Job autonomy, role ambiguity, and procedural justice: A multi-conditional process model of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in public organizations

Job autonomy allows employees to act upon contextual knowledge to introduce performance-enhancing work process improvements. However, autonomy is not a sufficient condition for change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), as employees may lack the skills, information, or psychological safety necessary to pursue change. I propose a job autonomy-based multi-conditional process model of change-oriented OCB that takes into account the mediating role of job performance and the moderating roles of both role ambiguity and procedural justice. Using a large sample of Korean central and local government workers, I estimate a latent variable moderated mediation model. The results suggest that the effect of job autonomy on change-oriented OCB via job performance is strongest when role ambiguity is low and procedural justice is high. In closing, I argue that public managers need to be cognizant of the subtle factors that shape the impact of job autonomy on employee behavioral outputs.

Campbell 2023 Structural equation modeling job autonomy and change-oriented behavior. Campbell 2023 Conditional effect of job autonomy on change-oriented behavior.

Campbell, J. W. (2023). Job autonomy, role ambiguity, and procedural justice: A multi-conditional process model of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in public organizations. Review of Public Personnel Administration. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X231214978

Marketization and public service motivation: Cross-country evidence of a deleterious effect

The introduction of market-based competition into the public service delivery process may incentivize desirable bureaucratic behaviors but may also have unintended effects. Using a sample of public servants from 48 countries and cross-country estimates of public service marketization, this study provides evidence of a competition-based erosion of public service motivation (PSM). Second, using three different estimates of external market competitiveness, the analysis shows that the negative effect of marketization on PSM strengthens as external competitiveness intensifies. This study extends the motivational crowding literature by linking the hypothesis to contextual factors and testing the theory in a cross-national setting. 

 

Campbell 2023 Public Service Marketization and Public Service Motivation.

 

Campbell 2023 PSM as conditional on marketization and business freedom.

Campbell, J. W. (2023). Marketization and public service motivation: Cross-country evidence of a deleterious effect. Public Personnel Management, 52(1), 91–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/00910260221126694

The ontology, origin, and impact of divisive public sector rules: A meta-narrative review of the red tape and administrative burden literatures

A rule is divisive when its legitimacy is contested and divisive rules are an enduring theme of public administration research. For over three decades, this research has been shaped by red tape theory, which conceptualizes divisive rules as those which consume an organization’s resources but fail to advance its goals. Recently, however, the administrative burden framework, which prioritizes the impact of divisive rules on citizens and links their origins to political motives, has grown in popularity. We take stock of the last decade of research on red tape and administrative burden using the meta-narrative review methodology. We identify five narratives within the two research traditions and discuss their distinct research questions, theoretical mechanisms, privileged actors, and rule assumptions, as well as their strengths, limitations, and practical implications. These insights are leveraged to analyze the origins, impact, and ontology of divisive public sector rules. We also raise research questions with cross-cutting relevance to the red tape and administrative burden research traditions.

Campbell, J. W., Pandey, S. K., & Arnesen, L. (2023). The ontology, origin, and impact of divisive public sector rules: A meta-narrative review of the red tape and administrative burden literatures. Public Administration Review, 82(2), 296–315. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13527

Public participation and trust in government: Results from a vignette experiment

Securing the trust of citizens can facilitate the delivery of high-quality public services and government has a duty to act in a trustworthy manner. However, even if public service quality is high and policy sound, if decisions are made without accountability, trust in government may suffer. Public participation can contribute to the legitimacy of the exercise of government power. Using a two-by-two vignette-based experiment embedded in a survey conducted in South Korea, I test the impact on trust in government of public participation in the policymaking process under conditions of both good and poor policy performance. The results suggest that participatory policymaking marginally increases citizen trust in government. However, they also suggest that performance is the critical factor, and that participation alone cannot reverse the trust-damaging effect of poor performance. Although this research has limitations, it also has practical implications for public managers considering involving the public in the policymaking process, particularly when the costs of doing so are non-trivial.

Graph Campbell 2023 Public participation and trust in government.

Campbell, J. W. (2023). Public participation and trust in government: Results from a vignette experiment. Journal of Policy Studies, 38(2). https://doi.org/10.52372/jps38203

What factors underlie burden tolerance in South Korea? Policy implementation domain, administrative efficiency, and bureaucratic personality

Although administrative burden has been studied in relation to social policy, the experience of policy implementation as onerous is relevant to all policy domains, and citizens can experience burden in virtually any encounter with the state. Moreover, perceptions of administrative burden can be influenced by administrative values, such as efficiency. Burden tolerance captures an individual’s belief that the compliance, learning, and psychological costs associated with policy implementation are legitimate and functional, and consequently their willingness to impose these costs on policy targets. We hypothesise that burden tolerance is conditioned by both policy implementation domain and the efficiency of the implementing organisation. Additionally, we link bureaucratic personality, or the tendency to view rules as intrinsically desirable and legitimate, to burden tolerance. We test our hypotheses using a representative sample of South Korean citizens and a survey experiment. Our results suggest that, first and contrary to our expectations, policy domain does not affect burden tolerance. Second, knowledge about inefficiency negatively affects tolerance. Third, bureaucratic personality is positively related to tolerance. We also discuss the contextual aspects of administrative burden, and particularly how the East Asian and Korean policy context may have implications for the generalisability of the administrative burden concept.

Campbell Ahn 2023 Policy domain, efficiency, and administrative burden.

Campbell, J. W., & Ahn, Y. (2023). What factors underlie burden tolerance in South Korea? Policy implementation domain, administrative efficiency, and bureaucratic personality. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 45(4), 362–384. https://doi.org/10.1080/23276665.2023.2228435

Who loves lockdowns? Public service motivation, bureaucratic personality, and support for Covid-19 containment policy

Policies adopted to curb the spread of COVID-19 impose limits on individual freedom and although some citizens have consistently supported containment policy, others have resisted. Beyond political orientation, however, little research has explored the attitudinal basis of support for stringent virus containment policy. We argue that individuals with high levels of public service motivation (PSM) will more readily accept the sacrifices entailed by containment policy and thereby express stronger support for it. Second, we argue that the positive relationship between PSM and containment policy support is both mediated by trust in government and moderated by bureaucratic personality, the latter denoting a favorable orientation towards rules in general. Using a country-wide sample of 568 South Korean citizens collected in the fall of 2021, we estimate a conditional process model of support for COVID-19 policy stringency. We find that PSM has both a direct and indirect relationship with support via trust in government and that the indirect effect is moderated by bureaucratic personality, though not in the expected direction. We also report the results of a post hoc analysis which suggests interesting differences in how individuals evaluate rules that limit individual versus organizational freedom.

 

Ahn Campbell 2022 bureaucratic personality and public service motivation.

 

Ahn Campbell 2022 bureaucratic personality and public service motivation model.

 

Ahn Campbell 2022 bureaucratic personality and public service motivation indirect effect.

Ahn, Y., & Campbell, J. W. (2022). Who loves lockdowns? Public service motivation, bureaucratic personality, and support for Covid-19 containment policy. Public Performance & Management Review, 46(1), 86–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/15309576.2022.2124296