Coordinating co-production in complex network settings

This article draws together the concepts of network management and co-production with complexity sciences. So far, these approaches have rarely been connected in research literature. We suggest that this conceptual framework offers new insights for analyzing the challenges of co-production in complex network settings in the local public services. The aim of the article is to find out how complex network structures meet the co-production process in the context of social and health care services. The empirical part of the article presents a Finnish case study of a multiprofessional service network producing social and health care services for youth. Here, the clients, in this case children and young people with a need for social services, often need multiple services from different service providers simultaneously. Our research findings suggest that the outcomes of the service process are not only dependent on the client's needs, but rather on organizational and professional interests. Our research gives new insights for the discussion on co-production; when it is applied as an intended policy to improve and deliver public services, the complexity of interaction among the street-level workers and the detached professional frameworks should be kept in mind.     

Co-production and Third Sector Social Services in Europe: Some Concepts and Evidence

The third sector is poised to play a leading role in public sector innovations in the twenty-first century. The third sector can enhance, facilitate, and promote greater citizen participation in the determination, provision, and governance of social services through co-production. This article explores some crucial conceptual issues related to the co-production of public services and the role of the third sector. It also provides some brief empirical evidence of the potential of the third sector, not merely as a service provider, but also as a facilitator of the re-democratization of the European welfare state. Here, collective action and third sector provision are crucial for distinguishing between co-production heavy and light. The conclusion focuses on the ability of the public, third, and for-profit sectors to embrace greater citizen participation and co-production.     

What makes a good self-advocacy project? The added value of co-production

Abstract

This article describes how two self-advocates worked with two academics and others to produce a toolkit to help self-advocacy groups run better projects. We begin by explaining why this research needed doing and how we carried out the research. We then talk about what co-produced research means to us and how we think it is different from participatory or inclusive research. We discuss whether the research and this article were co-produced. We finish by looking at why we think co-production added value to this research. Our aim with this article is to help activists and academics work together to achieve two things: good-quality research findings; and big differences to disabled people’s lives.     

Co-Production in the Context of Finnish Social Services and Health Care: A Challenge and a Possibility for a New Kind of Democracy

Alongside the ongoing renewal process of the Finnish welfare state, the role of the citizens is also revisited. So far the attention has mainly focused on how the responsibility for service provision is shared between the public sector and the service users, while the role of public services as a part of the democratic system has been more or less ignored. Based on the results from a 3-year participatory action research project called KAMPA, this article will discuss if the development of co-production in the context of public welfare services shows the way forward toward a new kind of society where democracy is an inseparable part of the structures and procedures of the service provision. The data gathered during the project (textual material, interviews, notes from meetings, and observation diaries) are analyzed using thematic analysis. The results show that while legislation and official policies strongly highlight the participation of citizens and service users, there are still many obstacles to overcome at both the attitudinal and practical level. The development of co-production and arenas of a new kind of democracy requires continuity in the attempts and recognition of the achievements, but it also has the potential to demonstrate the way in which a new more lively democratic society can come true in practice.     

Is Volunteering Always Voluntary? Between Compulsion and Coercion in Co-production

Governments are increasingly eager to involve citizens in co-production of services. They are seen as a substitution or a supplementary resource in service delivery. Citizens’ involvement relies heavily on their motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic drivers) to partake in co-production. Taking note from prior debate in the volunteerism literature, the article ties volunteer motivation to the process of co-production and citizen–state interaction. Here the state has contrastive options to motivate citizens’ behavior varying between compulsion and coercion. The question is how states’ increased engagement and interaction with volunteers affects volunteer motivation and free choice, the main characteristic of volunteerism. To exemplify this, we analyze the motivation behind state engagement in different forms of co-production: volunteering in rescue and police services and in a volunteer program for the unemployed in Estonia. We conclude that using citizens in co-production is rife with controversies that influence the very nature of volunteerism.     

Methodological problems and policy implications in Vietnamese refugee research

This article is written with 2 objectives: 1) to describe some of the critical methodological problems encountered in research with Vietnamese refugees in San Diego, California, about whom few studies have been conducted previous to their arrival in 1975; and 2) to discuss the policy implications of research beset with these difficulties, some of which are unique to studies of refugee populations per se, while others are common to research on small ethnic minorities in general. This article focuses on 4 major issues: 1) the quality of refugee studies, 2) the purpose and functions of such research, 3) the ethical dilemmas of studying refugees, and 4) public policy implications of refugee research. Recommendations are offered to resolve some of these issues which would call for policy changes both in the ways that refugee research is conducted and in the training of researchers themselves.     

Gender and the Glass Ceiling at Work

The glass ceiling is a popular metaphor for explaining the inability of many women to advance past a certain point in their occupations and professions, regardless of their qualifications or achievements. In this article, we review sociological research on glass ceiling effects at work. We discuss the current state of the glass ceiling, methodological and theoretical concerns with research in this area, and a number of the key factors that contribute to the creation and maintenance of glass ceiling effects, including selection effects, cultural capital, homophily, networking, gender stereotypes, gender discrimination and occupational segregation, and characteristics of organizations. We conclude with a discussion of research that is aimed at lessening gendered glass ceiling disparities in the workplace.     

