The representative bureaucracy literature explores various effects of shared identity between clients and bureaucrats. Recent studies examine different types of representation, the transition between these types of representation, and the conditions that enhance representation effects. Although much of the research in this area explores factors at the organizational and institutional levels, less attention has been paid to how a client's needs or vulnerabilities influence representation effects. Using individual-level inpatient data from Florida hospitals, this study examines how gender representation influences outcomes of obstetric care and, importantly, how a client's risk level moderates the effects of gender representation. The results show that female patients experience better outcomes when they receive obstetric care from female physicians. Moreover, these positive effects of gender representation are enhanced when clients are at higher risk (at or over 35 years of age). Implications of these findings for representative bureaucracy theory, as well as healthcare administration and street-level bureaucracy, are discussed.
Leader credibility is seen as critical to successful leadership, yet its conceptual ambiguity and lack of valid measurement limit cumulative research. This article distinguishes between personal leader credibility - followers' prospective perceptions of the consistency between the leader's words and actions - and positional leader credibility - perceptions of the leadership position's capacity and reputation to deliver on intentions. A new measurement scale for both constructs, along with a single-item leader credibility measure, is developed and validated using survey data from 1,115 Danish high school teachers. The findings are replicated with 578 health care professionals, corroborating the robustness of the measures. Results show that leader credibility relates to job satisfaction, acceptance of managerial decisions, and employee behavior, and moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and public service motivation. The study demonstrates the relevance of leader credibility in general and the prospects of considering both personal and positional leader credibility in future public management research.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly employed in street-level bureaucratic encounters, giving rise to AI street-level bureaucrats (AI SLBs). Yet how specific attributes of working alongside AI SLBs shape preferences for public sector employment remains poorly understood. We conducted a discrete choice experiment (n = 1,320 observations) and follow-up interviews (n = 40) with final-year master's students in Hong Kong to examine tradeoffs among five AI SLB deployment attributes: AI SLBs' deployment intensity, performance, decision-making autonomy, workplace AI training, and AI skills development subsidies. Results reveal that participants prefer public sector jobs featuring lower AI SLBs' decision-making autonomy, AI performance equivalent to humans, provision of AI-related training, and higher subsidies for AI skills development. Deployment intensity was not a significant predictor. This study advances the literature on public sector employment preferences in the AI era by identifying which attributes of human-AI collaboration matter most to prospective workers. Given that the findings from this strategically selected group may not generalize to all public sector seekers, we advocate for further research examining a broader range of stakeholders involved in public sector employment.
This research aims to ascertain whether a prevention of corruption policy that aligns with international consensus on corruption deterrence, developed at a critical juncture and employing a big bang approach, is an effective way to reduce perception of corruption. Stemming from the strategy implemented since 2015 in the Region of Valencia in Spain, a case of good practice according to the European Union, we formulate two hypotheses and, to test them, two surveys were employed. A structural equation model is postulated to analyze the hypothesized causal relationships among the various components of the corruption phenomenon. Furthermore, both the case study and conclusions were subjected to evaluation by six key stakeholders through a semi-structured interview script with open-ended questions to ensure consistency. The findings suggest that leveraging critical junctures with a holistic and disruptive anti-corruption policy can have a positive impact, provided it fosters social empowerment supported by an effective prevention and control of corruption system. Consequently, when more people demand integrity, the control system becomes more effective. This leads to higher levels of institutional trust and a decrease in corruption perception. This gives valuable ideas that can help create effective anti-corruption strategies in similar situations.
Public-sector employees frequently need to make difficult decisions that may go against powerful stakeholders. Such choices often involve personal and professional risks and require courage from decision makers. This study operationalizes Kelman and colleagues' (2016) courageous decision-making construct and examines the relationship between ethical leadership and ethically motivated courageous decision making. Courageous decision making is particularly crucial in bureaucratic public organizations that face institutional voids. By analyzing multi-wave and multi-level data from 289 police officers and their 45 direct supervisors in Bangladesh, we found that ethical leadership influences courageous decision making through the mediation effects of ethics-focused dynamic capabilities (DCs). We advance the understanding of ethics-focused DCs by proposing a comprehensive framework aligned with the core dimensions of DCs (i.e., sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities). We also show that employees' public service motivation moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and ethically motivated courageous decision making.
