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Currently, there is an intense debate on the pressures public professionals face in service delivery. Many professionals show increasing discontent toward policies they have to implement. In healthcare, psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists demonstrated against plans of the government to implement Diagnosis Related Groups (Diagnose Behandeling Combinaties, DBC's). Furthermore, many secondary school teachers had difficulties identifying with the Second Phase policy (Tweede Fase). These examples are not unique: public professionals often appear to have difficulties identifying with the policy they have to implement. This can have severe consequences for policy performance, but also for the work lives of these professionals. To date, there is no coherent, theoretical framework for analyzing this topic. In this study we build a theoretical framework of 'policy alienation'. Policies in healthcare, social security and education are analyzed, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. We selected policies which had a high degree of policy alienation, as well as policies which were more positively received. The conclusions of this study challenge common assertions about the reasons for resistance of public professionals towards policies. For instance, we found that professionals often agree with the business goals of new policies. They are unwilling to implement such a policy not because it focuses on business goals, but because it would not achieve those business goals. Furthermore, we nuance the impact of professi

Nowadays, many public professionals face identification problems towards public policies they have to implement; that is, they experience policy alienation. We conceptualize policy alienation, starting from the sociological concept of alienation and showing how this can be used in the realm of policy implementation. Policy alienation occurs when a professional a) perceives he cannot influence the policy b) perceives the policy as meaningless and c) experiences conflicts between different groups (for example clients and management) because of the policy. We explore the effects of policy alienation by applying it to Dutch high school teachers implementing a new policy intended to prepare students better for higher education, in a small case study based on content analysis. We observe that when teachers experience policy alienation, their job satisfaction decreases. Next, the perceived workload of teachers implementing the policy increases when they experience policy alienation. Last, teachers experiencing policy alienation seem to be less effective in implementing the policy.

Innovation in the public sector is high on the agenda of politicians, civil servants and societal organizations. This attention in practice is mirrored in an increasing number of scholarly articles. In this introduction to the special issue on public sector innovation, we discuss how the scholarly perspectives on innovation have changed. Previously, it was assumed that innovation could be organized within organizations: if your organization had the necessary resources, innovation could happen. Nowadays, innovation in the public sector is seen as an open process of collaboration between stakeholders across various organizations. This change towards open and collaborative approaches has consequences for studies on innovation, for instance, it becomes important to analyse how to activate stakeholders to join the innovation process. Next to this, scholars interested in innovation should connect their research with other literature streams, such as those focused on network governance, leadership and design thinking. In such ways, innovation scholars can develop research that is relevant to society.

In this study, we aim to replicate and extend the negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction by conducting an experiment via the online crowdsourcing service MTurk. Our findings indicate that a higher level of red tape is indeed associated with lower procedural satisfaction. We also find support for a statistically significant interaction between red tape and political ideology; the negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction is stronger for individuals with more conservative political views. These findings confirm the pathological nature of red tape and affirm the relevance of experimental red tape research.

Innovation in the public sector is high on the agenda of politicians, civil servants and societal organizations. This attention in practice is mirrored in an increasing number of scholarly articles. In this introduction to the special issue on public sector innovation, we discuss how the scholarly perspectives on innovation have changed. Previously, it was assumed that innovation could be organized within organizations: if your organization had the necessary resources, innovation could happen. Nowadays, innovation in the public sector is seen as an open process of collaboration between stakeholders across various organizations. This change towards open and collaborative approaches has consequences for studies on innovation, for instance, it becomes important to analyse how to activate stakeholders to join the innovation process. Next to this, scholars interested in innovation should connect their research with other literature streams, such as those focused on network governance, leadership and design thinking. In such ways, innovation scholars can develop research that is relevant to society

In this study, we aim to replicate and extend the negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction by conducting an experiment via the online crowdsourcing service MTurk. Our findings indicate that a higher level of red tape is indeed associated with lower procedural satisfaction. We also find support for a statistically significant interaction between red tape and political ideology; the negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction is stronger for individuals with more conservative political views. These findings confirm the pathological nature of red tape and affirm the relevance of experimental red tape research.

