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Co-production is becoming a more widely used term in mental health care in England, but it is not always clear what this means nor what the evidence base is behind particular uses of the concept. The purpose of this paper is to set some of this discussion into a historical context and examine some of the relevant evidence base to begin to highlight the challenges with operationalising more co-production. This is by way of setting the scene for the other articles in this special edition of the journal. The paper then provides an overview of the other articles on co-production in this edition.

The paper is a short review and discussion of some key issues and evidence relevant to co-production in mental health.

Some key historical insights from other moves to transform mental health care are discussed, recognising that these developments can take a long time to reach maturity in services and practice across the whole country. The discussion of some pertinent research and of the other articles in this special edition helps to highlight what foundations the author have in place for greater co-production in mental health care, and what remains as some of the challenges and gaps in the knowledge.

The paper provides a historical overview of some key issues, evidence and lessons pertaining to moves to develop more co-production in mental health.

This study examines co-production during the Covid-19 crisis, characterized as a Black Swan event, with a specific emphasis on local professionals’ preparedness and response.

A qualitative approach combining deductive and inductive approaches was employed to gather data from professional coordinators of co-production processes in Israeli local governments. The study utilizes professionalism theory as a framework to examine such key elements as professional knowledge, autonomy, status and legitimacy. Additionally, open coding is used to investigate emerging themes.

The findings reveal that, despite preventive efforts by the central government, local professionals were unprepared to address the crisis. Traditional top-down approaches failed during the crisis, emphasizing the need for peer learning and collaboration among various stakeholders. Professionals' de facto autonomy, driven by quick decision-making and creative problem-solving, elevated their legitimacy and status. Inter- and intra-organizational collaboration was essential to maintain performance through co-producing public services. Finally, multicultural awareness proved vital; neglecting this may have severe consequences in routine times but especially during crises.

Using qualitative research, this study emphasizes the importance of understanding context in interpreting thoughts and actions. However, our approach has limitations. We collected data at a single point in time, which may not capture changes over time. Additionally, we relied on self-reporting from 19 public professionals in local municipalities, each managing the coproduction-based center within the respective municipality. However, this setup, where a single coordinator represents the entire co-production function of the municipality, has its limitations as only one voice is heard.

By shedding light on the multifaceted aspects of co-production, policymakers and professionals could learn about such substantial factors as professionals’ autonomy, inter-organizational collaborations and sensitivity to cultural nuances, which should be established first and foremost in routine times to prepare for crisis. In our case study, governmental preventive measures were inapplicable to crises, and experience of prior crises did not necessarily bestow an ability to prepare accordingly. This is where the role of the street-level professionals becomes significant: these are the actors who experience the crisis on the ground and may provide a quick and effective response. Their ability to take the reins, to be innovative and to generate knowledge while exerting their own professional consideration, proved extremely important.

This research contributes to our understanding of public service professionals’ effective leveraging of the contributions of co-producers in times of crisis. It shifts focus from top-down policy preparedness and implementation to the development of appropriate organizational structures and active and routine stakeholder engagement, thereby enhancing preparedness for crises.

This paper delves into a pivotal juncture within the co-production literature, intersecting with the ongoing debate about performance challenges in public sector accounting scholarship. It explores how public managers conceive and measure the performance of co-produced public services.

A case study is conducted on three instances of neighbourhood watching – that is, a type of collective co-production – in a homogeneous institutional setting. The analysis and interpretation of empirical data are guided by a systematic conceptual space delineating the qualities that performance criteria can take in contexts where public services are produced.

Findings reveal that when the co-production activation is driven by both state and lay actors, public managers tend to conceptualise and measure its performance in a way that contributes to building a more structured co-productive space, where the roles to play, how to interact and what to achieve are clearly defined.

This paper breaks new ground by scrutinising the conceptualisation of performance in settings where public services involve actors beyond traditional public administrations. By exploring the diverse “shapes” and meanings that performance can take in co-production arrangements, this paper enriches discussions on how public sector accounting can inform co-production literature.

This paper aims to address how perceived social media agility can promulgate co-creation processes, such as co-production and value-in-use, and how it impacts brand-related outcomes. This study also addresses calls for marketing scholars to investigate the types of personality traits that affect these potential relationships by accounting for the impact of technology reflectiveness.

This paper conducted an online survey with 321 adult subjects. The direct, indirect and conditional (moderation) effects were assessed using multivariate regression, various PROCESS models and the Johnson–Neyman technique (to probe the interaction terms). Additional supplemental analyses were conducted via PROCESS models.

