ICT-enabled co-production of public services: Barriers and enablers. A systematic review

Older people and females use ICT-enabled co-production less than their younger and male counterparts. Regardless of age and gender, those citizens possessing technical skills tend to actively use ICTs in public services’ co-production.

Barriers:

Older people who lack technical skills have more trouble using ICTs to co-produce.

Enablers:

Government can design ICT training programmes focuses on older people.

The two most commonly cited demographic traits of citizens in the studies are age and gender. As regards the use of ICTs by older people more generally, it is already well-known that a so-called digital “generational” or “grey” divide exists. In its crudest form, this suggests younger people are more active ICT users than older people. Overall, the systematic review confirms this pattern: of the seven studies which include the analysis of age, the majority find that, although older people often have a positive attitude towards ICT-enabled co-production, they tend to engage in these activities less frequently than younger people overall. There are, however, many important nuances as regards the relationship between age and use of ICTs to co-produce. To fully understand this, other factors, including technical skills, emotional needs, type of technology and the perceived ease of use of the ICT in question also need considering.

One finding common to many studies is that older people who lack technical skills are hindered from using ICTs to co-produce. Experiments conducted at the Swiss Senior Living Lab experimentation, for example, report older people without ICTs skills perceive technologies as being too hard to learn how to use (S2). Similar findings are found in S16, S19, S21, S22 and S35. Older people lacking technical skills are more prone to worry about cyber-crime, as seen in S19. In addition, S35 conducted surveys in a deprived zone of England, and shows older people believed they lacked the skills or were “too old” to use the Internet, and were worried about being humiliated by their grandchildren.

A second, related, finding is that older people lacking technical skills may reject using ICTs to co-produce when they perceive this may reduce their social contact with others. For example, as regards co-production in health, S21 and S35 find older people believe using ICTs might diminish their contact time with health professionals. In the context of energy co-production in Japanese smart cities, S16 finds older people would prefer to co-produce collectively rather than use ICTs to co-produce in an individualistic fashion.

Turning to factors that enable older people’s co-production, possessing technical skills seems central. First, when older people have the ICTs required, they can be just as active – and on specific occasions, even more active – than younger people co-producing. This is particularly the case when older people perceive using ICTs to improve social bonding or using their “memory” to improve the world. Technically-skilled older people seem motivated to co-produce with ICTs in order to improve their own personal safety, health, and that of their families (S19). For example, a field experiment with older people with dementia in a nursing home showed the potential of communicating to their social circle using a tele-healthcare device, Scottie, in a non-verbal way (S47). Similarly, older people with technical skills are just as likely to use the internet to contact Public Administration, and even more likely to use ICTs to express their political opinion than younger people (S22). Clearly, governments can tailor ICT training with specific consideration for the elderly. Though some studies show cross-generational teaching (by the young to the elderly) can make some older citizens feel ashamed (S35), there are other positive examples where the young successfully help older citizens overcome their fears and negative approaches to technology (S21). A second major factor repeated across the studies is that the design of ICTs matters. Interestingly, older people often reject using technology that appears to be made “for” older people – as this is tantamount to admitting one belongs to this group and is thus “stigmatising” (S2). Instead, co-production may be facilitated when user-friendly, easy-to-operate and universally used ICTs are deployed, such as intuitive touchscreen smartphones.

As regards the relationship between gender and ICT use, the so-called “gender digital divide” – whereby women tend to be less active users of ICTs than men – has been widely explored (Hilbert, 2011). Given this, some scholars have worried that the introduction of ICTs to the co-production process might bring about a “second digital gender divide” (S10).

Two of the studies in the systematic review which considered gender found women were indeed less likely than men to use ICTs to co-produce. This was the case for a range of scenarios, including studies taking into account citizens of different ages and occupations within different ICT sectors. However, to provide a nuanced understanding of the relationship between gender and ICT-enabled co-production, other factors, including age, education, profession, and technical skills, also need to be considered.

A first set of studies found women less likely to use ICTs to co-produce than men in diverse scenarios. For example, S10 finds that female public sector workers tend to use less than their male co-workers the most successful social media community, NovaGob, implemented across Spain and Latin America to collaborate and exchange knowledge and create public sector innovation. In a similar vein, S33 finds that females were less likely than males to participate in Citizens Net, an ICT service to co-produce safety. A number of studies present findings on the reasons for which women may resist ICT-enabled co-production. For example, S20 finds that women working as midwives in the UK Maternity Service actively resisted the introduction of ICTs – in the form of the electronic patient record (EPRs) – because either they perceive they have insufficient time or interest to undertake this, or they believe manager (usually, male) are intent on interfering with their job that is to fundamentally help other women successfully give birth.

