Private sector co-creation initiatives are rarely the same as the ones applied in the public sector. At least this is what F. Gouillart & T. Hallett state, in their 2015 article “Co-Creation in Government”, where they present 4 basic challenges that most co-creation projects, affecting public administration, have to overcome, and how they can achieve that. For doing so, the authors based their analysis onto a variety of case studies.
- The Union for the Recovery of Social Security and Family Support Contribution (URSSAF) had to deal with rigidity . The insight for their co-creation project was related to their non-negotiable obligation to comply with laws and regulations, that statutorily barred, for example, from paying unemployment compensation to unqualified claimants or from offering a favorable deal to a specific taxpayer.
- In another a co-creation initiative, Malden, Mass., a city just north of Boston, had to fight the problem of politics. The authors take this case as an example of partisanship and ideological division looming as barriers to bringing innovation to government through multi-stakeholder collaboration, the reality of partisanship and ideological division looms as a potential barrier.
- Another main challenge is the scale of initiative. Meetings, workshops, and other forms of in-person discussion can effectively support small or medium scale projects. Yet, the state of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil, proved that deploying technology helps significantly to accommodate civic participation on a large scale.
- In many countries, unions are vivid and their views and presence is somehow an inelastic part of the public sector. The transformation of La Poste, where conflict between agency managers and union leaders led to tensed labor relations, is proof that co-creation is effective.
A detailed analysis of the referred co-creation case studies, can be found here.