There are characteristic--though not universal--differences between business and governmental organizations in how accountability is conceptualized, constructed, and enforced. Reform movements, including aspects of the New Public Management and Corporate Social Responsibility, can be construed as efforts to overcome these differences, imbuing government with the more-intensive accountability that marks the private sector, and corporations with the more-extensive accountability of the public sector. Without entirely dismissing the merits of attempting to drive convergence, this note argues the more promising approach is often to construct composite action models that allocate the aspects of an undertaking to the sector whose mode of accountability is best suited to the specific task. Appreciating the distinctions between intensive and extensive accountability can aid public managers in harvesting the benefits and limiting the risks of engaging the private sector in the creation of public value.
Public organizations often seek to encourage citizens to coproduce public goods and services by providing knowledge, information, and other resources to support coproduction. However, in a randomized field experiment, we find that an encouragement-in the form of information-may lead to unintended perceptions among citizens of being controlled. This unfortunate side effect occurs primarily among less educated citizens. Based on insights from the experiment and psychological literature, we theorize that coproduction encouragements that employ an autonomy-supportive communication style (rather than a more controlling one) will decrease citizens' perception of being controlled. Subsequently, we find support for this claim in a vignette experiment and partial support in an additional field experiment. The reduction in the perception of being controlled is again particularly evident among less educated citizens. These findings suggest that public organizations should be cautious about the communication style they adopt and that an autonomy-supportive style has advantages in avoiding unintended effects.
Misprocurement and procurement dysfunction remain persistent barriers to effective public performance in Cambodia. Despite successive waves of formal procurement reform and anti-corruption initiatives, the gap between rules on paper and practices on the ground remains wide. Drawing on long-term engagement with aid, governance, and reform in Cambodia, this article examines how procurement irregularities-from donor-financed project scandals to routine malpractices-undermine service delivery, fiscal efficiency, and public trust. The analysis situates Cambodia's experience within a broader set of low-accountability, aid-dependent governance environments, while using Cambodia as a detailed case to illustrate how weak enforcement, misaligned incentives, and limited institutional protection for officials constrain reform outcomes. The discussion integrates empirical evidence with reflective analysis honoring Steve Kelman's contributions to procurement reform, public performance, and public integrity. Particular attention is given to the role of international donors, who have often served as the primary source of procurement accountability, while also underscoring the limits of externally driven reform in the absence of domestic institutional change. The article concludes with lessons for public management reform that emphasize aligning technical procurement fixes with political leadership, organizational incentives, and credible accountability mechanisms, especially in politically constrained administrative systems facing persistent implementation and oversight challenges.
This study examines whether performance feedback produces lasting behavioral change in healthcare organizations. Although prior research demonstrates significant short-term effects, durability remains unknown. We analyze South Korea's antibiotic stewardship policy, which provided annual performance grades to providers based on prescription rates. Exploiting a natural experiment created by threshold-based grade assignments, we use regression discontinuity to track low-performing providers' responses over ten years. Negative feedback significantly reduced antibiotic prescriptions, with effects persisting six years before dissipating. We hypothesized market competition would accelerate this decay, as competitive pressures might push providers to prioritize short-term patient satisfaction over public health goals. However, competitive intensity does not moderate feedback responses. These findings reveal that while performance feedback drives behavioral change that persists for several years, organizational forgetting eventually erodes effects, suggesting periodic reinforcement may be necessary for sustained impact.
Why do some public service organizations outperform others despite the same institutional constraints? Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory, we examine how dynamic managerial capabilities (DMCs) enable dynamic organizational capabilities (DOCs) influencing performance in institutionalized contexts. Using multi-respondent survey data from 127 English hospitals, combined with independent performance ratings, we test these relationships using PLS-SEM. Findings show DMCs - collective leadership (human capital), internal and external social capital, and bias for action (managerial cognition) - strongly predict DOCs. In turn, DOCs directly affect evolutionary fitness performance. The study makes three contributions. First, it advances the microfoundations agenda by showing how managerial attributes aggregate into organizational adaptation. Second, it clarifies when direct versus mediated capability-performance models are appropriate by linking this to the evolutionary-technical fitness distinction. Third, it demonstrates hierarchical PLS-SEM for modeling multidimensional capabilities. For practice, results suggest investing in relational infrastructure, distributed leadership, risk-tolerant cultures, and stakeholder engagement to enhance adaptive performance.
