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The concept of “participation” has become a buzzword in contemporary public governance models. However, despite the broad and significant interest, defining participation remains a debated topic. The aim of the current study was to explore how participants perceived and interpreted the meaning and scope of participation.

This study is part of a four-year (2019–2022) longitudinal research project investigating stakeholder participation in the context of developing and establishing a strategic regional plan in Region Skåne in southern Sweden. The research project has a qualitative approach and uses interviews with different stakeholder groups such as municipal politicians and public officials and a survey as empirical material.

The authors developed a participation spectrum including eight types of participation: to be open, to be informed, to be listened to, to discuss, to be consulted, to give and take, to collaborate and to co-create. The authors also identified four different purposes of participation: creating a joint network, creating a joint understanding, creating a joint effort and creating a joint vision. The spectrum and the purposes were related through four characteristics of participation, i.e. involvement, interaction, influence and empowerment.

The study rests on a single case, and so the results have limited transferatibility.

Researching participation in terms of the participants' perceptions contributes a new perspective to the existing literature, which has commonly focussed on the organizers' perceptions of participation. Moreover, in order to clarify what participation meant to the participants, the study puts emphasis on untangling this from the why question of participation.

Many countries today, especially in Europe, provide publicly funded public services in quasi-markets. As these markets commercialize, agencies of various types are providing technologies that support citizens’ choice of services. Citizens’ use of technologies for service provision is studied as e-government under labels of channel management, e-service uptake or adoption. In contrast, by using actor–network theory (ANT), the purpose of this paper is to focus on the marketing devices that are used to enroll citizens to choose technologies in a context with large penetration of quasi-market arrangements.

Based on a Swedish case study, this paper uses qualitative data from 11 occurrences of technologies to support citizens’ choice (“market devices”) in education, healthcare and public pension in an analysis of the means taken (“marketing devices”) to increase their use. The study formulates a tentative typology of these devices.

The marketing devices are intended to attract citizens’ attention to the possibility of choice (e.g. catalogs, postcards and commercials), invite interaction (e.g. various social media platforms), improve the technological support in line with user needs (e.g. user participation in development), increase visibility of technological support (e.g. search optimization) or directly connect citizens to technological support (e.g. via links).

The paper contributes to e-government research through a typology of means taken to increase citizens’ technology use based on selected concepts from ANT, and to a discussion of technologies and humans.

This study aims to examine the process of value co-creation (VCC) on digital ecotourism platforms and the role of perceived platform usefulness and user participation behavior in that process. The study also seeks to determine the extent to which the typology of the ecotourist moderates VCC.

A total of 420 users of a digital ecotourism platform participated in a study analyzing the factors that influence VCC. A mediation, moderation and conditional process analysis was used to test the proposed hypotheses. A K-means cluster analysis was also used to classify the ecotourists into four groups.

The results show that perceived platform usefulness has a strong influence on the generation of VCC and also on user participation behavior. In turn, user participation behavior is an important driver of VCC. This study also highlights the moderating role of the ecotourist typology in the formation of VCC on these digital platforms.

This study offers managers of digital ecotourism platforms a means to identify and motivate those ecotourists with the necessary skills and characteristics to become true co-creators of value.

This study contributes to the existing knowledge on how value is co-created on digital ecotourism platforms, confirming the important antecedent role of perceived platform usefulness and user participation behavior, as well as the moderating role of ecotourist typology.

El propósito de este estudio es examinar el proceso de co-creación de valor (VCC) en las plataformas digitales de ecoturismo y el papel de la utilidad percibida de la plataforma y el comportamiento de participación de los usuarios. El estudio también pretende determinar en qué medida la tipología del ecoturista modera la VCC.

420 usuarios de una plataforma digital de ecoturismo participaron en un estudio que analizaba los factores que influyen en la co-creación de valor. Se utilizó un análisis de mediación, moderación y proceso condicional para probar las hipótesis propuestas. También se utilizó un análisis de conglomerados K-means para clasificar a los ecoturistas en 4 grupos.

Los resultados muestran que la utilidad percibida de la plataforma tiene una fuerte influencia en la generación de VCC y también en el comportamiento de participación del usuario. A su vez, el comportamiento de participación del usuario es un importante impulsor de la VCC. El estudio también destaca el papel moderador de la tipología ecoturística en la formación de VCC en estas plataformas digitales.

