Abstract
Co-production is a concept that is becoming increasingly popular across various fields including planning. This article reviews planning literature on co-production and reveals that the term has not been well defined. The existing definitions are inconsistent and ambiguous, requiring more conceptual clarity to avoid contention. Based on the systematic literature review, and aided by bibliometric analysis, the article identifies seven dimensions within the current definitions of co-production: (1) actor, (2) reason, (3) input, (4) output, (5) phase, (6) means, and (7) context. This article concludes by proposing a conceptual and analytical framework for defining co-production in planning theory and practice.
Introduction
Coined by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues in 1970s, the term ‘co-production’ was used to explain and give a theoretical foundation to practices that involved citizens in the production of public services (Ostrom 1972, 1996). Although initially it received little attention, the concept has gained in popularity since the 2000s in the context of austerity and new governance (Bingham, Nabatchi and O'Leary 2005). As evidenced by the increasing number of publications, programmes and activities related to co-production, the concept is of great interest to scholars and practitioners for several reasons (Nabatchi, Sancino and Sicilia 2017) including the reduction of service delivery costs, increased efficiency and creating new types of relationships among the involved parties (Galuszka 2019). However, the rapid growth of the concept has resulted in ambiguity about its meaning. In fact, there are various definitions across diverse disciplines and co-production is often used as a buzzword without a clear definition. As will be illustrated later, there are publications that use the term in the title, keyword or abstract without defining it at all.
The concept has gained in popularity within planning theory and practice as well. It has been introduced to address multi-actor involvement different from established forms of collaborative planning (Watson 2014). As will be demonstrated later, there has been a rapid growth in planning literature on co-production. Although the concept in relation to planning has its origin in the Western world, it has spread to other parts of the world in different ways (Albrechts, Barbanente and Monno 2019) resulting in further ambiguity. Notwithstanding, there is no systematic literature review on co-production in this field so far. Indeed, the result of a Web of Science (hereinafter WoS) search suggests that the majority of review papers on co-production are from environment-related sciences, medicine/healthcare, business and public administration/management. There are five review papers identified from the planning field (Falco und Kleinhans 2018; Raymond, Giusti and Barthel 2018; Rizzo, Habibipour and Stahlbrost 2021; Haraguchi et al. 2022; Bayuo, Chaminade and Goransson 2020), yet they are written in relation to mobility, digital participation, cultural ecosystem services, urban living labs and the role of universities, rather than defining the concept in the planning field.
A permanent conceptual contention due to various understandings can result in the collapse of a concept (Kirchherr, Reike and Hekkert 2017). To avoid this, it is important to establish transparency regarding current understandings of the concept. Hence, the main research question in this article is: What is the current understanding of the concept of co-production in planning literature? To this end, this article aims to: (1) identify the most influential publications/authors cited in the planning field; (2) trace the theoretical origins of the field; (3) identify how the concept is defined in the field; and (4) illustrate the development of the concept in the field. The remainder of the article is structured as follows. The next part describes the methodology used to conduct the bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review. The third and fourth sections present the findings of the analysis. The last section summarises the results.
Research Methods and Materials
The process of sample selection for this study involved six steps (see Figure 1). First, the datasets for this study were retrieved from the WoS citation database (the last search was on August 16, 2022). The search term “co-production” OR “coproduction” yielded 13,113 results. In the second stage, the scope of investigation was delimited by selecting English-language publications only. In order to search for planning-related publications, the result was further filtered through a WoS category ‘regional (and) urban planning’. Lastly, a number of document types were selected, that is, article, review article, book chapter, early access, proceeding paper and editorial material. We did not filter the results based on publication year, as the first publication defined in this search was relatively recent (i.e., 1981). As a result, we found 302 publications, which we used for the bibliometric analysis. 1 For the systematic literature review, 302 publications were manually screened to identify whether they actually defined co-production. They were excluded if they did not define the term (n = 157) or were not accessible (n = 3). This resulted in 142 publications. 2

Flow chart of literature search and analysis process (source: own diagram).