A second major finding in the studies is that there is an important generational difference: older women are less likely to use ICTs to co-produce than younger women. So, for example, S7 found that older women often preferred traditional social contact, and, when using ICTs, preferred traditional voice telephony over more recent technologies. Older women expressed their reluctance to use ICTs as these were perceived to encroach on their private lives, adding to existing stress levels.

As regards factors associated with enabling ICT-enabled co-production in the category of gender, youth is central. S7 found young girls at school to be just as motivated as boys to use ICTs for social networking. This finding suggests that any gender digital divide can be broken down through targeted government policy. For example, S13 demonstrated how strong gender stereotypes around ICT use are still deeply pervasive even among young school children, and that campaigns to attract female students to the Internet are further required to disrupt stereotypes. S8 similarly finds the promotion of “egalitarian discourse” crucial to improving take-up of internet-based open courses by females.

As regards older women, those who possess ICT skills, and are heavily involved in a professional career and/or family, tended to use ICTs to co-produce in specific fields, particularly, with a view to improve the organizational complexity of their lives, such as for physical and psychological health, as well as for emotional connectedness with family (S7).

5.2.3 Citizen culture

A number of cultural attributes are shown to be significant as regards citizens’ propensity to engage in ICT-enabled co-production. The most commonly cited issues in the literature include trust in government and social and other dynamic aspects.

Trust in government

A lack of trust in the government tends to reduce the participation of citizens in ICT-enabled co-production.

Barriers:

Citizens who are suspicious of the government are less likely to engage in ICT-enabled co-production.

Enablers:

Adopting policies aimed at enhancing citizen engagement in ICT-enabled co-production initiatives increases trust in government.

The image citizens have of governments constitutes an important barrier to ICT-enabled co-production: a lack of trust in government means a citizen is less likely to use ICTs to co-produce (Margetts & Dunleavy, 2002). This relationship is also found in the systematic review, which underlines the centrality of trust in government to achieve ICT-enabled co-production. Five studies detected a lack of trust in government impeded citizens from using ICTs to co-produce (S16, S25, S29, S33). For example, S16 finds lack of trust (a fear the government may be manipulating citizens) as a key impediment to the promotion of citizen co-production of energy in Japanese smart cities. In another study, researchers find immigrants and young people were suspicious of the police and avoided using ICTs to collaborate with them (S33).

Where trust in government is greater, studies (six) found that ICT-enabled co-production becomes more prevalent. Indeed, some studies find that the active involvement of citizens in public service delivery and trust in government may be positively be correlated in a bidirectional way. S39 demonstrates that the greater the citizen participation in public service delivery, the greater the trust they have in the government. S33 finds that the success of the initiative, Citizens net, in which citizens co-produce with the police to improve the effectiveness of safety services in the Netherlands, led to a bolstering of citizen trust in the police. In contrast, S1 and S27 argue that the more citizens trust government, the more they will actively participate in government ICT-enabled co-production initiatives. Other studies highlight the important role of intermediaries as a “bridge” of expert knowledge that help to strengthen trust between citizens and government through ICTs (S11, S28). For example, S28 shows that in specific cases that are highly complex legally and technically, such as the one that affects environmental protection regulations in Germany, the involvement of intermediaries or experts on these issues improved the relationship of mutual trust with the government by using a common technical language.

Social dynamics

ICT-enabled co-production may be avoided if citizens feel it may disrupt existing social dynamics or where there is an impediment to participation. However, if citizens think co-production will increase new collaboration, they may accept it.

Barriers:

Citizens avoid engaging in ICT-enabled co-production when they fear their traditional forms of co-production can be threatened by ICTs.

Enablers:

Where ICT-enabled co-production created collaboration, it seems to be more attractive for citizens.

Social dynamics also influence ICT-enabled co-production. As regards barriers, several papers found that citizens avoid participating in ICT-enabled co-production if they feared their traditional forms of social interaction were threatened by technologies. For example, in the case of the Japanese smart city (S16), older citizens avoided ICT-enabled co-production because they perceived this replaced more traditional, social and collective form of co-production. Other studies find that specific ethnic, social and language differences may hinder citizen participation in ICT-enabled co-production (S8, S36).

As regards enablers, where ICT-enabled co-production creates collaboration, it may prove attractive to some citizens. For example, S38 finds that highly collaborative groups, rather than groups composed of individual learners, were more likely to be active “wiki” content creators. In other studies, highly collaborative groups constituted an essential form of ‘social capital’, with a shared sense of identity, and actively engaged in the co-production of public services (S9, S42, S44, S31). S9 finds that collaborative groups in Indonesia with a shared understanding about disaster situations played a fundamental role in the co-production of time-critical information services on tsunamis and earthquakes using social networking such as Twitter. S44 similarly finds that collaborative groups were able to boost the impact of campaign messages aimed to reduce unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, through the co-production of the health campaign initiated by the Dutch Cancer Society on Facebook and Twitter.