Public service delivery in the contemporary American state is becoming increasingly challenging. As the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) shows, new social policies combine high technological and cognitive demands on citizens and government with budget austerity, decentralization and political polarization. Yet, as we argue in this paper, the ACA also shows how frontline workers cope with these challenges by focusing on improving client experiences and policy outcomes. In particular, we consider how non-governmental social-service professionals, critical to contemporary service delivery, cope with high caseloads, legal rigidity, and a lack of policy knowledge on the part of citizens. Variation in coping techniques is consequential; rationing care to deal with large numbers of high-demand clients may lead to poorer service and citizen dissatisfaction. By contrast, techniques like learning and rule bending may actually improve citizens' experience of policy. To examine patterns of coping in ACA implementation, we present the results of 21 in-depth interviews with navigators, assisters, and Certified Application Counselors in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Across both states, our respondents coped by engaging in instrumental action (learning & collaboration) and rule bending, rather than rationing care, routinizing their work, or rigidly adhering to rules. While these pro-client techniques are both fiscally and organizationally constrained, our interviews reveal that social-service professionals use them even in especially adverse circumstances.

__Abstract__ In the public administration discipline, there have been various important studies on leadership. However, scholarly inquiry still lags behind related disciplines such as psychology and business administration. This study contributes by developing and validating scales measuring public leadership behavior. Based on theory and empirical analyses, five key public leader behaviors are identified and measured: (1) accountability leadership (6 items), (2) lawfulness leadership (4 items), (3) ethical leadership (7 items), (4) political loyal leadership (5 items) and (5) network governance leadership (7 items). The factor structure was tested using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Public leadership behaviors were related as expected to transformational leadership and leadership effectiveness. Furthermore, public leadership behaviors were related as expected to outcomes such as organizational commitment (positive), work engagement (positive) and turnover intentions (negative). In sum, the results suggest that the public leadership questionnaire is a valid measurement instrument that can be used by scholars to analyze public leadership questions. In the concluding section, we develop a future research agenda and discuss the potential uses of the public leadership questionnaire for scholars and practitioners.

Abstract In the public administration discipline, there have been a number of important studies on leadership. However, here, scholarly inquiry still lags behind related disciplines such as psychology and business administration. This article contributes by analyzing the role public leaders can play in making work more meaningful for their employees, which in turn positively influences employees' job outcomes. More specifically, it analyzes the mediating role of work meaningfulness in the relationships between Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and organizational commitment, work effort, and work-to-family enrichment. Samples from education, healthcare, and local government are used. Results show firstly that leadership strongly influences work meaningfulness, which in turn influences job outcomes. Secondly, it was found that the impact and extent of leadership and work meaningfulness are higher in healthcare and education than in local government. The results emphasize the importance of leadership and meaningful work in the public sector.

We investigate the impact of policy consistency on frontline workers' perceptions of policy meaningfulness and legitimacy. The results from an experiment involving 779 teachers indicate that policy consistency does have a positive effect on legitimacy and to a lesser extent on meaningfulness. However, the extent depends on policy content and the degree of autonomy. Overall, our findings emphasize the potential positive impact of policy consistency. Although this, to some extent, conflicts with the nature of political decision- and policy-making (i.e., democratically elected governments have been mandated to change policy), our study suggests that policy consistency could be a valuable strategy for governments to strengthen successful policy implementation. This adds a new perspective to the continuing debate within policy implementation and street-level bureaucracy research on how to account for the complex, messy and sometimes contradictory implementation of public policies.

