How to Co-Produce Elderly Care: Volunteer Coordination by Municipalities or Voluntary Organisations?

Abstract

This study increases our understanding of coordination in co-production in elderly care as we explore models of co-production where voluntary organisations recruit and coordinate individual volunteers and where municipalities assume this role. We examine these models of co-production informed by an analytic framework where we combine third-sector and co-production theory. Based on 30 qualitative interviews with public and voluntary sector representatives within elderly care in four Norwegian municipalities, we find that additional resource mobilisation is the primary benefit of municipal coordination. Municipalities that coordinate citizens directly and independently of voluntary organisations consider this to increase the overall number of volunteers. A disadvantage of municipal volunteerism is that it may replace traditional voluntary organisation activity, weakening civil society’s role as critical correctives and providers of special expertise. Policymakers must take such trade-offs into account when choosing co-production models with or without voluntary organisations as coordinating actors.