht) 22,500 5,600 Gender 0 1 0.52 0.50 (Male = 0, Female = 1) Education 0 1 0.59 0.49 (Not university educated = 0,University educated = 1)
RESULTS: REGRESSION ANALYSIS Eight regression models were used to test our hypotheses—one regression for each dimension of citizen trust in each municipality. This was done to disentangle the complex relationship between each dimension of trust and public service coproduction. Since the survey includes relatively large samples (n > 800) for each municipality, we can construct the regression models separately by municipality and compare regression results across local contexts. All of the variables used in the regression analyses were standardized (Table 2). Variance inflation factors for the variables were below 3, suggesting that there is no multicollinearity problem in this study. The adjusted R2 values range from 0.431 to 0.722, indicating the variables explain a substantial amount of variance in the corresponding dependent variable. Also, as the F-statistics show,
Nam-Phong Municipality n = 788 M
SD
3.12 3.08 3.21 3.10
0.89 0.94 0.80 0.78
3.13 3.07 2.97
0.85 0.86 0.91
42.09 14,300 0.54
16.69 2,450 0.50
0.53
0.50
there are no specification errors in our regression models. There are eight regression models in this study (Table 2). Models I-IV are for the KKMM, and Models V-VIII for the NamPhong municipality. Models I and V examine how respondents’ engagement in coproduction activities in the two localities is related to their perceptions of the benevolence dimension of local government trustworthiness. Contrary to our third hypothesis, the only public service coproduction with a statistically significant positive relationship with citizen trust in local government benevolence is public health, which requires specialized knowledge. Among the control variables, only age in Model V has a statistically significant positive influence on citizens’ perceptions of local government benevolence. This means that older citizens in the rural Nam-Phong
-9generally have more trust municipality’s benevolence.
in
their
Models II and VI emphasize citizens’ perceptions of local government honesty. In the two models, coproduction in the public works and environmental management areas was found to have a statistically significant negative influence on citizens’
perceptions. Public works coproduction was found to negatively affect citizen trust in the KKMM honesty. In the Nam-Phong municipality, environmental management coproduction has a statistically significant negative relationship with trust. Also, the education variable in Model II was statistically significant, indicating that
Table 2. Regression Results
Constant Adjusted R Listwise n F-statistic
2
Model VIII Generalized Trust
Education
Model VII Competence
Gender
Model VI Honesty
Income
Model V Benevolence
Demographic characteristics Age
Model IV Generalized Trust
Environmental management
Model III Competence
Public health
Model II Honesty
Independent Variables Coproduction behaviour Public works
Nam-Phong Municipality
Model I Benevolence
Khon Kaen Municipality
0.028 (0.013) 0.080 (0.010) 0.003 (0.020)
-0.110 (0.012) 0.031 (0.021) 0.008 (0.020)
0.021 (0.013) 0.024 (0.023) (0.026) (0.021)
0.045 (0.011) 0.029 (0.026) 0.066 (0.015)
0.005 (0.034) 0.062 (0.015) (0.001) (0.020)
0.005 (0.034) 0.008 (0.029) -0.080 (0.010)
0.090 (0.192) -0.001 (0.020) -0.022 (0.019)
0.050 (0.011) -0.017 (0.019) 0.065 (0.015)
-0.011 (0.033) -0.021 (0.059) 0.003 (0.021) -0.001 (0.030) 0.681 (0.112) 0.554 978 91.871
-0.021 (0.021) -0.021 (0.059) 0.008 (0.024) -0.072 (0.012) 0.043 (0.212) 0.431 906
-0.098 (0.012) -0.021 (0.021) 0.033 (0.027) -0.055 (0.011) 0.064 (0.145) 0.432 911 89.117
-0.014 (0.022) -0.021 (0.021) 0.022 (0.028) -0.148 (0.021) -0.211 (0.198) 0.487 947 94.562
0.088 (0.021) -0.033 (0.028) 0.022 (0.028) -0.033 (0.027) 0.312 (0.176) 0.722 717 86.383
0.013 (0.014) -0.033 (0.028) 0.012 (0.013) -0.033 (0.027) 0.599 (0.122) 0.631 697 95.455
0.013 (0.014) -0.011 (0.011) 0.038 (0.041) -0.020 (0.026) 0.151 (0.161) 0.722 722
0.115 (0.021) -0.011 (0.011) 0.038 (0.041) -0.020 (0.038) 0.372 (0.394) 0.631 681
111.434
100.342
102.342
Note: Standardized coefficient shown; standard errors reported in parentheses; significant coefficients (p < 0.05) shaded and in bold.
