Improving Digitalization Through Co-Creation: Case Of The Citadel Project

Abstract

This article examines problems related to digitalization and use of digital services provided by the government. The study is based on the research work and results of the CITADEL project, which has tested co-creation methods in Latvia considering requirements and interests of society and businesses in decision making processes of public administration. It appears that in many cases people aren’t willing to accept proposed services as they haven’t been involved in the processes of their creation. While enjoying benefits provided by information technologies, electronic services and artificial intellect people still need an exchange between human beings to make a good use of existing advanced solutions. This is especially important for electronic services widely used by a large part of the population and enterprises, which need to be easy, fast and friendly. The concept of co-creation or co-production has been initially developed in the 1970s emerging from theoretical and empirical analysis of urban service delivery. Nowadays the co-creation is becoming a priority of many governments in the world and scholars in public administration see the potential of ICTs in this exchange process. Governments around the world are promoting an increased use of ICTs to predict and understand the complexity of public services, as well as to improve the transparency and efficiency of government practices and facilitate democratic practices using e-government solutions. This paper aims at contributing to the concept of co-creation and the impact of digitalisation of public services. The article concludes that efficient decision-making for improving economic development, as well as social welfare at regional, national and local levels needs implementation of digitalised services applying new modern approaches, such as the co-creation as they inevitably become more important due to the increased digital competitiveness of countries.