To be effective, public-sector managers often need to perform competing leadership roles. Yet little is known about how individual differences shape their endorsement of these roles. Drawing on the Competing Values Framework, we examine the influence of Big Five personality traits on leadership role endorsement among Danish military officer cadets, an important but understudied segment of the public-sector workforce. Relying on 1,022 responses from a unique multi-wave survey, we find support for most of our hypotheses: openness to experience predicts endorsement of open systems-oriented roles; agreeableness predicts endorsement of human relations-oriented roles; and conscientiousness predicts endorsement of both internal process- and rational goal-oriented roles. However, our results also show that both agreeableness and conscientiousness relate to endorsement of roles across CVF leadership domains. These findings indicate a more complex pattern of relationships between personality traits and leadership roles than previously observed. Overall, the results suggest that future military leaders who value both cooperation and task accomplishment are characterized by specific constellations of traits already in the formative stage of their careers. In this way, our study advances public management scholarship by offering new insights into leadership role development among military officers.
This study examines how public employees perceive organizational reputation and its influence on their work experiences. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, Study 1 uses an experimental design to investigate how organizational reputation fosters organizational pride, while Study 2 employs a time-lagged approach to assess the impact of reputation on prosocial impact through organizational pride, with perceived organizational support as a moderator. Both studies were conducted within a police context. Findings reveal the micro-foundations of reputation, highlighting its role in enhancing public employee pride and perceptions of prosocial impact. Practically, the results emphasize the value of positive reputations and supportive environments in strengthening employees' sense of impact.
Public procurement management has experienced a significant digital transformation over recent decades. This study revisits Steven Kelman's influential 1990s vision advocating flexible, trust-based procurement. Also, it explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data implement Kelman's results-oriented framework. The review identifies three key changes: (1) evidence-based trust replacing procedural compliance through algorithmic transparency and real-time monitoring; (2) machine learning improving decentralized decision-making; and (3) efficiency shifting from cost minimization to dynamic optimization via predictive analytics. However, barriers such as algorithmic opacity, data security concerns, and organizational readiness remain. Findings highlight three critical paradoxes: AI enhances results focus while narrowing it to algorithmic metrics; blockchain transparency remains unrealized as machine learning produces "black box" decisions; and AI's "decision support" role systematically erodes official discretion. The study concludes that AI transforms rather than strengthens Kelman's humanistic values, requiring careful management of this value transformation and adaptive procurement models harmonizing AI with public values.
Do political identities shape attraction to particular public service job opportunities? Using data from a prior conjoint experiment among U.S. residents, we conduct an exploratory analysis to examine this question. Our findings indicate similarities in reactions to job attributes across partisan lines, as well as some notable differences. Compared to Democrats and Independents, Republicans express less interest in pursuing a job that involves working in a low-income or non-White community. Conversely, Republicans appear potentially more willing to accept overtime work requirements when evaluating public sector job profiles, though this result fell short of statistical significance at the traditional threshold (p = .051 and .087). Our findings suggest that individuals with different political orientations may show a modest tendency to self-select into distinct types of public sector jobs or organizations.
Sector switching refers to individuals making career moves between private, public, and nonprofit sectors. We examine how moving from the private to the public sector shape employees' values. To this end, we distinguish private sector values from those of the public sector. We theorize that sector-switchers have distinct values due to sector-imprinting, where formative experience in one sector shape individuals' attitudes and behaviors even after switching. We add novel perspectives to sector switching research by examining how values change over time through re-socialization in new workplaces, and by testing how varying "public" and "private" value contexts within public organizations can realign sector-switchers' values. Utilizing survey data collected from Norwegian ministries and central agencies (N = 2349), our analysis reveals value differences between sector-switchers and non-switchers yet presents mixed findings about re-socialization affecting value erosion and retention. We find no evidence that organizational contexts significantly alter sector-switchers' values at the individual level. This study contributes to public management and administration scholarships by enhancing our understanding about potential repercussions of hiring employees with private sector backgrounds.