In order to meet the four research aims mentioned in the introduction, both a bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review were conducted (see Figure 1). Bibliometric analysis is a method that involves the use of quantitative techniques on bibliometric data. We used it for performance analysis, co-citation analysis and citation analysis (Donthu et al. 2021). Regarding the performance analysis, publication-related metrics (e.g., total publications), citation-related metrics (e.g., total citations) as well as citation-and-publication-related metrics (e.g., citation per cited publication) were used based on the citation report by WoS. This allowed us to identify times cited and publications over time as well as the most cited publications/authors from the planning field. Moreover, co-citation analysis helped us identify the most influential publications/authors in the co-production literature and trace the theoretical origins of co-production literature in the planning field (Newell and Cousins 2015; Noyons 2001). VOSviewer was used to visualise and analyse the co-citation network. While the performance analysis and co-citation analysis involved the analysis of 302 publications and their references, citation analysis was used to analyse the cited publications of 142 definitions. The result of the citation analysis was then visualised through Gephi.
In addition to the bibliometric analysis, a systematic literature review was conducted to study how the term ‘co-production’ has been defined in the planning field. A systematic literature review is used for different purposes (Xiao and Watson 2019); in our case, the aim was to describe the state of the literature (i.e., definition of co-production) at the time of the review. Hence, we conducted a content analysis of definitions found in the planning literature by using systematic procedures. The first step involved identifying definitions for the analysis. We acknowledge that definitions written in publications can be rather narrow operationalisations of the understanding of a concept and may not capture the full complexity elaborated in the original text (Kirchherr, Reike and Hekkert 2017). However, we argue that definitions still represent authors’ understanding of the concept. In order to address the issue, we considered not only the most relevant sentence but also the neighbouring text. Among the publications, 142 publications actually defined the term. From each publication, one definition was taken, mainly from the introduction and literature review. Where possible, the author's own definition was taken.
The 142 definitions were analysed manually based on the coding framework we developed in an iterative process. Based on the initial knowledge of the concept as well as a preliminary literature review, dimensions (hereinafter codes) and subdimensions (hereinafter subcodes) were developed deductively. These were then added and adapted inductively throughout the coding process. A new subcode was created if there were at least three matching codings. Seven codes were developed eventually (actor/reason/input/output/phase/means/context) with 51 subcodes. Each code with its subcodes is defined in the findings section. In order to address the problem of manual coding (i.e., low reliability), every definition was coded by two coders based on an initial set of coding rules. In the case of diverging coding results, the definition was reviewed by a third coder and discussed by all. Lastly, we calculated the word frequency for each code and compared the result with the result of the content analysis to confirm the findings. Thereby, words with the same stems (e.g., involve, involvement and involving) were considered as one. The result of the word frequency check and the explanation of how it supports the results of the content analysis are presented in the findings section.
Findings of the Bibliometric Analysis
This section presents the result of the performance analysis, co-citation analysis and citation analysis, all of which are part of the bibliometric analysis. First, citations were analysed through performance analysis to identify times cited and publications over time as well as the most cited publications/authors from the planning field. As shown in Figure 2, the very first publication defined in the search was published in 1981; however, it took 30 years before the annual productivity would flourish at an exponential rate. The development stagnated until 2004 when it started to rise steadily and then from 2012, there has been a large quantity of planning literature on co-production. This trend is also observed with regard to the number of citations as there is an exponential growth starting from 2004. Out of 302 publications, 239 have received more than one citation. The sum of the times cited until August 2022 is 4,365. The five most influential publications/authors based on the total number of citations are listed in Table 1. They all have more than 100 total citations.

Times cited and publications over time in the planning field (source: own diagram).
Most Influential Publications/Authors According to the Bibliometric Analysis (Source: Own Diagram).
