The idea of symbolic representation suggests bureaucratic representativeness can enhance citizens’ willingness to coproduce public services, though this effect is not always observed in real settings. While scholars have explored boundary conditions for limited effects of symbolic representation on coproduction, they typically assume fully staffed bureaucracies. How personnel status variations within

As modern governments face increasing pressure to meet citizens’ rising expectations, innovation has become a central focus for public organizations. While job autonomy is a well-established antecedent of individual innovative behavior, the moderating role of organizational culture in shaping this relationship remains underexplored. Public organizations often embody different types of culture, such

This study examines the relationship between employee compensation and bureaucratic performance within the context of state budgeting. It hypothesizes that better-compensated rank-and-file employees within state financial administration are more effective at preventing budget overruns. Using data from all 50 U.S. states from 2006 to 2020, the findings reveal that higher compensation levels for rank-and-file

This essay analyzes a watershed moment in the history of the U.S. federal civil service, driven by politically motivated reforms under the Trump administration. I explore how workforce reductions might affect key public services, the legal controversies surrounding Trump’s mass layoffs, and I project a rapid expansion of privatization. I posit how these factors might undermine responsiveness to vulnerable

Safeguarding democracy in the United States requires aggressive reinforcement of diversity, equity, and inclusion which are neither Democratic nor Republican values. They are essential values of our democracy and are deeply embedded in core democratic principles. Government has a responsibility to provide public services in a fair and just manner to all.

The U.S. federal civil service has been rocked to its core since January 20, 2025. Random, unplanned, unannounced firings are leaving every agency in doubt. I argue that those who care about good government, and public sector human resource scholars in particular, should advocate for merit principles and explain how they ensure government performance. Bolstered by lessons from the past, this is an

This study examined the effects of transactional leadership, transformational leadership, and leader feedback on job satisfaction through the mediating effects of reward fairness and organizational citizenship behavior. Using structural equation modeling, the study discussed factors that positively influence leader feedback, along with the differing effects of transactional and transformational leadership

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, new rules forced public servants to work remotely or under strict guidelines at the office. These rules were often perceived as red tape, creating a compliance burden and limiting flexibility. While red tape is commonly seen as a job demand associated with reduced well-being and performance among public servants, the effects of COVID-19-related red tape remain unexplored

Public managers implement various types of external interventions, such as documentation requirements that hold public professionals accountable to legal protocols. Motivation crowding research finds that controlling perceptions of external interventions may reduce motivation and negatively influence performance. Thus, the way that managers build support for external interventions is crucial. This

People with disabilities have long faced barriers to employment and career advancement due to persistent stigmatization. Although diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives have gained attention in public administration, their impact on employees with disabilities remains underexplored. This study investigates how DEIA initiatives influence the experience, welfare, and performance

Bureaucratic Reputation Theory focuses on external stakeholders, but it is plausible that reputation also plays an important role for internal stakeholders. This article therefore asks whether employees’ perception of their organization’s reputation matters for their organizational identification and job satisfaction. Based on a balanced panel with 193 employees from three Danish agencies surveyed

This study explores the influence of age diversity within teams on civil servants’ perceptions of organizational change. Age diversity is examined through two dimensions: age variety, which refers to the range of different ages within a team, and age polarization, which denotes the extent to which age groups are segregated or clustered within a team. Individual perceptions of change are based on how

Previous studies focusing on civil service reform efforts at the sub-national level have illustrated how such initiatives may adversely affect employee perceptions of organizational conditions. Despite the insights provided by existing literature, little is known as to how federal employees perceive organizational justice amidst uncertain contextual and political conditions, and how the organizational

Global political and economic instability have highlighted the importance of resilient governments capable of managing rapid change. However, continuous changes can overwhelm civil servants, leading to change fatigue. While prior studies have explored the impact of perceived frequent change on civil servants’ stress levels, little attention has been given to reverse causality in public management research