Khon Kaen citizens with university education reported less trust in their municipal government honesty. Models III and VII focus on citizens’ perceptions of local government competence. In both models, the three coproduction variables show no statistical significance. No variables included in this study were found to affect the Nam-Phong residents’ trust in local government competence. However, age and education
are statistically significant in the KKMM model. This suggests that older Khon Kaen citizens hold negative perceptions of their municipality’s competence, and that the Khon Kaen residents with university education have negative views of the KKMM’s honesty. In terms of generalized trust (Models IV and VIII), public service coproduction in public works and environmental management was found to positively influence citizens’ trust in
-10their fellow citizens. The control variables that are statistically significant reveal contrasting social phenomena in the urban and rural areas of Northeast Thailand. In the urbanized Khon Kaen area, education plays an important role in citizens’ generalized trust. In other words, urban citizens with university education appeared to have negative perceptions towards their fellow citizens. On the other hand, in the rural Nam-Phong municipality, age shows a statistically significant positive relationship with generalized trust, indicating that older residents hold more positive attitude towards other citizens.
DISCUSSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS The central question in this research concerns the extent to which public service coproduction influences citizens’ trust in local government and their fellow citizens. Using data from an original survey of citizens in two municipalities from Northeast Thailand, we have analyzed the relationship between trust and coproduction in three policy areas: public works, public health, and environmental management. Importantly, we have divided citizen trust into four distinct dimensions: competence, honesty, benevolence, and generalized trust. We found that public service coproduction does not lead to citizens’ trust in local government competence. Further, when coproduction involves public works and environmental management projects, it actually decreases citizen perceptions of local government honesty. One respondent from Khon Kaen pointed out that “the more public works projects I take part in, the better I know about how ineffective my municipal government is.” Meanwhile, one of the NamPhong residents argued that by asking citizens to take part in street and market cleaning, the municipal government reveals its inability to manage the municipal problems on its own. This resonates with the
results reported by Marschall (2004) who points out that coproduction in some policy areas seems to have a negative direct effect on citizens’ perceptions of government performance. However, coproduction of public health activities is positively associated with citizens’ perceptions of local government benevolence. In other words, as citizens in two municipalities engaged in health-related projects, they became more convinced that their municipal governments tried to keep their best interests at heart. In their crossnational study by Parrado and colleagues (2013), many local health professionals were not reluctant to show that they know best what is good for citizens and that it is their duty to serve those who are dependent on them. This observation fits the situations in Khon Kaen, Nam-Phong, and other Thai local governments where government officials have been working closely with their citizens on health-related projects for many decades (Sudhipongpracha, 2015). Moreover, coproduction of public works and environmental management also induces citizens’ trust in their fellow citizens. Compared to public health, public works and environmental management activities require less organizational hierarchy and specialized knowledge. As Robertson and Tang (1995) indicate, less hierarchical activities are more likely to create a sense of reciprocity among citizens. This falls in line with Wilson (1994) who states that coproduction is compatible with a great power distance between professional service providers and service users (i.e., citizens). In short, as Fledderus (2015) states, coproduction of public service delivery does not necessarily lead to more citizen trust in local government institutions and their fellow citizens. However, this has nothing to do with coproduction as a concept. While other studies (e.g., Hazenberg et al., 2014) point
-11at the way coproduction is organized and managed, this study implies that the nature of each policy area and each jurisdiction’s political context that determine the effect of coproduction on trust. Importantly, this study provides empirical evidence that it is also important to pay attention to various dimensions of trust. Yet, even though we attempted to propose an alternative framework for measuring trust, this study is cross-sectional and cannot effectively explicate a cause-and-effect relationship between coproduction and trust. Longitudinal designs are recommended for future studies on coproduction and trust. Finally, this research has thrown up a major challenge to the public sector in general: coproduction may not be appropriate for all policy areas. Yet, this does not mean that the public sector should hold back from engaging more citizens in public service delivery. Instead, it is important that local government agencies, as well as the national and regional agencies, obtain sufficient information on each locality’s political culture and social problems before determining which local government projects should be coproduced. For instance, coproduction of road construction may be suitable for one municipality, but not for an adjacent cashstrapped city. It is also vital that government officials provide their citizens with enough information, technical knowledge, and resources before launching coproduction activities. REFERENCES Aiken, M., & Bode, I. (2009). Killing the Golden Goose? Third Sector Organizations and Back-to-Work Programs in Germany and the U.K. Social Policy and Administration, 43(3), 209-225. Alford, J. (2002). Defining the Client in the Public Sector: A Social-Exchange Perspective. Public Administration Reviewq, 62(3), 337-346.
