Algorithms are used in public management decisions, for instance, to allocate police staff to potential crime scenes. We study how the usage of algorithms for managerial decisions affects procedural ...justice as reported by public employees. We argue that some public management practices may be more suitable for algorithmic decision-making than others. We hypothesize that employees' perceptions differ depending on the complexity of the practice at hand. We test this through two survey experiments on 109 Dutch public employees and 126 public employees from the UK. Our results show that when a decision is made by an algorithm for practices that are low in complexity, procedural justice increases. Our results also show that, for practices that are high in complexity, decisions involving a public manager are perceived as higher in procedural justice compared to decisions that were made automatically by computers using algorithms. Nevertheless, adding an algorithm to a public manager's decision-making process can increase procedural justice for high complexity practices. We conclude that managers should explore automation opportunities for low complexity practices, but to be cautious when using algorithms to replace public managers' decisions for high complexity practices. In the latter case, transparency about algorithms and open dialogues on perceptions could be beneficial, but this should not be seen as a panacea.
•Using algorithms for managerial decisions can affect employees' procedural justice•Effects depend on complexity and are largest when algorithms are automated•For low complexity practices, including algorithms increases procedural justice•For high complexity practices, automating algorithms decreases procedural justice
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Research on the role of public service motivation (PSM) relating to work performance has been a significant topic in recent years; however, the relationship between PSM and job performance remains ...mixed. To investigate whether job attitudes mediate the effect of PSM on public employees’ turnover intention, this study integrated job satisfaction and organizational commitment into a single model. Based on a sample of 587 full-time Chinese public employees, our findings revealed that job satisfaction and organizational commitment, respectively, mediated the negative association between PSM and employees’ turnover intention. Multiple mediation analysis indicated that job satisfaction and organizational commitment sequentially mediated the effects of PSM on turnover intention. As a result, our findings suggested that public employees with high PSM levels preferred to stay in the public organizations. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.
Despite the relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction is widely discussed, rare studies explore the theoretical mechanism of this relationship.
Through integrating public ...service motivation, role overload, job satisfaction, and marital status, this study explores psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions of the relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction. Data was collected from 349 public employees in eastern China.
Empirical results reveal that public service motivation is positively related to job satisfaction by decreasing role overload. Moreover, marital status moderates the relationship between role overload and job satisfaction, as well as moderates the indirect effect of public service motivation on job satisfaction through role overload.
These findings advance our understanding of the psychological mechanism and conditional effect of PSM in relation to job satisfaction and provide valuable insights into how to improve public employees' well-being.
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