Community participation for an open public administration: Empirical measurements and conceptual framework design

Abstract

The principle of open public administration is very important in the process of the European public institutions reforms but the implementation of this principle remains a very difficult task and an issue under debate for practitioners and researchers. Moreover, the local public managers are facing important challenges of sustainable development of the communities within the constraints of the resources, but also into the context of the lack of public trust. The value co-creation is a concept developed within the business, but integrated into the practice of public administration within the conceptual nature of citizens’ participation and that of open public administration. This study was developed based on the premises that participation is the “catalyst” of the government opening process, and trust represents a key input of the public participation. Using an integrative research methodology, this study was intended to generate new insights for measuring the potential of citizens’ participation by introducing a community structure approach in this respect. On the other hand, in this study, a conceptual framework of participation was developed, being addressed to the public managers in order to manage the co-creation value process, extending the market orientation concept (business concept) within the practice of public institutions. In order to fulfill the purpose of this study, a citizens’ survey was conducted in a community in Romania.

Keywords

• community participation
• public managers
• citizens’ trust
• community structure
• conceptual participation framework