Participation of Clients in Public Services: the Aspect of Motivating

Abstract

Client motivation to participate in co-production of public services, a relevant object of market research, is analysed in the paper. The object is analysed from the interdisciplinary viewpoint, i.e. from the perspectives of marketing and public administration. Client motivation is analysed as one of the activities of managing client participation which is essential seeking client active co-production of public services. A necessity to manage client participation has been in the focus of research works but the managing process itself has been scarcely analysed. Research, where managing client participation has been analysed as a purposefully influencing and behaviour-oriented activity, has been lacking. From the marketing viewpoint clients must be motivated to actively participate in co-production of services. Summing up research findings, it is stated that studies, where client motivation has been systematically analysed, are scarce. The influence of the ways of motivating clients to actively participate in co-production of services has not been evaluated either (active  participation is understood as productive and beneficial public service clients’ activities by providing the necessary resources).

Problem question raised: How (in what ways) to motivate clients so that they became active co-produces of services? Research object: Ways of motivating clients employed by the public service providers.

Aim of research: Having defined the concept of motivating clients to participate in public services to identify the ways of motivating employed by the public service providers and to rank these ways by the strength of influence on activeness in participation.

In the first part of the paper managing of client participation in public services is defined and the role of client motivation in it is showed. Further, the concept of motivating clients is defined and clients‘ motives to participate in public services are identified. Research methodology is presented. The research field, elderships of Lithuania, was chosen. Personal purposeful interviews were conducted to identify the ways of motivating. Employees only of those elderships, where population participation in services is of a relatively high level, were drawn to the sample. Real clients of public services were surveyed to establish the relationship between the ways of motivating and activeness in participation. The paper is concluded by presenting the identified material and non-material ways of motivating employed in practice in Lithuanian elderships and the findings of qualitative research – the relationship among particular variables. Ranks of the ways of motivating by the strength of influence on a dependent variable, i.e. client activeness in participation, are presented. The following conclusions are drawn: motivation is established as identification of motives for client behaviour and employment of suitable material and non-material ways seeking to motivate clients to participate as the co-producers of public services. Material and non-material ways of motivating clients employed in practice in the elderships have been identified. Most often employed ways of motivating: appreciation expressed by the elder in person; appreciation/congratulation in public events; events as a reward for participating in co-production of public services, etc are presented. It has been identified that non-material ways of motivating more strongly correlate with the level of client participation in services than the material ones.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.23.3.1375