This article responds to recent calls for experimental research into the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and job performance. The author conducted a field experiment with a ...sample of nurses at a public hospital in Italy to investigate the interplay between job performance, PSM, and two conditions: exposure to contact with beneficiaries and self-persuasion interventions. Both treatments had positive effects on participants' persistence, output, productivity, and vigilance. Baseline PSM strengthened these positive effects. Moreover, both conditions caused an increase in PSM that partially mediated the positive effects of beneficiary contact and self-persuasion on job performance. The implications of the experimental findings for theory and practice are discussed.
Scholars have recently begun to investigate job design as one of the contingencies that moderates1 the performance effects of transformational leadership in public sector organizations. Drawing on ...this stream of research, we used a completely randomized true experimental research design to explore the potential of two extra-task job characteristics–beneficiary contact and self-persuasion interventions–to enhance the effects of transformational leadership on public employee performance. The participants in our field experiment were 138 nurses at a public hospital in Italy. Whereas participants who were exposed to transformational leadership manipulation alone marginally outperformed a control group, the performance effects of transformational leadership were much greater among nurses who were also exposed to either beneficiary contact or self-persuasion interventions. Follower perceptions of pro-social impact partially mediated2 the positive interaction of transformational leadership and each of the two job design features on job performance. Moreover, the performance effects of transformational leadership and the interaction effects of transformational leadership and each of the two job design features were greater among participants who self-reported higher levels of public service motivation. The implications of the experimental findings for public administration research and theory are discussed.
This article advances our understanding of the effects of monetary rewards on public employee performance and of the contingencies that may moderate these effects. In a randomized control-group ...experiment with nurses working at a local health authority in Italy, performance-related pay (PRP) had a larger effect on task performance when the rewards were kept secret than when they were disclosed. The negative interaction between PRP and visibility was stronger among participants who were exposed to direct contact with a beneficiary of their efforts, which heightened their perception of making a positive difference in other people's lives. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions that monetary incentives for activities with a prosocial impact may crowd out employee image motivation. There were no crowding-out effects when a symbolic reward was substituted for the monetary incentive.
This article provides a comprehensive overview of how policy makers, practitioners, and scholars can fruitfully use behavioral science to tackle public administration, management, and policy issues. ...The article systematically reviews 109 articles in the public administration discipline that are inspired by the behavioral sciences to identify emerging research trajectories, significant gaps, and promising applied research directions. In an attempt to systematize and take stock of the nascent behavioral public administration scholarship, the authors trace it back to the seminal works of three Nobel Laureates—Herbert Simon, Daniel Kahneman, and Richard Thaler—and their work on bounded rationality, cognitive biases, and nudging, respectively. The cognitive biases investigated by the studies reviewed fall into the categories of accessibility, loss aversion, and overconfidence/optimism. Nudging and choice architecture are discussed as viable strategies for leveraging these cognitive traps in an attempt to alter behavior for the better, among both citizens and public servants.
This article tests a broad range of cognitive biases branching out from prospect theory in the context of public policy and management. Results illuminate systematic deviations from rationality. In ...experiments 1 through 5, the framing of outcomes influenced decisions across policy and management domains. In experiment 6, public employees were prone to an anchoring bias when setting standards for responsiveness. Experiment 7 shows that public workers tend to put more effort into activities that affect higher percentages of beneficiaries, even if the absolute number of affected clients is constant. Experiments 8 and 9 suggest that public employees are more likely to stick to a suboptimal status quo as the number of superior alternatives increases. Experiment 10 provides evidence of an asymmetric dominance effect: decisions changed when a decoy was present. This article contributes to behavioral public administration by replicating and extending previous trials.
After a relatively slow policy intervention and scholarly take‐up, recent developments created the urgency for massive efforts to implement and regulate telework in public organizations. We ...contribute to this debate through a systematic review of 120 studies across disciplines. Findings from our analysis reveal a few established antecedents of telework, including individual characteristics like family responsibilities and expected productivity, but also organizational aspects like supportive leadership, and contextual features like natural disasters. Self‐reported productivity and work‐life balance stand out as telework's most widely studied outcomes, although evidence is often conflicting when coming to the effects of telework. We present our results by distinguishing pre‐ and post‐pandemic findings. Complementing our systematic review, we engage in a generative exercise by identifying emerging debates on telework in public bureaucracies. We conclude by indicating future research directions.
Combining insights from public administration, accounting, and psychology, this article explores the microprocesses by which public managers use performance information, investigating whether the ...type of performance information use and the request to justify decisions affect the way in which information is processed. The study draws on data from a series of artifactual survey experiments with Italian municipal executives. Findings show that managers process information differently under ex post rather than ex ante performance information uses. More specifically, managers are more likely to be subject to framing bias under ex post than under ex ante uses of performance information. This interaction seems to be robust when subjects are asked to provide justification for their decisions.
Abstract
Over the last decades, one of the most significant changes in the workplaces of government agencies around the world has been the introduction of telework. The relatively scant public ...administration research on this innovation and on its semantic or substantive variations such as telecommuting, home-work, remote work, and smart work has examined its effects on teleworkers and only recently on non-teleworkers. However, scholars have overlooked the relational dynamics triggered by telework. This is the focus of our study. We start by connecting telework with specific features of public bureaucracies, such as control, modularity, and the separation of professional and personal life. Next, we explore through a mixed-methods design a relational dynamic overlooked by previous studies, that is, the preferences of non-teleworkers towards teleworking colleagues and the motives behind them. Results from a discrete choice experiment with over 1,000 non-teleworking public employees revealed a remarkably strong preference toward non-teleworkers. A qualitative follow-up based on semi-structured interviews found the workplace collective as the locus of the tensions caused by telework and illuminated critical issues perceived by non-teleworkers, ensuring a more fine-grained understanding of the impacts of flexible work arrangements on the functioning of public organizations.
Abstract
We conducted three randomized experiments to investigate whether and to what extent citizens' expectations toward waiting times for public service delivery are influenced by reference ...points, either in the form of social or numerical references. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, our results provide convergent evidence of reference dependence. Specifically, informing citizens that waiting times are longer (shorter) relative to a social reference causes an increase (decrease) in expected waiting times. Additionally, due to an anchoring bias, priming citizens with a higher numerical value for waiting times extends their expected waiting times. Furthermore, in line with the expectancy‐disconfirmation model, citizens' satisfaction with the service is causally impacted by the extent to which actual performance exceeds their expectations.
While transparency is viewed as a means of improving citizen understanding of public policies and eliciting policy support, there are few empirical assessments of these relationships. We address this ...gap in the literature using an experimental design. We predict that exposure to less detailed policy information improves policy understanding, and that this effect varies according to presentation format. Further, we predict that policy understanding will correspond to greater policy support. Using a nationally representative panel of US citizens we find that exposure to detailed policy information decreases policy understanding and that the effect varies by presentation format. In addition, policy understanding is negatively associated with policy support. These findings culminate in a positive indirect effect—increasing detail reduces understanding, which in turn is negatively associated with policy support. However, interestingly, policy support was highest among those who felt they understood the policy best, yet possessed the lowest levels of actual understanding.
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