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The purpose of this paper is to study four cases of the adoption of co-production and compare them according to the type of user involvement, contextual factors and the organizational structure.

In total, 30 interviews were conducted in four mental health organizations which are implementing co-production in the North of Italy. Interviews were conducted with clinicians, nurses, patients and family members. The data collected was triangulated with further sources and official documents of organizations. The results have been compared by means of a validated international framework (IAP2) regarding the contextual factors and the level of co-production adopted.

The adoption of co-production in the four cases differs by the activities implemented and how organizations involve informal actors. It seems to be influenced by the contextual factors specific to each organization: power, professionals’ opinions and leadership. Organizations whose practitioners and leaders are willing to distribute their power and value informal actors’ opinions seem to facilitate the systematic involvement of users. Overall, the results highlight the importance of considering contextual factors when evaluating and describing co-production activities.

This paper contributes to describing how mental health organizations are implementing co-production. It examines the influence of contextual factors on the type of co-production adopted.

Policymakers often mandate and regulate the network formation to tackle complex issues of public interest. However, the imposed legal, procedural, and political constraints (i.e. mandated specifications) can affect the structuring and functioning of these networks and thus the sustainability and effectiveness of the collaboration over time. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how mandated specifications affect the formation of public networks.

Four networks of healthcare providers were selected and studied from the inception of the collaboration until the services’ activation, focusing specifically on how mandated specifications (i.e. mandated purpose, mechanisms for access to resources, structure, and timing) affected their processes of formation.

The cases show that mandated purpose facilitates goal alignment within the networks. The leeway granted to the actors for access and internal distribution of resources enhances the network flexibility, if appropriate monitoring against opportunism is applied. If structuring requirements are too stringent and the actors are forced to respect timing constraints that go against the organic evolution of internal relationships, the network capability to adapt and solve conflicts could be jeopardized.

Based on the findings, the authors formulate four propositions about the impact that mandated specifications have on the process of network formation, which policymakers should be aware of, when deciding to instigate a network.