The results show that perceived social media agility directly and indirectly (through co-production and value-in-use) positively influences brand attachment and that the order of these two processes matters (co-production followed by value-in-use). Results also show that the positive impact of perceived social media agility on co-production and value-in-use deviates for customers high in technology reflectiveness but can be manipulated according to which process comes first.

This paper expounds on the new construct of perceived social media agility by uniquely linking perceived social media agility to two distinct value co-creation processes (co-production and value-in-use) and brand-related outcomes while highlighting how consumer-specific traits can affect this relationship in a social media setting.

This study examines the variety of cooperative strategies used to organize the international co-production of motion pictures. Motion picture production is a high-goal singularity, project-based industry in which the structure of relationships between companies involved in cooperative strategies is highly visible. Working from existing theories of co-production and drawing on the strategic joint ventures literature, I examine archival data, first for evidence of the strategies predicted by theory, and then for project participation strategies that theory does not account for. I identify four strategies on the basis of the ways that firms participate in international co-productions. A large number of relatively short-lived firms enact strategies of supplying resources and skills to the persistent firms dominate the industry. Two types of persistent firms cooperate with both direct competitors and complementors but pursue different markets, whereas a third type avoids cooperation with peers. The observed strategies constitute a hierarchy of strategic roles, and thus demonstrate the complexity of strategic behavior involved in project-based production.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on Griffin et al.’s paper, “Positive family connections: Co-producing a virtual group programme for family carers of children with learning disabilities or who are autistic”.

This is a commentary on co-production, drawing on Griffin et al.’s paper and the values base of the field.

Co-production is a valuable approach which seeks to empower and include key people in research. As suggested by Griffin et al., disseminating learning about co-production is an important additional principle of co-production, which demonstrates a values-based commitment to co-production.

This commentary is aimed at professionals and researchers working in the field of learning disabilities who are keen to learn about and do co-production.

This 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.

This 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.

This 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.

This 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.

The authors revisit the notion of co-production, highlight more critical and re-politicized forms of co-production and introduce three principles for its operationalization. The paper’s viewpoint aims to find entry points for enabling more equitable disaster research and actions via co-production.

The authors draw insights from the authors’ reflections as climate and disaster researchers and literature on knowledge politics in the context of disaster and climate change, especially within critical disaster studies and feminist political ecology.

Disaster studies can better contribute to disaster risk reduction via political co-production and situating local and Indigenous knowledge at the center through three principles, i.e. ensuring knowledge plurality, surfacing norms and assumptions in knowledge production and driving actions that tackle existing knowledge (and broader sociopolitical) structures.

The authors draw out three principles to enable the political function of co-production based on firsthand experiences of working with local and Indigenous peoples and insights from a diverse set of co-production, feminist political ecology and critical disaster studies literature. Future research can observe how it can utilize these principles in its respective contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to study four cases of the adoption of co-production and compare them according to the type of user involvement, contextual factors and the organizational structure.

In total, 30 interviews were conducted in four mental health organizations which are implementing co-production in the North of Italy. Interviews were conducted with clinicians, nurses, patients and family members. The data collected was triangulated with further sources and official documents of organizations. The results have been compared by means of a validated international framework (IAP2) regarding the contextual factors and the level of co-production adopted.

The adoption of co-production in the four cases differs by the activities implemented and how organizations involve informal actors. It seems to be influenced by the contextual factors specific to each organization: power, professionals’ opinions and leadership. Organizations whose practitioners and leaders are willing to distribute their power and value informal actors’ opinions seem to facilitate the systematic involvement of users. Overall, the results highlight the importance of considering contextual factors when evaluating and describing co-production activities.

This paper contributes to describing how mental health organizations are implementing co-production. It examines the influence of contextual factors on the type of co-production adopted.

In developing countries there is a growing recognition that co-production offers more cost effective and responsive service delivery options in low income areas. The purpose of this paper is to explore the way co-production initiatives are managed in developing country, Pakistan.

A qualitative comparative case study design is used. Data are collected through 25 semi-structured interviews and document analysis and applies institutional analysis and development framework for analysis.

The study suggests that challenges to co-production are more than a managerial problem which require a different set of capabilities on the part of the actors in order to achieve anticipated goals in the joint production of services. Co-production initiatives require formal structures and processes to involve the local community and third sector to work with the public sector as effective partners. Political and bureaucratic commitment in regional and local government and community willingness to engage act as a catalyst for the successful management of co-production.

The study extends understanding of what makes co-production work, a less researched area on co-production, drawing on a comparative analysis of two different institutional arrangements of co-production.