A large portion of the everyday discourse about leadership and leaders takes it for granted that leaders make a big difference in terms of performance. The football managers discussion is one clear example, the wider fascination with business leaders likewise marks this association – and so too the fascination with political leaders. However, the academic literature finds it hard to find reliable evidence for a clear association, because both main concepts (leadership and performance) are broad and difficult to define and because of many confounding variables that make it difficult to demonstrate clear cause and effect. But while some academics have seemingly abandoned the attempt to tackle this difficult but central subject, there are some who seek to trace the relationship. It can be shown that a change of leader does produce some kind of performance outcome. For example, appointments of some leaders and the dismissal of others can trigger dramatic shifts in stock prices. In this chapter we will systematically examine the relationship between leadership and performance, both theoretically (section 2) and empirically (section 3). In section 4 we will use public leadership and performance as illustrative of our analysis. We will conclude with an overview of the current state of the literature and we will outline a research agenda. Overall, we show that empirical studies have mainly found positive relationships between leadership and performance, although effect sizes vary considerably. However, cross-sectional designs with subjective performance measures tend to find relatively strong effects. Therefore, we advocate a systematic approach to studying the leadership-performance relationship with attention to research designs, and we urge that more panel designs and experimental designs are applied in future studies, because these enable scholars to assess changes over time and getter a much better grasp of causality.

Western governments are increasingly trying to stimulate citizens to coproduce public services by, among other strategies, offering them financial incentives. However, there are competing views on whether financial incentives stimulate coproduction. While some argue that financial incentives increase citizens ' willingness to coproduce, others suggest that incentives decrease their willingness (i.e., crowding out). To test these competing expectations, the authors designed a set of experiments that offered subjects a financial incentive to assist municipalities in helping refugees integrate. The experiment was first conducted among university students within a laboratory setting. Then, the initial findings were replicated and extended among a general adult sample. Results suggest that small financial rewards have no effect: they neither increase nor decrease people's willingness to coproduce. When the offered amount is increased substantially, willingness to coproduce increases only marginally. Hence, financial incentives are not a very costefficient instrument to stimulate coproduction

Effective health system reform requires support from health care professionals. However, many studies show an increasing discontent among health care professionals toward certain government policies. When professionals resist implementing policies, this may have serious consequences for policy effectiveness.

Background: Effective health system reform requires support from health care professionals. However, many studies show an increasing discontent among health care professionals toward certain government policies. When professionals resist implementing policies, this may have serious consequences for policy effectiveness. Objective: To develop and test a model for explaining resistance of health professionals to implement policies, based on three dimensions: societal benefits (such as improving efficiency), patient benefits (such as improving quality for individual patients) and personal benefits for professionals (for example increased income or fewer administrative burdens). Methods: We conduct a survey among 1317 Dutch psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists in 2010 who had to implement a new policy: Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs). The dependent variable is professionals' resistance to implement these DRGs. As independent variables we develop scales to measure perceived societal benefits, patient benefits and personal benefits. Socio-demographic variables are also included. Results: The model worked adequately in that the three benefit dimensions, together with control variables, explained 43% of the variance in resistance to implement DRGs. Results indicate that health professionals were overall quite resistant towards the policy. The main reason was widespread belief that DRGs neither contribute to care quality nor help to control costs (low societal benefits). Resistance can also be explained by fears for one's personal status, income, and administrative burdens. Professionals furthermore doubt whether the policy is beneficial for patients, although this dimension is the least influential, which was unexpected. Perceived effects on patient choice, furthermore, do not contribute to willingness or resistance to work with DRGs. These insights can help in understanding why health care professionals embrace or resist the implementation of particular policies.

Behavioral public administration is the analysis of public administration from the micro-perspective of individual behavior and attitudes by drawing upon insights from psychology on behavior of individuals and groups. We discuss how scholars in public administration currently draw on theories and methods from psychology, and related fields, and point to research in public administration that could benefit from further integration. An analysis of public administration topics through a psychological lens can be useful to confirm, nuance or extend classical public administration theories. As such, behavioral public administration complements traditional public administration. Furthermore, it could be a two-way street for psychologists who want to test the external validity of their theories in a political-administrative setting. Finally, we propose four principles to narrow the gap between public administration and psychology.