Co-citation analysis was also conducted to trace the theoretical origins of co-production literature in the planning field (see Figure 3). Altogether, 13,845 references from 302 publications were analysed. The threshold was set at nine, leading to 30 references. Altogether, three clusters were identified. A cluster is a set of closely related references (Van Eck and Waltman 2014). For instance, the publications by Albrechts (2013) and Watson (2014) were found in the same cluster, suggesting that they are closely related. This may be because both are from the field of regional and urban planning. Interestingly, the publication by Mitlin (2008) was found in this cluster as well and in close connection with Albrechts (2013) and Watson (2014) although it does not belong to the planning field according to the WoS category. This may be because it belongs to the category ‘urban studies’ which is close to the planning field. Broadly speaking, three fields can be identified from the five most influential publications/authors (see Table 1), that is, public administration, environmental studies and regional and urban planning. As shown in Figure 3, the publications are closely connected with 261 links.

Result of co-citation analysis (source: own diagram; visualisation: VOSviewer).
Lastly, cited publications/authors of definitions were analysed. Out of 142 definitions, 105 directly or indirectly referred to other publications/authors. Hence, they were subject to the analysis. Fifty-eight definitions use at least one citation; 47 have more than two citations. Altogether, 105 definitions cited 118 publications; 28 out of 118 publications were cited more than twice. According to the WoS category, most of the 28 publications come from the field of public administration and environmental studies. We found two publications from the regional and urban planning field as well (i.e., Albrechts 2013; Watson 2014). The fact that the publications from the field of public administration and environmental studies influenced the co-production literature in the planning field is in line with the result of the co-citation analysis. The five most cited publications/authors of analysed definitions are listed in Table 1. What is remarkable is that three of them were also identified in the co-citation network, that is, Ostrom (1996), Bovaird (2007) and Mitlin (2008). As shown in Figure 4, the top five publications are connected in the large network.

Result of citation analysis (source: own diagram; visualisation: Gephi).
To sum up, bibliometric analysis was conducted to identify the most influential publications/authors and to trace the theoretical origins of co-production literature in the planning field. The results of the performance analysis, co-citation analysis and citation analysis show a similarity to some degree. For instance, among the literature in the planning field, the publications by Albrechts (2013) and Watson (2014) are regarded as the two most influential works. Interestingly, the three most cited publications/authors from the planning field other than Albrechts and Watson (i.e., Polk 2015; Chilvers and Longhurst 2016; Goldstein and Renault 2004) are not remarkable in the results of the co-citation and citation analysis. The co-citation analysis and citation analysis show a similar result as well. The result of the citation analysis reveals that many definitions of co-production in planning literature cited publications in other fields — mostly public administration and environmental studies. This is also proved by the results of the co-citation analysis as the publications from regional and urban planning are closely linked with publications from these two fields. Overall, publications by Ostrom (1996), Bovaird (2007) and Mitlin (2008), Albrechts (2013) and Watson (2014) serve as theoretical origins of co-production literature in the planning field.
Findings of the Systematic Literature Review
Interestingly, not all publications dealing with the concept of co-production define co-production. Out of 299 publications, 157 do not define the term ‘co-production’ at all, although 88 have the term in their title, keyword or abstract.
3
This section presents the results of the systematic review of 142 definitions based on seven codes and 51 subcodes. Several codes share two subcodes, that is,
Actor
This code describes the actors involved in co-production. According to the result of the analysis, ‘actor’ is the code with the highest number of codings, which shows its central importance when it comes to the definition of co-production. Various actors are involved in co-production; hence, we categorised them into nine types (see Table 2). Individuals from the
Coding Result on ‘Actor’.
Out of 142 definitions, 128 include actor-elements (90%); within those definitions, there are 244 codings. The most mentioned subcode is
Looking at the development of actor-elements over time, there are a number of interesting trends (see Figure 5). For instance, the distinction between different types of actors is less remarkable in the definitions before 2015 than in the other two phases. Indeed,

Development of subcodes over time (source: own diagram).
