Social-Psychological Context Moderates Incentives to Co-produce: Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey Experiment on Park Upkeep in an Urban Setting

This paper presents evidence that the relevance of incentives to co-produce depends on the social-psychological context under which actors operate. We propose that context (including community attachment, trust in local authorities, ethnic diversity, unemployment level, and population density) moderates effect of incentives (utility of the co-produced service, monetary and reputational rewards, and social norms). Through a survey experiment carried out in 593 urban locations across 13 countries, we show that willingness to co-produce increases with community attachment and decreases with ethnic diversity of the local area. The relevance of utility and social norms as determinants of willingness to co-produce depends on the social-psychological context. Reputational and monetary rewards have limited effect, and their relation to the context is less clear. All incentives are largely irrelevant when actors operate in cooperation-conducive circumstances, where co-production is a value in itself. However, their importance as "tools" to encourage co-production arises under challenging contexts.