Seminario Sotirios Karatzimas

Sotirios Karatzimas (Athens University of Economics and Business) will present his paper “The catalytic role of citizens' sense of belonging in public value co-creation in LGs: Evidence from the annual financial report and lessons from popular reporting”, joint work with Sandra Cohen (Athens University of Economics and Business).

Abstract

This study explores the role of the sense of belonging in citizens’ active engagement in community issues that could increase public value in a local government (LG) setting. The sense of belonging is the sense that makes citizens feel connected, respected, and linked to society. This sense triggers citizens’ involvement and participation in social change and society development. The result of the sense of belonging is seen in citizens’ desire for meaningful involvement and energy for involvement. As it appears, having a developed sense of belonging to a community would increase citizens’ interest in participating in this community’s common issues. The increased desire to participate could boost interest in citizen-council cooperations in the form of co-creation or co-development of services, which could in turn influence the generation of public value. Thus, LGs through actions that target the improvement/increase of citizens’ sense of belonging could end up into witnessing an increase in citizens’ desire to participate which in turn would influence their sense of belonging through a virtuous cycle.

For the purposes of the study content analysis is performed in LG annual reports to locate actions disclosed on the reports that aim at citizens’ inclusion and engagement in public issues, instances where citizen engagement and inclusion actions target the amplification of the sense of belonging as well as indications of how the sense of belonging affects co-production initiatives. Furthermore, the results from an exploratory experiment are presented where informed citizens engage in the development of real municipalities’ popular reports permitting thus the sense of belonging to take effect. The results of the study have important implications on LG public management by providing evidence on ways to increase public value through investing in citizen’s sense of belonging. Also, it provides suggestions on how LGs could report on public value creation through co-production and co-development with citizens in a transparent and comprehensible way.