Citizen Acceptance of Co‐Designed Public Sector Innovation

ABSTRACT This experimental study examines user involvement in the co‐design stage of public sector innovations in relation to citizen acceptance of these innovations. We analyze 603 citizen evaluations of 12 co‐designed innovation prototypes. Results show that involving a few users can benefit many citizens. Partially co‐designed innovation prototypes, with users co‐defining the problem but professionals developing the solution, are perceived by citizens to be of higher quality than prototypes developed by professionals only, resulting in greater innovation acceptance in terms of perceived usefulness and ease of use. However, for fully co‐designed innovation prototypes, we do not find these positive results.