6. Conclusions

This paper offers the first systematic review on what we know about the barriers to, and the enablers of, ICT-enabled co-production among government and citizens around the word. Policy-makers and politicians have voiced their support for the deployment of ICTs and a number of initiatives have been rolled out. Theoretically speaking, ICT-enabled co-production of public services is justified by the idea that this can improve the delivery of public services. Before summarizing the findings and pointing out a future research agenda, we mention the limitations of the methodology used in this study, the systematic literature review.

First, with the aim of achieving maximum objectivity, we carefully applied inclusion and exclusion criteria to screen potentially relevant studies for our systematic review. However, there is unavoidable subjectivity in the screening process that may affect the results of the systematic review. Second, although this systematic review covered two important scientific databases, Scopus and Web of Science, it did not cover other sources, such as Google Scholar, which means potentially relevant contributions on the topic may have been missed. Third, this paper relies to a great extent on empirical studies which have relevant policy implications. However, the systematic review methodology offers few possibilities for generalization, making comparison between these studies very difficult. In this vein, further research based on quantitative analysis, such as experiments, could be relevant to obtain greater knowledge. Fourth, though a systematic review provides an overall picture of what has been published on the topic to date (country, sector and type of ICT), policy recommendations cannot be drawn. For example, we have little idea about the relative importance the kind of ICT has upon the potential success of ICT-enabled co-production based on this methodological approach.

As regards our findings, we looked at possible government enablers and barriers affecting ICT-enabled co-production. We distinguished differences between structural and cultural factors first looking at the government side. On the structural side, the key government barriers are associated with shortage of finance, inadequate technical skills of staff and complex regulation, including, for example, privacy legislation that is not adapted to share patient data among practitioners. On the cultural side, barriers are associated with resistance of professional staff to use ICTs in co-production. One specific case in point is a medical practitioner, for example, who may be opposed to sharing medical data with patients directly through e-mail or chats. As regards government enablers, these are also associated with structural factors: government selection of lower cost ICT solutions, adequate staff training, and government support to adapt regulation to ICT-enabled co-production. In this regard, the literature provides examples in which governments undertook action to overcome problems associated with the lack of professional confidentiality between practitioners and patients when using different types of ICTs in healthcare services. On the cultural side, the review includes examples of government solutions to restore trust between citizen and governments. For example, one way of strengthening trust in government is through intermediaries or experts as advisers in ICT-enabled co-production initiatives.

On the citizen side, our we found that major barriers are related to demographic factors. Some studies reported that older people and females tend to use ICTs to co-produce less than their younger and male counterparts. To some extent, then, the literature review identifies a “second digital divide” as regards ICT-enabled co-production. In addition to the lack of technical skills, citizens may decline to use ICTs because of their worries and negative emotions around technology, such as the fear of being humiliated by their grandchildren when using them. As regards cultural barriers, a lack of trust in government, specific ethnic, social and language differences, and fearing disruption of traditional forms of social interaction were relevant. Older people may avoid using ICTs if they perceive that these technologies reduce their social contact with other groups of citizens. As regards citizens’ enablers, most reviewed studies identify an earlier involvement of citizens in ICT-enabled co-production, particularly in the design phase, as a means of encouraging interaction using ICTs. Other enablers consist of running tailored technical training for citizens in order to overcome their barriers to use ICTs. For example, government implementations aimed at designing user-friendly and easy-to-use applications, which are attractive and avoid stigmatizing certain groups of citizens, may encourage citizens to co-produce. Finally, this review shows that citizens are more likely to participate in ICT-enabled co-production when they constitute collaborative groups as a form of social capital, which tends to strengthen trust among participants.

What should the future of this research agenda look like? Both conceptual and methodological advances are required. As regards the first, greater work is needed on the conceptualization of different modalities of ICT-enabled co-production. Beyond categorizing ICT-enabled co-production by the name of the ICT (telephony, social networking, email, etc.), it may be worth categorization by affordability and ease of use, given this review found that the simple and cheaper ICTs tended to face fewer barriers – but this finding needs testing and development. As regards the second, future research could aim to apply a quantitative approach to better understanding the barriers to and enablers of ICT-enabled co-production, perhaps by doing experiments. What we found in this review is that a category such as “gender” has no fixed influence as regards a barrier to or enabler of ICT-enabled co-production. Instead, gender needs to be considered alongside other factors, such as education, family situation, work status, and so forth. Hence, experimental approaches are ideal to learn more about the potentially interactive effects of the multiple factors included in this review.