The Meta Co-production of Community Outcomes: Towards a Citizens’ Capabilities Approach

This article contributes to the growing amount of literature on co-production, focusing on co-production of public outcomes and taking the perspective of local government and public managers. A model for explaining the dynamics of outcomes’ creation at the community level is provided. The core argument of the article is that community outcomes result from a sum of peer production, co-production and inter-organizational collaboration processes promoted and activated at individual, organizational and network level across the public, third and private sectors. Institutional, managerial and organizational implications are discussed. The article argues that local government and public managers are asked to play new roles and to employ a new ethos grounded in a citizens capabilities’ approach.     

How Public Are We? Coverage of Sociology by the Associated Press

The recent and prolific attention to public sociology has involved a great deal of theoretical debate about its merits, flaws, and potential future within the discipline. Despite the loud call for becoming more public, existing research on the discipline lacks both an empirical understanding of where we are as well as a methodological rubric to guide future inquiry. This project explores one outlet for public sociology—the press—as a starting point for this line of research. Through an investigation of Associated Press stories featuring sociology and sociologists, we seek to provide a baseline for consideration of public sociology efforts by describing the current state of how our discipline and its members are portrayed in the press. Further, based on our findings we provide some insights for future research.     

Police militarization in the United States

In 2014, police responses to protests and riots in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted an unprecedented level of news coverage on the phenomenon of police militarization. Though the increased attention to police militarization and governmental programs thought to facilitate it (e.g., the 1033 Program) may give the impression that police militarization is a recent phenomena, social scientists have been documenting trends in police militarization for decades. This article provides an overview of the social science research literature on police militarization, starting with a discussion of a theory informed conceptualization of police militarization. We next discuss the major normative debates that have guided research on police militarization. We then review the empirical literature that focuses on the methodological approaches and findings of extant work on police militarization. Finally, we close with an overview of the state of the literature and suggestions for future research. Our major suggestion for future work is to consider the dimensions of police work that police militarization can occur in while continuing to engage with the normative debates of previous scholars so as to improve the overall quality of police work and public safety in the United States.     

Faire œuvre commune. Dynamiques d'attribution et de valorisation des coproductions en art numérique

By bringing together various parties and multidisciplinary contributions, digitalized art parcelizes the act of creation with, as a consequence, various ways for referring to the “work” of art. The outcome of this joint, polyphonic production process might be a piece of software, separate from the work itself, or an artwork, which might or might not incorporate the computer program. What arrangements ultimately redistribute these multicentric externalities between the cooperating parties? How are the results of this coordination exploited depending on the market (academic or industrial) of destination? By emphasizing the arrangements necessary for finishing a co-production whose social career is described, this article draws attention to the changes introduced through digitalized innovations and explains the new arrangements for giving credits and promoting partnerships between art, science and technology.     

Interface methods: renegotiating relations between digital social research,STS and sociology

This paper introduces a distinctive approach to methods development in digital social research called ‘interface methods’. We begin by discussing various methodological confluences between digital media, social studies of science and technology (STS) and sociology. Some authors have posited significant overlap between, on the one hand, sociological and STS concepts, and on the other hand, the ontologies of digital media. Others have emphasized the significant differences between prominent methods built into digital media and those of STS and sociology. This paper advocates a third approach, one that (a) highlights the dynamism and relative under‐determinacy of digital methods, and (b) affirms that multiple methodological traditions intersect in digital devices and research. We argue that these two circumstances enable a distinctive approach to methodology in digital social research – thinking methods as ‘interface methods’ – and the paper contextualizes this approach in two different ways. First, we show how the proliferation of online data tools or ‘digital analytics’ opens up distinctive opportunities for critical and creative engagement with methods development at the intersection of sociology, STS and digital research. Second, we discuss a digital research project in which we investigated a specific ‘interface method’, namely co‐occurrence analysis. In this digital pilot study we implemented this method in a critical and creative way to analyse and visualize ‘issue dynamics’ in the area of climate change on Twitter. We evaluate this project in the light of our principal objective, which was to test the possibilities for the modification of methods through experimental implementation and interfacing of various methodological traditions. To conclude, we discuss a major obstacle to the development of ‘interface methods’: digital media are marked by particular quantitative dynamics that seem adverse to some of the methodological commitments of sociology and STS. To address this, we argue in favour of a methodological approach in digital social research that affirms its maladjustment to the research methods that are prevalent in the medium.     

Steve de Shazer and the future of solution-focused therapy

Steve de Shazer who, along with Insoo Kim Berg, co-founded the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) approach, recently passed away. In this article we will offer a brief biographical sketch and then discuss the current state of the art of SFBT as it applies to practice, training, and research. Future directions for SFBT, such as the emergence of professional associations, the increased research interest in SFBT as evidenced-based practice, the recent focus on process-research to determine the mechanisms of change within SFBT, and the application of SFBT to education are discussed.     

