Street-level bureaucracy and Co-creation: towards theory synthesis and cross-fertilization

Influencing individuals, local-publics, and the society at-large, direct-delivery interactions with officials during public services provision are at the heart of both street-level bureaucracy (SL) and co-creation (CC) literatures. Rooted in different traditions and using different terminologies, SL and CC offer complementary perspectives with different blind-spots. SL misses the inherent involvement of the client in direct-delivery, whereas CC overlooks contextual factors, including the existence of coercive delivery interactions in public services. Based on central differences between the literature streams, this theory synthesis suggests multiple ways for cross-fertilization that will allow future research to develop a more nuanced understanding of direct-delivery encounters.