Co-production processes through the eyes of service providers: knowledge, opportunities and challenges

The growing role of co-production to improve the delivery and sustainability of healthcare services is of vital consequence for both the policy makers and the citizens, which means that the public managers need to be able to full grasp the implications of this strategic option. In particular, the outcomes of co-production on the public healthcare organisations have rarely been analysed, despite the key pointers these can give as to the contextual fit of new practices. This paper reports the preliminary outputs of an ongoing inter-departmental research programme of the University of Milan that aims to identify and analyse the relevant challenges of co-production for the practice of management. The paper presents an overview of the documents analysed so far and the initial findings.