Along with participation, a number of approaches such as co-creation, similar to co-design, co-production, co-construction, and co-innovation, is getting more and more attention. When examined closely, they have a lot in common with participatory approach. (McGill et al., 2022) argue that they are interchangeable. As mentioned at the beginning, participation can be defined as the individual or collective involvement of people in decisions that are relevant to them and their lives (Rosenbrock & Hartung, 2012). Co-design refers to the practice of involving users in the planning and creation of information systems since the 1970s. There are three co-design methods that have some overlap and each provide consumers varying degrees of input over design choices: User-Centered Design (UCD), Participatory Design (PD) and User Innovation (UI). In contrast to user-centered design, where users' involvement is typically restricted to acting as informants, participatory design initiatives allow users to play a more significant role. Co-design initiatives have often been focused on a particular digital artifact or carried out inside an enterprise (Jarke, 2021). Among all the terms, co-innovation is the most distinctive one in the sense that it focuses on the inventing new potentially impactful products and services (Eriksson et al., 2023). Co-production means the long-term collaboration of at least two parties in the planning, building and provision of products and services (Jarke, 2021). Co-construction is a term very closely related to co-production and is described as the process of involving collaboration with stakeholders and end users through all stages of intervention development and evaluation (McGill et al., 2022). A difference can be spotted in the context of application. Whereas co-production is frequently used in the public service sector (Jarke, 2021), co-construction term can be found in the social science contexts (Giraudet et al., 2022).
Co-creation is another term used as a synonym or as being closely interrelated to the concept of co-production (Voorberg et al., 2014). Co-creation is seen as a more holistic and inclusive approach if compared to co-production. According to (Ind & Coates, 2013), co-creation is recognized by bringing together participatory design, literary theory, creativity practice, psychotherapy, management science, innovation and open innovation. In the context of public services, the following differentiation is described by (Rodriguez Müller et al., 2021). (Brandsen & Honingh, 2016) define co-production as “a relationship between a paid employee of an organization and (groups of) individual citizens that requires a direct and active contribution from these citizens to the work of the organization”. Co-creation (of public services) can be defined as “a process through which two or more public and private actors solve a shared problem, challenge, or task through a constructive exchange of different kinds of knowledge, resources, competences, and ideas that enhance the production of public value [...], or services” (Torfing et al., 2019). (Torfing et al., 2019) highlight that while co-creation recognizes that all stakeholders can contribute value to the creation or provision of a public service, co-production tends to describe the phases of the public service cycle. Co-production also does not offer insights into the new and broader interactions between the public sector and society that co-creation encompasses. (Rodriguez Müller et al., 2021) summarize that co-creation differs from co-production in three main aspects: (1) the actors involved; (2) the interaction purpose; and (3) the focus on public value co-creation instead of public service production. While many approaches exist, according to a prominent approach by (Linders, 2012), co-creation encompasses three main phases: co-design, co-delivery, and co-evaluation. The co-design phase provides an essential frame for the conception and layout of the service that is to be designed and engages different stakeholders in the development of the specific public service (Linders, 2012). Co-delivery (or co-execution) enhances the acceptance of the services through the involvement of stakeholders in the delivery of the public service as well as promotes communication between service providers and stakeholders and a more integrative user experience (Sicilia et al., 2016). Co-evaluation phase, also known as co-assessment or co-monitoring (Rodriguez Müller et al., 2021), assesses the service after its delivery to learn from it or to adapt it through possible prospective elements (Nabatchi et al., 2017).
As stated before, participation means involvement of users in decisions that are relevant for them (Rosenbrock & Hartung, 2012). Regarding the term co-creation, one can encounter both user involvement (Beutel et al., 2017) and user engagement (Algharabat, 2018) terms applied in one context with co-creation. Generally, in the participation and co-creation literature, both terms are used interchangeably, as synonyms (Frow et al., 2015; Georges et al., 2015). To understand the difference in meaning, definitions from Oxford Dictionary can be used. The relevant definition of involvement is “the act of giving a lot of time and attention to something you care about” (involvement noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com, o. J.); engagement “being involved with somebody/something in an attempt to understand them/it” (engagement noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com, o. J.). Some authors however highlight the difference in intensity, i.e., involvement is a mere participation in a role or set of activities, whereas engagement is a deep investment of self (Field et al., 2013).
To put participation and co-creation in a relation, we refer to the definitions of both terms. First, considered historically, participation is an older term if compared to co-creation. According to (Chambers, 1994), the roots of participation go back to 1960-70s, while co-creation started to be established and implemented by companies after the 2000s (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). At that time, for the development of value, company leaders required a new frame. Competition in the emerging economy started to shift the focus on personalized co-creation experiences. Customer role evolved from being isolated to connected, from being unaware to informed, and from being passive to engaged. With new tools available and a lack of satisfactory options, customers started to interact with businesses and so co-create value (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). After 2016, co-creation began to be gradually implemented in organizations and governments as well. For example, Co-creation Toolkit (OGP Participation and Co-Creation Toolkit, 2018), where the majority of participants (experts, volunteers, local communities, and managers) collaborate with the authorities until the most original, implementable, advantageous, and sustainable solutions are reached bottom-up. In fact, the term co-creation describes the cooperative approach of problem-solving with various stakeholders at all project stages. It emphasizes the importance of involving various stakeholders at all stages of a process, from identifying and characterizing the problem until project final stages (Voorberg et al., 2014). Whereas participation is defined as a rather generic term of involving users in decisions that are relevant for them (Rosenbrock & Hartung, 2012), based on its operationalization models, i.e., participation ladders or models, one could identify a number of obvious limitations. For instance, the presented above participation ladder by (Arnstein, 1969) was criticized for a difficulty defining conceptual and contextual levels and difficulty determining how participation should take place when all stakeholders are included (Collins & Ison, 2009). Several other prominent participation models were also strongly criticized for ambiguous results in developed and underdeveloped countries, imposing of unsustainable decisions by authorities, not all entities represented equally, manipulation in decision making, distrust in authorities, and fake participation process, to name a few (Grcheva & Oktay Vehbi, 2021).
Table 5. Similarities and differences between public participation and co-creation [45,67].
| PUBLIC PARTICIPATION | CO-CREATION | |
|---|---|---|
| SIMILARITIES | - Both require the active engagement of users |
To sum up, as we can conclude from the definitions of the terms participation and co-creation, they have both aspects in common (for example, user engagement), however, also reveal certain differences. A table below (Grcheva & Oktay Vehbi, 2021) summarizes the main similarities and differences between these two terms.
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