During crisis management, public administrators typically adjust bureaucratic rules to become more flexible. In this paper, we go one step further, asking about the factors that explain rule-breaking behavior among public servants during crisis management. We report novel qualitative evidence and findings from a preregistered randomized quasi-experiment surveyed among 448 public servants in Germany

There has been a good deal of research on sexual harassment in public sector workforces. One facet of this body of research that has not been fully explored is the potential impact of gender representativeness on sexual harassment in the workplace. In the context of representative bureaucracy, we examine if increased representation of women in the upper levels of the federal workforce is associated

A substantial body of literature examines the determinants of burnout levels among street-level bureaucrats. However, one factor that has not been investigated in relation to the reported burnout levels among public employees is the perceived level of belonging within an agency. We develop a theoretical rationale linking an agency’s level of belongingness with the employee’s reported level of feeling

Although effective job advertisements play a critical role in generating sufficient interest in potential applicants to actively pursue further relations with a public organization, insights on how such job advertisements need to be formulated in order to impact organizational attractiveness are limited. Therefore, this study examines if and how the use of imagery language in mission statements embedded

Research has shown that nonprofits led by people of color (POC) tend to have more diverse staff compared to White-led organizations, yet it remains unclear whether leaders of color inherently attract racially diverse talent. Using an online experiment, this study investigates the impact of the racial/ethnic composition of nonprofit leadership on job-seeking behaviors. While participants consistently

Despite laws such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which were intended to address equal pay and prohibit discrimination in the workplace based on sex, the gender pay gap permeates public sector employment. Unions have long represented worker rights but are more often associated with improving salaries and working conditions. This study draws on the literature explaining

Policymakers in many countries have employed market approaches to supplement traditional civil service systems, and using contract employees is a form of this labor resourcing strategy. Although business studies have suggested that contract-based employment may enhance organizational performance, few studies have explored this relationship in the field of public administration. This study examines

Fostering diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a major challenge confronting the contemporary American administrative state. The asymmetric distribution of authority within U.S. federal agencies is critical for understanding employee perceptions of agency D&I efforts. Leveraging data from approximately 2.51 million U.S. federal employees across 105 agencies between 2010 and 2019, the statistical evidence

The United States Supreme Court in Groff v. DeJoy rejected a 50-year precedent regarding the application of Title VII of the United States Civil Rights to requests by private and public employees for Title VII workplace religious accommodations. The article evaluates the impact of 73 U.S. District Court and U.S. Court of Appeals decisions decided after Groff to determine whether Groff has had an impact

Although mechanisms taking place prior to a leader training (LT) itself seem crucial for its effectiveness, public leadership scholars have so far rarely studied this pre-training stage. Drawing on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, this study aims to initiate this endeavor by identifying personal and job-related factors (i.e., resources and demands) that are linked to public leaders’ motivation

Cultivating an inclusive climate is an important concern for many public organizations, and it can be approached through various means. Research suggests that by exercising inclusive leadership, public managers may be able to support an inclusive climate. However, we still know little about the extent to which and under what conditions inclusive leadership is effective in promoting an inclusive climate

Discretionary rewards can motivate employees but increase social inequity. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, when supervisors had substantial discretion over whether and how frequently U.S. federal employees teleworked, those who did so several times a week liked most aspects of their jobs more than those who teleworked less, especially those who were denied telework. Though telework became a necessity

Although approximately a quarter of the world’s countries are officially bilingual or multilingual, the relationship between linguistic diversity and human resource management has largely been overlooked. This article advances research by theoretically considering, and empirically investigating, whether public servants’ ability to use their official language of choice at work is related to their turnover

Occupational stress and burnout remain largely unexplored as red tape repercussions, even though they can jeopardize public servants’ wellbeing, motivation, and performance. Using a survey experiment with 354 school principals conducted between November 2018 and January 2019 in Chile, we provide evidence that red tape foments burnout risks. More red tape increases emotional exhaustion, depersonalization