El estudio ofrece a los gestores de plataformas digitales de ecoturismo un medio para identificar y motivar a aquellos ecoturistas con las habilidades y características necesarias para convertirse en verdaderos co-creadores de valor.

Este estudio contribuye al conocimiento existente sobre cómo se co-crea valor en las plataformas digitales de ecoturismo, confirmando el importante papel antecedente de la utilidad percibida de la plataforma y el comportamiento de participación de los usuarios, así como el papel moderador de la tipología del ecoturista.

本研究的主要目的是考察数字生态旅游平台上的价值共同创造（VCC）过程, 以及感知平台有用性和用户参与行为在该过程中的作用。该研究还试图确定生态旅游者的类型在多大程度上调节了VCC。

一个数字生态旅游平台的420名用户参与了一项研究, 分析影响价值共同创造的因素。使用调解、调节和条件过程分析来检验所提出的假设。还使用了K-均值聚类分析, 将生态旅游者分为4组。

结果显示, 感知的平台有用性对VCC的产生有很大影响, 也对用户的参与行为有很大影响。反过来, 用户参与行为也是VCC的一个重要驱动因素。该研究还强调了生态旅游者类型学在这些数字平台上形成VCC的调节作用。

该研究为数字生态旅游平台的管理者提供了一种识别和激励那些具有必要技能和特征的生态旅游者成为真正的价值共同创造者的手段。

本研究对数字生态旅游平台上如何共同创造价值的现有知识做出了贡献, 证实了感知平台有用性和用户参与行为的重要前因作用, 以及生态旅游者类型学的调节作用。

This article explores how public librarians understand and perform the democratic mission of public libraries in times of political and social turbulence and critically discusses the idea of public libraries as meeting places.

Five group interviews conducted with public librarians in southern Sweden are analyzed using a typology of four perspectives on democracy.

Two perspectives on democracy are commonly represented: social-liberal democracy, focusing on libraries as promoters of equality and deliberative democracy, focusing on the library as a place for rational deliberation. Two professional dilemmas in particular present challenges to librarians: how to handle undemocratic voices and how to be a library for all.

The analysis points to a need for rethinking the idea of the meeting place and offers a rare example of an empirically based argument for the benefits of plural agonistics for analyzing and strengthening the democratic role of public libraries.

This study aims to explore the role played by a formal cluster initiative in supporting small firms' internationalization processes. Taking a public–private interaction perspective, this study aims to understand interaction mechanisms within an internationalization project implemented by a formal cluster initiative.

This study uses a qualitative approach based on a case study of a Swedish formal cluster initiative involved in an internationalization project. The case is analyzed through the industrial marketing and purchasing approach, relying on the Actors–Resources–Activities (ARA) framework.

The analysis highlights the role of formal clusters as supporters and “accelerators” of internationalization processes. Based on the ARA framework, the roles of the public and private actors emerge: the cluster plays the role of orchestrator, supporter and financer, while on the businesses' side, participants assumed the role of customers, displaying various degrees of interest and commitment and giving rise to a leader–follower pattern. Activities occurred at multiple levels, interorganizational, intraproject, interprojects, through different timings and typologies. The main resources at stake were the combination of knowledge, complementary capabilities and financial incentives.

This empirical study provides novel empirical evidence and theoretical development over the phenomenon of formal clusters. This study contributes to the current debate on public–private interaction mechanisms and to the upgrading and circulation of international business knowledge.

This article advances a conceptual typology delineating the differences and similarities between business- and social-sector new venture creators. Our classification scheme differentiates business and social entrepreneurs, considering characteristics of social entrepreneurs in a larger entrepreneurial context.Within a conceptual 2x2 typology based on two dimensions: drive (passion vs. business) and desired return (financial ROI vs. social ROI), we identify and classify 80 examples of new venture creators into one of the quadrants of an enterprise model of entrepreneurs. Preliminary results reveal similarities between social and traditional entrepreneurs and differentiate social entrepreneurs in terms of traits, goals, tendencies, and motivational sources.