Neoliberalism With a Community Face? A Critical Analysis of Asset-Based Community Development in Scotland

In this article, we trace the ideological and social policy roots of asset-based community development (ABCD) in the United States and the United Kingdom, and explore how this approach has been legitimized in Scotland. We argue that ABCD is a capitulation to neoliberal values of individualization and privatization. Drawing on findings from our empirical work, we discuss how ABCD generates dilemmas for community development. Although some practitioners are able to adapt ABCD to focus on renewing Scottish democracy, several practitioners are using ABCD to privatize public issues such as inequality and justify dramatic cuts to the Scottish welfare state.     

Social Economy and Home Care Services in Quebec: Co-Production or Co-Construction?

Third sector organizations have always played a significant role in the supply of home support services in Quebec, but this supply of services attained a crucial development phase in 1996, with the creation of 100 or so domestic help social economy enterprises (DHSEEs). These DHSEEs complemented the supply of public services delivered by the Quebec state, thus de facto taking part in the dynamics of co-production of services in the context of a mixed economy including the third sector. However, beyond that co-production, these enterprises also have to position themselves in a process of co-construction with the state, that is, in the joint, partnership-oriented construction of public policy, which provides the framework for their participation in services of public interest. Analysis of this public policy thus shows that the situation of DHSEEs in Quebec has swung, depending on the period, between co-production and various types of co-construction. A number of restrictive budget policies and subcontracting practices adopted by the Quebec state, along with tensions among DHSEE groups, curtailed the development of a genuine co-construction process during the 2000s.     

The construction of ergonomic demands: application on artisan fishing using jangada fishing rafts in the beach of Ponta Negra

The present article seeks the process of construction of ergonomics demand referring to the artisan fishing activityfound in Ponta Negra beach located in the city of Natal, Brazil. The instruction/construction of demands correspond to the first stage of Work Ergonomic Analysis and allows the understanding of real issues existent in a work situation, rank them and route the providences. The demand presented on this study, features itself as a induced demand, process which some potential demands or hypothetical demands are taken to an organization, after a preview analysis of the work aimed by the study, resulting from a theoretical research (state of the art) and/or from analysis of a reference situation (state of practice), where demands hypothesis are taken in consideration about the pretended work. The demands construction process using interactional methods and techniques, observation methods and techniques and bibliographic research, researches in state of reference or document. This article demonstrates the efficiency of the methodological choice to construct real ergonomic demands and highlights the importance of social construction on that process, which main goal is to refer the ergonomic actions that allow the improvement of work and life conditions for the fishers and sustainability to Jangadeira activity.     

Co-production: towards a utopian approach

This article outlines how co-production might be understood as a utopian method, which both attends to and works against dominant inequalities. It suggests that it might be positioned ‘within, against, and beyond’ current configurations of power in academia and society more broadly. It develops this argument by drawing on recent research funded through the UK’s Connected Communities programme, led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; and by attending to arguments from the field of Utopian Studies. It explores particular issues of power and control within the field of co-production, acknowledging that neoliberalism both constrains and co-opts such practice; and explores methodological and infrastructural issues such that its utopian potential might be realised.     

Parent-as-researcher: The politics of researching in the personal life

Several roles for conducting ethnographic research with children have been discussed, but one that has been omitted is the parent-as-researcher. In this paper, we describe some of the methodological advantages and disadvantages of the longitudinal ethnography of preadolescent children we conducted in our community using this methodological approach. We discuss the implications of our role lodging in this complete membership stance and the type of role relations, role identification, and role bifurcation that arose from this combined research/membership approach. We conclude by addressing the ethical issues associated with researching the community of one's own children. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at theWorkshop on Methodological Issues in Fieldwork with Children, Cortland, NY, October, 1994.     

Age-Related Changes in Emotion Recognition: How,Why, and How Much of a Problem?

Isaacowitz and Stanley review age differences in facial emotion recognition, an ability tied to effective socioemotional functioning but often marked by age-related decline. They highlight major findings from the past decade and conclude that age-related declines exist but are least pronounced for positive relative to negative emotions. They discuss possible motivational and structural explanations for this positivity effect, and they describe future research avenues for evaluating age-related differences in more ecologically valid contexts. In this commentary, we discuss each of these topics. We state that many complexities that arise when interpreting age differences are similar to issues raised by emotion scholars who have studied intrapersonal and interpersonal processes outside of the developmental literature. We argue that theoretical and methodological lessons gained from these emotion scholars would provide insight to interpret current findings and direct future research in life-span development.     

Cosmopolitan communities of climate risk: conceptual and empirical suggestions for a new research agenda

Mitigating human‐induced climate change calls for a globalized change of consciousness and practice. These global challenges also demand a double transformation of the social sciences – first, from ‘methodological nationalism’ to ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ and, second, an empirical reorientation towards ‘cosmopolitization’ as the social force of emerging cosmopolitan realities. One of these realities is the possible emergence, locally and globally, of ‘cosmopolitan communities of climate risk’ in response to a ‘world at risk’. A key research question for contemporary social science is thus: how and where are new cosmopolitan communities of climate risk being imagined and realized? In this article, we propose and explore a research agenda formulated around this key question. We both develop a theoretical perspective and provide short empirical illustrations of case studies regarding ongoing research in Europe and East Asia on such cosmopolitan climate risk communities.