Public servants’ creativity is the origin of innovations, improvements and solutions to policies/services and crucial to serving public interests. Public servants, however, differ strongly in pioneering creativity—proactive generation of radical and original ideas. Using SEM on Flitspanel cross-sectional survey data from 930 Dutch public servants, this preregistered study tested hypotheses that this

There is uncertainty among emotional labor researchers as to when emotive expression leads to positive work outcomes and when it does not. This study uses the circumplex model of affect to test whether the answer lies in the interaction of display rules and emotive intensity. The model postulates that emotive experiences are two-dimensional, with gradations from positive to negative affect and from

This study investigates leadership ambition and focuses this with a simple, yet necessary perspective, the focus of race/ethnicity and gender. Many public organizations may not consider how gendered and racialized aspects of organizations can influence leadership ambition for diverse individuals. We ask: (a) How is gender and race/ethnicity related to leadership ambition? and (b) Are social networks

This research examines differences in the compensation of male and female executive directors and chief financial officers in nonprofit organizations. We utilize executive transition periods within organizations as an empirical strategy for isolating how gender impacts the salaries of two people who occupy the same role in the same organization. Two waves of IRS 990 compensation data are used to assess

Public agencies often use contractors to facilitate Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) discrimination complaint cases, but we know relatively little about which factors influence contracting performance of the complaint process. Drawing on contracting theories, this study examines two factors—incentive structure and contractor ownership (i.e., women-owned and small disadvantaged-owned)—that moderate

Occupational stigma is pervasive, encompassing street-level bureaucrats as well; however, limited knowledge exists regarding the extent and impact on this particular group. This study employs the conservation of resources theory with a chain mediation model to expose how occupational stigma affects street-level bureaucrats’ job withdrawal behavior from an emotional perspective. Based on four-wave data

Representative bureaucracy is used to understand original data, shedding light on the administrative side of the politico-administrative axis in one part of one of the world’s most contentious and divisive conflicts: the Palestinian Israeli conflict. We theorize and test six different theoretically existent roles of elite level bureaucrat (ELB) role conceptions in the West Bank. Using Q Methodology

Flexible work arrangement policies provide employees the flexibility to manage their work and personal lives. Despite various efforts of public organizations, struggles to simplify or integrate work and private life demands continue, resulting in employees’ lower satisfaction, higher stress, higher turnover, and lower productivity. Our study focuses on the social environments of individual employees

This study investigates the relationship between performance appraisal (PA) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among Korean government employees, integrating social exchange theory, prosocial values, and impression management perspectives. It analyzes how employees respond to PA’s perceived effectiveness, focusing on both direct and indirect effects of PA components alongside traditional

Religious symbols, such as the hijab, are often deemed undesirable or banned in public employment. We test if clients’ perceptions and their performance are influenced by a hijab-wearing public servant, and further test if clients’ reflections on empathy or professionalism about the public servant mitigate potential negative effects. We preregistered and conducted a two-step 2 × 3 between-subjects

Innovation is crucial for public organizations to adapt to changing circumstances. While successful innovation requires employees both to explore new ideas and to exploit current processes, such innovative work behavior is often bounded by constraints, both situational and personal. This study examines individual-level constraints on innovation by focusing on cognitive uncertainty as a personal state

The study’s goal is to examine the multi-level representation in the context of cooperation and support between black police chiefs and street-level officers. Another goal here is to re-examine and propose different critical mass models in policing. The study uses police killing data from 2014 to 2017 in the United States. Using multi-level modeling techniques, the existing critical mass model, which

Although non-managerial employees are increasingly seen as valuable sources of leadership in public organizations, their leadership behavior is rarely studied. This study zooms in on the leadership behavior of non-managerial employees and assesses whether leadership identity and previous experience in formal leadership positions affect their engagement in leadership. According to identity theory, seeing

This study increases our understanding on how to improve the well-being of street-level bureaucrats. We test the effect of social belonging interventions on street-level bureaucrats’ well-being in times of crisis. We argue stimulating social belonging is especially relevant during crises, because it mitigates identity threats caused by high levels of uncertainty and adversities. We conducted a pre-registered