In this study, the authors aim to probe the relationship between listening and lurking and discuss types of lurking that occur on social media sites based on the motivations driving them. Although listening is a significant practice of online attention, intimacy, connection, obligation and participation as much as voice is, it is yet to receive the kind of attention voice is given in the context of social media. In the rather limited studies on online attention, the concept that has gained consideration is “lurking”, and this practice has often been treated as a derogatory non-activity or as passivity. The interest to study lurking is based on the premise that lurking is a significant ground on which listening occurs in social media and through which voice can be given attention.

This study adopted a phenomenological approach to understand motivations for lurking in online spaces. Phenomenological research involves data gathering through inductive, qualitative methods with the aim of explaining specific phenomena from the perspective of research participants. In this research, the lived experience studied was lurking and what drives lurking. A total of 12 members of the Licence to Talk project, a research project based at the School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa, took part in the study. They shared their personal experiences of online lurking through a critical reflective writing. Based on the experiences shared, the authors identified and categorised the various types of lurking based on the varied motivations driving them.

Through the phenomenological approach, the study has theorised a more useful understanding of lurking as a form of online listening by identifying and categorising seven lurking behaviours that are nested within the lurking activity. This study, thus, provides a tentative framework for studying online lurking by bringing to bear listening theory and by reasoning that lurking is a needs-based activity that has purpose imbedded within it.

The authors recognise that this study is limited by its small number of participants. Nevertheless, as researchers with a strong grounding in listening theory, the authors thought it valuable to interrogate their own practices on social media and to develop a more useful understanding of what lurking might entail and, on the lurking-listening relationship. A larger study would provide stronger evidence to test the hypothesis about lurking as a very interesting form of listening with a relationship to complex behaviours and needs.

It is expected that by conceptualising the various forms of lurking based on the motivations that drive online lurking (listening), it will provide an empirical and theoretical/conceptual basis for further investigations into this pervasive mode of online attention.

The purpose of this paper is to assess, clarify and consolidate the terminology around the co-creation of services, establish its forms and identify its outcomes, to resolve the conceptual pluralism in service co-creation literature.

A focused literature review screened the articles published in five major service research journals to determine relevant contributions on the concept of co-creation of services. Then, a thematic analysis identifies the forms, themes and outcomes of co-creating services in the set of 80 qualifying articles.

The study reduces conceptual pluralism by establishing different forms of co-creating services and developing an explicit definition of co-creation in services. The authors develop an integrative framework that recognizes involvement, engagement and participation as prerequisites for co-creation. Relating to the different phases of the service process, the specific co-creation forms of co-ideation, co-valuation, co-design, co-testing and co-launching are classified as regenerative co-creation, while the specific co-creation forms of co-production and co-consumption are recognized as operative co-creation. Both beneficial and counterproductive outcomes of co-creation are identified and arranged into a typology.

The integrative framework illustrates that service providers and customers are involved, engaged and participate in co-creating services, which manifests in specific forms of co-creation; they attain beneficial and counterproductive outcomes (personal, social, hedonic, cognitive, economic and pragmatic); and are influenced by a contextual multi-actor network.

Co-creation in services is actionable; the typology of outcomes suggests service managers ways to motivate customers and employees to participate in co-creating services.

This paper defines and establishes the conceptual forms of co-creating services and the identified outcomes, and develops an integrative framework of co-creation in services.

The family is one of the foundations of society; its significance for societal redistribution in modern societies, though, remains particularly unclear. A major reason for this is that theoretical approaches to societal redistribution have not adequately included family either in social philosophy or in welfare state theory. As a consequence, also empirical analyses of differences and developments in societal redistribution have not included family or only in as far as family is affected by other redistributive principles. This paper contributes to filling this theoretical gap.

This paper theorises family as a redistributive principle. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, it identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution.

Approaches to redistribution are shaped by distinct concepts of equal or unequal exchange, the relevant actors they identify and by different understandings of the economy. These distinctions are central to understanding the position of family in societal redistribution. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, this paper identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution. Further investigations might draw on this typology and detect the theoretical foundations of its conceptualisations and its similarities to and deviations from the developed types.

This paper provides a theoretical groundwork for theoretical and empirical investigations of societal redistribution and for better comprehending its international variation. It aims to initiate a fundamental rethinking of the usual understanding of societal redistribution that widely ignores family as a redistributive principle of its own.