Reason
This code refers to the justifications, aims or reasons for co-production. Twelve different reasons were identified, suggesting that there are various reasons why co-production takes place. These range from rather general reasons, that is,
Out of 142 definitions, 55 have reason-elements (39%); within those definitions, there are 82 codings. While the most common subcode is
Coding Result on ‘Reason’.
Input
This code describes the inputs different actors contribute throughout the process of co-production. The inputs mentioned are mostly immaterial, such as
Out of 142 definitions, 48 include input-elements (34%); within those definitions, there are 56 codings. According to the result of the analysis (see Table 4),
Coding Result on ‘Input’ and ‘Output’.
Although
Output
This code describes what is co-produced and includes
Out of 142 definitions, 93 include output-elements (65%); within those definitions, there are 118 codings. According to the result of the analysis, the most frequent subcode is
The development of ‘output’ over time (see Figure 5) generally corresponds to the result presented in Table 4. So for instance,
Phase
This code refers to the phase through which co-production takes place. According to the result of the analysis, co-production takes place from planning to delivery and management (see Table 5). The first phase,
Coding Result on ‘Phase’.
Out of 142 definitions, 67 have phase-elements (47%); within those definitions, there are 93 codings. Among the three different phases,
Means
This code refers to the means through which co-production takes place. According to the result of the analysis, co-production takes place in different ways (see Table 6). For instance, co-production may emerge through various forms of action, such as
Coding Result on ‘Means’.
Out of 142 definitions, 129 have means-elements (91%); within those definitions, there are 189 codings. The most common subcode is
Context
This code refers to the characteristics of the location that might influence the emergence of co-production. The subcode
With 11 out of 142 definitions, ‘context’ is the least common code, reflecting that most definitions do not distinguish between different spatial and societal contexts. This suggests that co-production can take different forms depending on the context, but is not limited to specific locations. None of the definitions encompasses more than one subcode. Among the four subcodes (see Table 7),
Coding Result on ‘Context’.
To sum up, we performed a content analysis of 142 definitions of co-production in planning literature to find out how the concept has been defined in this field. The result suggests that there is no single definition; rather, various definitions exist covering seven different codes, that is, actor, reason, input, output, phase, means, and context. Among the codes, ‘actor’ and ‘means’ are most commonly used to define the concept as they appear in approximately 90% of definitions analysed (see Figure 6). In contrast, ‘context’ is the least common code appearing in less than 10% of definitions. What is also interesting is the difference between ‘input’ and ‘output’; the latter is twice as frequently mentioned. Each code has subcodes and there is generally a substantial difference between them as certain subcodes are more prominent than others. Word frequency was calculated to crosscheck this and the result confirmed the dominance of certain subcodes, that is, service (108 times) and knowledge (63 times) as an input and/or output of co-production as well as citizen (66 times) and the public (83 times) sector as co-producers. Note that the word ‘public’ is often part of a word combination.

Development of codes over time (source: own diagram).
Conclusion
Processes of urban planning and development typically involve multiple stakeholders. While there are various terms that refer to the multi-actor involvement, co-production as a concept gained popularity from 2012 onwards. This suggests that scholars in the planning field see an advantage in using the term. Indeed, as our findings (especially for ‘reason’) suggest, co-production is considered to play an important role in dealing with various challenges and complex problems. As the concept of co-production has become increasingly popular across disciplines, the ambiguity of the concept has increased as well. The result of the bibliometric analysis partly explains this phenomenon as definitions mentioned in planning literature often come from various fields in addition to planning. The findings of the systematic literature review confirm the ambiguity as co-production is defined in various ways, or in some cases, not defined at all. In fact, 88 publications did not provide any definition, even though co-production is used in the title, abstract or keywords. We see the risk that the concept is used as a buzzword. Hence, based on the result of the systematic literature review, this study provides clarity to the concept by fleshing out what the core dimensions of co-production are.
