Sustainable implementation of co-production: exploring conflicts and coping behavior employed by street-level professionals

PurposeThis study explores how street-level professionals translate and implement a co-production strategy, formulated by top management, in their professional practices, focusing on conflicts that arise during this process and the effectiveness of the coping strategies employed by these professionals to manage them.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a lower-level inquiry into three care services in Denmark. It adopted the translation perspective in organizational research to analyze the consequences of street-level professionals' translation choices. Data were collected through interviews and observations.FindingsThis study found that street-level professionals' translation choices contribute to conflicts of varying forms and extents. The finding suggests that the way conflicts are managed makes the difference between the actual organizational change and the more symbolic acceptance of co-production.Originality/valueThis study contributes to discourses on challenges in co-production implementation by deepening knowledge about the role of coping behavior and translation in sustainable implementation of co-production.

Automated summary

This study examines how street-level professionals implement a co-production strategy in their professional practices and explores the conflicts that arise during this process. It found that the translation choices of these professionals contribute to conflicts of varying forms and extents, and the way conflicts are managed determines the actual organizational change and acceptance of co-production.