Putting the Citizen First - User Co-Creation in Norwegian Municipalities

The welfare state is facing massive changes. An increasingly aging and diverse population and higher expectations of public services will put pressure on the public sector in the future. This will force the government and the municipalities to find new, innovative ways to produce and deliver public services.. As society is becoming more diverse, public sector innovations must be adapted to fit the needs of the individual citizens. This can be done by involving citizens as partners in the innovation process. This is called co-creation, an innovation process where the aim is to develop new products and services with people, not just for them. The traditional role of the citizen is changing, from being a recipient of products and services, to being part of the development process. Involving citizens in the innovation process will create stronger bonds between the public sector and the civil society, which will give a better basis to deal with complex issues. Co-creation in Norwegian municipalities is still a fairly new concept. While many municipalities are taking measures to improve and promote co-creation, there are many barriers preventing it. Thus, the municipalities must build a culture for co-creation. This thesis will uncover some of these barriers in four Norwegian municipalities and examine how the municipalities can create a culture for co-creation. The thesis applies a management perspective, and looks at how innovation and co-creation is and can be managed and organised within the municipalities. The thesis also applies a systemic perspective in order to understand the systemic changes needed to promote a culture for co-creation, seen in the light of three governance paradigms in the Norwegian public sector. The barriers found in this study can be divided into four categories – consciousness (awareness), capacity (structure), co-creation (processes) and courage (leadership). The barriers within the consciousness category include uncertainties of what co-creation involves. The study shows that there is a need for a common terminology that accounts for the various nuances and differences that co-creation involves. Barriers within the capacity category are related to the context, strategy, organisation and people and culture of the organisation. These include time and budget restrictions, and lack of political will, processes, networks, and competences. Barriers within the co-creation category are that the citizens are not as involved and engaged as the municipalities would like them to be, and that the municipalities do not have sufficient platforms and methods for co-creation. The barriers within the final category, courage, involve fear and unwillingness of giving up control, risk aversion, and fear of failure. Five systemic changes required to create a culture for co-creation are outlined. These include a shift towards increased bottom-up innovation, long-term focus, more use of information and communication technology (ICT), a transformation of the culture of the organisation, and more focus on input and output from outside the organisation. Previous governance models do not provide an institutional design that supports co-creation, and thus there is a need for a new governance paradigm, called community governance. We can see a shift towards community governance in Norwegian municipalities today. Most of the barriers found in the empirical data can be connected to a move towards the new governance paradigm. In order to create a culture for co-creation, there is a need for a shift in traditional roles, attitudes, relationships and structures. However, there is an increased focus on user involvement, co-creation and innovation by politicians and public managers, which shows that there is an awareness and will to overcome the barriers. Having a separate, cross-sectoral innovation unit within the municipalities that supports the services with competences, tools and methods was found to be very beneficial when creating a culture for co-creation. The innovation units of the municipalities in the study work to create a culture for innovation and co-creation within all services, and to make innovation a core value of the municipality. Other essential ways the municipalities can create a culture for co-creation is by spreading competences, methods and experiences through intermunicipal networks, employing in-house competences, and having proactive political and municipal leaders who encourage innovation and co-creation, and provide funds