What is the social responsibility (SR) an organization has to its employees? Seasoned experts have observed that existing SR literature predominantly emphasizes external SR to society while largely overlooking internal SR towards organizational employees. This can be misleading when nonprofit organizations (NPOs) provide labor-intensive social services, where the quality of labor inputs directly affects

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Yovino v. Rizo in 2020, leaving in place a Ninth Circuit Court decision that the use of salary history when determining compensation levels violates the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Aileen Rizo, a math consultant for the Fresno County School District, had argued that the basing of her starting salary on her previous level of compensation perpetuated past salary discrimination

The slowing of public sector hiring has been a tool for sector downsizing and one of the markers of the reform trajectory in public administration in Egypt. The effect of this long-term and non-confrontational approach to downsizing on the workforce of the public sector is captured in this article using a unique national panel dataset. The analysis shows that the share of public sector employment has

What are the prospects of remote work—working from home—in the context of street-level bureaucratic work? This article explores how remote work relates to performance in public service settings. Focusing on the push toward remote work induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and using survey responses from Danish frontline workers ( n = 1,578) in two types of public service organizations, we find that remote

Understanding attitudes toward affirmative action (AA) is important because it plays a critical role in the successful implementation of AA and hence diversity in organizations. The field of public sector human resource management (HRM) places a good deal of attention on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). The legal tool of affirmative action remains an important tool for achieving

In public organizations, telework quickly went from being a practice only occasionally adopted to an established way of performing job tasks. Despite the rapid spread of telework in the last few years, research on its motivational impact is still limited. Drawing from insights from social-exchange theory, self-determination theory, and the expectancy-disconfirmation model, we conducted a survey-in-the-field

This article develops an executive compensation model focusing on board governance structure in nonprofit organizations. Drawn from a panel of nonprofits in three Upstate New York cities from 1998 to 2014, the analysis shows that chief executive officers (CEOs) compensation is positively associated with interlocking directorships of CEOs and boards of directors. The results reveal that the executives

Under conditions of organizational turbulence, it is crucial to staff organizations with public servants who feel committed and capable of creating public value. However, managers may neglect training and development during turbulent times while they attempt to protect the technical core of the agency. This study draws on job demands-resources theory (JD-R) to understand the role of job-related training

Public sector labor unions and their commitment to collective bargaining are central to the study of public sector human resource management. This study explores collective bargaining scholarship in the United States as exemplified in the public administration literature. Systematically coding 220 articles from the top fifteen (mainstream) peer-reviewed public administration journals over a period

Although public service employees are regularly exposed to uncivil behavior by citizens, we still know little about the effects of these incivilities. This study aims to examine the reactions of public employees who work in a climate of citizen incivility. Using a multilevel multisource design, we examine the indirect effects of citizen incivility climate on employee withdrawal and helping behaviors

Background:On August 31, 2017, Ohio passed legislation that regulates how opioids can be prescribed postoperatively. Studies have shown that such legislation is successful in reducing the morphine ...

Dynamic cerebral autoregulation (dCA) is a key mechanism that regulates cerebral blood flow (CBF) in response to transient changes in blood pressure (BP). Impairment of dCA could increase vulnerabi...

We studied 30 healthy volunteers (60 arms), categorized into three age groups with equal numbers to verify if a 22 MHz compared with a 15 MHz ultrasound transducer has additional value for studying...

Asit Biswas and Shubh Brat Sarkar (Eds.), Dalit Poems, Songs and Dialogues from Bengal in English Translation (Kolkata: Ababil Books, 2019), 266 pp., ₹495, ISBN: 978-8-1939-3923-9 (Paperback).

Juned Shaikh, Outcaste Bombay: City Making and the Politics of the Poor. Orient BlackSwan Private Ltd, 2021, 227 pp., ₹995.