We propose the seven dimensions discussed in the findings section and related questions as a conceptual and analytical framework (named Co-7D-framework) for defining co-production in planning theory and practice (see Table 8). The intention is not to insist that the definition has to cover all dimensions. Rather, we argue that when using the term, researchers and practitioners need to reflect these dimensions and ask themselves whom to engage with, why they should engage, when to engage, how to engage, in which context to engage, what input is needed and what output is expected. This will help the involved stakeholders not only build consensus on what they understand by ‘co-production’, but also to achieve a desired outcome. In addition, the framework can be useful to compare co-production to other related concepts such as co-creation, co-design, participation and collaboration by identifying which dimensions overlap and which differ. How these concepts differ from co-production in planning literature is beyond the scope of this article, but certainly represents an important avenue for future research.
Co-7D-Framework (Source: Own Diagram).
During the analysis, a few things caught our attention. First, there was an overlap between codes. For instance, austerity (or more generally lack of capacity and resources) was mentioned both as a reason and as a context where co-production occurs. This suggests that there is no clear-cut distinction among the codes. Second, we found that some combinations of subcodes were more common than others. Even though this study touches on these patterns, analysing them deserves further research. Also, whether certain codes are especially popular for a certain type of planning (e.g., strategic or collaborative planning) or in a certain context can be researched. Lastly, while the popularity of codes and subcodes constantly changes over time, some of them appear more often in definitions than others, regardless of time. ‘Actor’ and ‘means’ are the two most frequently used codes to define co-production throughout all three phases (see Figure 6). Why a certain code or subcode is popular throughout all phases or in a certain period only could be the subject of future research.
This study has limitations. First, we used WoS only and did not involve other databases such as Scopus and Google Scholar. We are aware that WoS has limitations in terms of geographical and language coverage (i.e., priority for English). Yet we chose publications in English only due to the manual coding for the systematic literature review. Although the majority of publications were in English (12,738 publications out of 13,111), so we admit that Anglo-American bias may have occurred (Newell and Cousins 2015). The reason Google Scholar was not selected was the lack of bibliometric data as well as the absence of quality control. Also, while Google Scholar is more inclusive in terms of types of documents, the lack of a filtering function makes it difficult to exclude documents such as presentations and grey literature. Scopus does not allow for sharp filtering either in terms of the subject area, and thus was excluded. Although the subject area ‘social science’ includes a wide range of subareas including ‘urban studies’, the filtering function does not allow narrowing down to subareas.
Second, the WoS category ‘regional (and) urban planning’ is not clear enough. Indeed, during the manual screening, we realised that some publications were less relevant to planning. This is because the WoS category is journal-related rather than publication-related. 4 Another possibility for categorical filtering is called the WoS research area. Yet there is no category for regional and urban planning. The most relevant research area would be ‘urban studies’, but this is rather broad as well. Furthermore, as content analysis involves a qualitative approach, the analysis (both determining the coding framework and manual coding of definitions) is subjective. Although the bibliometric analysis itself is quantitative, the same goes for the interpretation of its result. However, an attempt to overcome this problem (at least partially) was made by involving three coders and having them constantly exchange opinions.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-jpl-10.1177_08854122231219919 - Supplemental material for Defining Co-Production: A Review of the Planning Literature
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jpl-10.1177_08854122231219919 for Defining Co-Production: A Review of the Planning Literature by Dahae Lee, Patricia Feiertag and Lena Unger in Journal of Planning Literature
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-2-jpl-10.1177_08854122231219919 - Supplemental material for Defining Co-Production: A Review of the Planning Literature
Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-jpl-10.1177_08854122231219919 for Defining Co-Production: A Review of the Planning Literature by Dahae Lee, Patricia Feiertag and Lena Unger in Journal of Planning Literature
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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