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and Future Directions. Journal of Management, 32(6), 991-1022. Lindsey, C., Osborne, S. P., & Bond, S. (2014). The 'New Public Governance' and Employability Services in an Era of Crisis: Challenges for Third Sector Organizations in Scotland. Public Administration, 92(1), 192-207. Lowi, T. (1964). American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies, and Political Theory. World Politics, 16, 677-715. Lyons, M. (2006). National Prosperity, Local Choice, and Civic Engagement: A New Partnership between Central and Local Government for the 21st Century. London, United Kingdom: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Marschall, M. J. (2004). Participation and the Neighborhood Context: A New Look at the Coproduction of Local Public Goods. Political Research Quarterly, 57(2), 231-244. McKnight, D. H., Choudhury, V., & Kacmar, C. (2002). Developing and Validating Trust Measures for ECommerce: An Integrative Typology. Information Systems Research, 13(3), 334-359. Moore, M. (2013). Recognizing Public Value. Harvard, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Needham, C. (2008). Realizing the Potential of Coproduction: Negotiating Improvements in Public Services. Social Policy and Society, 7(2), 221231. Offe, C. (1999). How Can We Trust Our Fellow Citizens? In M. E. Warren, Democracy and Trust (pp. 42-87). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Orlansky, D. (2002). Decentralization Politics and Policies. In S. Nagel, Critical Issues in Cross-national Public Administration (pp. 181-203). Westport, Connecticut: Quorum. Ostrom, E. (1996). Crossing the Great Divide: Coproduction, Synergy, and Development. World Development, 24(6), 1073-1087. Parrado, S., Ryzin, G. G., Bovaird, T., & Loffler, E. (2013). Correlates of Coproduction: Evidence from a FiveNation Survey of Citizens.
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-15Appendix A Coproduction Projects in the Khon Kaen Metropolitan Municipality and Nam-Phong Subdistrict Municipality Category Public Works
Khon Kaen Metropolitan Municipality Road/street shoulder maintenance and construction Road maintenance and construction (for minor roads) Speed bump construction Public building construction (for community centers) Public park maintenance Minor public service facility maintenance (small irrigation canal, sewage, fire hydrant) River and canal dredging
Nam-Phong Subdistrict Municipality Road/street shoulder maintenance and construction Road maintenance and construction (for minor roads) Speed bump construction Public park maintenance River and canal dredging
Public Health
Community physical exercise groups Campaigns for reduction in the consumption of alcoholic beverage and tobacco Community health promotion and disease prevention boards Anti-HIV awareness and sexual health campaigns Healthy diet campaigns Consumer protection activities Campaigns for road injury prevention Anti-narcotics campaign
Campaigns for reduction in the consumption of alcoholic beverage Healthy diet campaigns Consumer protection activities Anti-narcotics campaign
Environmental Management
Garbage collection activities (Helping the municipal government collect garbage collection fee, participating in the “reduce, reuse, recycle” campaign) Home and community beautification Installation of household grease trap system Flood watch and warning program Road and municipal market clean-up
Garbage collection activities (Helping the municipal government collect garbage collection fee, participating in the “reduce, reuse, recycle” campaign) Home and community beautification Road and municipal market clean-up
Appendix B Measures of Citizens’ Trust in Local Governments and Their Generalized Trust
-16Respondents were asked to rank each item 1-5 with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree.” Item 1
Honest Generally, your local government keeps its promises.
Benevolence Generally, your local government tries to help citizens.
Competence Generally, your local government officials strictly adhere to their professional standards.
Generalized Trust Generally, your neighbors and other citizens are reliable.
2
Generally, your local government is honest.
Generally, your local government keeps the best interest of citizens.
Generally, your local government works efficiently.
In times of your personal problems, your neighbors are helpful.
3
Generally, your local government is fair.
Generally, your local government cares about citizens’ welfare.
Generally, your local government does a good job in carrying out its responsibilities.
Generally, your community leaders and other citizens are honest.
4
Generally, your local government is not corrupt.
In times of emergency, your local government has been understanding.
Generally, your local government officials are knowledgeable about local problems.
Generally, your neighbors and other citizens can be trusted.
5
Generally, your local government is sincere.
Your local government has made sacrifices for citizens in the past.
Generally, your local government addresses local problems in a timely manner.
Generally, you feel comfortable working with your neighbors and other citizens on community projects.
