Venture financing through social networks has become a global phenomenon. The processes and drivers of crowdfunding require careful study to identify similarities and distinctions from traditional venture finance. The demonstration of project legitimacy is especially interesting because online crowdfunding limits investors' access to the entrepreneur and organisation. How do rewards-based crowdfunding projects establish and demonstrate legitimacy in this virtual, impersonal context? We employ a novel data-set collected from the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform to explore the characteristics of successful projects, including legitimating signals and content. The data reveal numerous findings linking project characteristics to legitimacy and success. First, lower funding targets and shorter duration signal legitimacy by setting modest, achievable expectations. Rewards structures, such as traditional equity investment terms, appear to generate a sense of legitimate investment returns. Finally, narrative legitimacy in the online crowdfunding context may derive more from the online platform community than the visual pitch. Our study reveals a more nuanced picture of legitimacy formation during rewards-based crowdfunding, with implications for theories of resource assembly and the practice of venture finance.

In this paper we argue that the new public management has been a flawed paradigm for public services delivery that has produced very internally efficient but externally ineffective public service organizations. Subsequently we develop the SERVICE framework for sustainable public services and public service organizations. This framework is rooted within the public‐service‐dominant business logic and emphasizes the need for a focus on external value creation rather than internal efficiency alone.

We have argued for public services to move away from product-dominant logic towards a service approach . By taking a services orientation the experience, inter-organisational and systemic nature of public services delivery can be considered along with the role of the service user as a co-producer. In this paper we unpack how co-production can be operationalized through the application of service blueprinting. The paper presents an example within Higher Education where the creation of a blueprint brought together staff and students to focus on the design of student enrolment. Resulting in improved student experience and supporting co-production. KeywordsCo-production, Higher Education, Service Blueprinting, Service Management 2 Operationalizing Co-Production in Public Service Delivery: the Contribution of Service Blueprinting IntroductionIn recent papers we have argued for public services to move away from a product-dominant logic where production and consumption are separated as discrete processes -and thus public services are conceptualized as products to be designed and produced by public policy makers and service professionals and consumed (relatively) passively by service users. Rather we have argued for the need to embrace a (public) services dominant logic that places the service experience at the heart of public services delivery . By taking such an approach to public services the issue of the distinctiveness of the service experience, the often inter-organisational and systemic nature of public services delivery, and the issue of the role of the service user as the shaper, co-producer and evaluator of the service experience can be considered. Whilst co-production has been an aspiration of public management for several decades, only recently have attempts been made to understand and implement this through an application of services management knowledge (XXXX & XXXX 2013).In this paper we aim to unpack a services approach to co-production in public services further by illustrating how it can be operationalized through the application of service blueprinting.In particular, the paper will present a re-analysis of an empirical example within Higher Education from the UK where the creation of a blueprint brought together staff and students to focus on the service design of student enrolment, and with positive impacts upon the quality and performance of this element of the higher education experience. This re-analysis will examine the potential of service blueprinting both as a conceptual tool through which to understand the co-production of public services and as a practice tool through which to map and enhance co-production in the provision of public services. As such the paper is a response to the call by, amongst others, Ferlie et al (2003), Andrews & Boyne (2010) and Head (2010) both to generate substantive public management theory and to make this theory relevant to policy and practice.Paper overview. Co-production is an important debate within public management. It goes to the heart both of effe...

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This paper explores the relationship between risk and innovation in public services, presenting the state of the literature across different disciplines and the academic and policy literature. It suggests a novel framework to approach risk, emphasising the importance of differentiating between different types of risk and risk management. The paper offers a typology of risk types and management approaches that indicates different effects on the type of public service innovation. It concludes by considering the implications for theory and practice.

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