This study analyzes the relationship between trust towards and stereotyping of public employees. We also investigate whether trust and stereotyping differ among subgroups in the population in terms of region (rural and urban) and education. Finally, we experimentally assess the moderation effect of negative events in a profession on the association between trust and stereotyping. In other words, when are negative events justified as isolated incidents or proofs of stereotypes.

Public administration scholars have been studying how citizens perceive public employees for decades, although at first it was not bound to stereotyping explicitly. Classic pieces argue that public employees are lazy, incompetent, inefficient, evil, corrupt, and driven by job security (Goodsell, 2004). A recent surge in public sector stereotyping studies shows that several of these negative stereotypes are persistent to this day. Thus, several stereotypes formed decades ago persist in an ever-changing society, while the symbol of the public employee is malleable. It is important to understand how negative stereotyping forms and persists, as it is not without its consequences on public employees’ performance and image, recruitment of quality of public sector workers, and policy implementation.

As the field of public sector stereotyping is growing, there are still several gaps in the literature that this study will tackle. Firstly, little is known about the mechanisms of stereotyping of public employees (notable exception, Doring & Willems, 2021). Studies about public employee stereotyping typically examine what stereotypes do exist. We aim to tackle this gap by examining the relationship between trust, negative events in a profession, and stereotyping. Understanding if trust and negative events play a role in stereotyping will shed light on the mechanisms involved in the persistence of negative stereotypes.

Second, another substantial gap in the literature is that it approaches the topic of public sector worker stereotyping as one public – the general population (notable exception, Bertram et al., 2022). However, there is not one public. The general population is composed of a multitude of subgroups, where we cannot assume that stereotypes representative of the general population apply to subgroups in society in the same manner. Thus, examining how subgroups differ in trust and in turn in stereotyping can also shed light on the mechanisms involved.

We conducted a pre-registered, cross-sectional, between-subject, survey experiment in Canada to answer our three research questions: (a) does trust towards public employees relate to stereotyping of public employees?, (b) does trust and stereotyping of public employees differ among population subgroups?, and (c) is the relationship between trust and stereotyping moderated by negative events? Results will be presented at EGPA 2023.

References

Bertram, I., Bouwman, R., & Tummers, L. (2022). Socioeconomic Status and Public Sector Worker Stereotypes: Results from a Representative Survey. Public Administration Review, 82(2), 237-255.

Döring, M., & Willems, J. (2021). Processing stereotypes: professionalism confirmed or disconfirmed by sector affiliation?. International Public Management Journal, 1-19.

Goodsell, C.T. (2004). The case for bureaucracy: A public administration polemic. Chatham: Chatham House Publishers.

Investigating insitutional trust has a strong tradition in public administration research (Bouckaert and Van de Walle 2003; Van de Walle et al. 2008; Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2013). Blame attribution theory suggests that citizens may blame politicians for serious distrust in public service providers, however there is only scarce evidence with respect to municipally owned corporations in a private law context (Bisgaard 2015; Van den Bekerom et al. 2020).

Considering a large scale survey experiment on 2,023 German citizens, we investigated whether citizen trust in local energy providers is affected by perceptions of political influence. Evidence suggests that there is a small bias effect of perceived influence, however this effect contradicts with the blame attribution hypothesis. We find that citizens are much more positive towards direct political influence than predicted.

Performance feedback theory states that decision-makers attend to goals where performance is below aspirations (Cyert and March, 1963). However, empirical support for the theory is mixed, emphasizing the need for further research to better understand when negative performance results in learning, change and improvement, and when it does not. Our study focuses on search as a key mechanism of the theory. We distinguish between problem–definition search, which involves processing information to determine the relevant characteristics and causal origins of the issue (cf. Posen et al., 2018, p. 210), and solution–generation search, which involves processing information to identify and generate possible alternative courses of action and their consequences (cf. Cyert & March, 1963).

We examine how accountability requirements, a ubiquitous feature of the public sector decision-making context, determine search in response to negative performance feedback. We theorize how: (1) negative performance feedback increases solution-generation search, (2) accountability requirements increase problem-definition search, and (3) accountability requirements mitigate the positive effect of negative performance feedback on solution-generation search.

We rely on eye-tracking as a process tracing tool to empirically observe decision-makers’ processing of information via their eye fixation times on the pieces of evidence. Using a sample of 60 public sector decision-makers, we develop a 2x2 factorial design where participants are randomly assigned to a decision task that varies on the conditions of performance (negative/positive) and accountability (not included/included). At the conference, we plan on presenting the pre-registration of the theoretical expectations, experimental design and analysis plan.

References

Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. (1963). A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Posen, H. E., Keil, T., Kim, S., & Meissner, F. D. (2018). Renewing Research on Problemistic Search—A Review and Research Agenda. Academy of Management Annals, 12(1), 208–251.

People with disabilities are on average about 41% less likely to receive a positive response to a job application (Lippens et al., 2023). Unemployment for people with disabilities affects representation and creates poverty for people with disabilities (Riccucci & Van Ryzin, 2017; World Health Organization & The World Bank, 2011). The unemployment has been targeted by different governmental policies for years (see for instance van der Zwan & de Beer, 2021). Policies however often do not succeed in drastically reducing the employment gap. Although many studies identify discrimination against people with disabilities on the job market, few studies tackle this problem. This study concentrates on the effects of disclosure and different strategies that that people with disabilities can use during the job application process. We investigate the effect of emphasizing strengths, or the ‘claiming’ of disability. We also investigate the effect of asking for accountable justifications for a possible rejection. The ‘claiming’ intervention is based on actual accounts of disclosure strategies and survey experimental evidence of different disclosure strategies. The ‘accountable justifications’ intervention draws on insights from earlier field experiments that successfully reduced discrimination and behavioural interventions in health care that change health care professionals behavior. Our research question is: To what extent does applying a ‘claiming’ strategy or asking for accountable justifications in job applications influence employers’ decisions related to hiring people with disabilities? We test this through an audit experiment in which we send hypothetical job applications to real employers. We will present preliminary results at EGPA 2023. Results can be used by policy makers and people with disabilities to help understand and change employers behavior.

The concept of emotional intelligence (EI) has garnered growing support as a key factor in explaining public servants’ attitudes and behaviors. Public administration research on EI can be broadly classified into two main streams: (1) Studies that examine civil servants' own emotional intelligence as a predictor of their work outcomes (Brunetto et al. 2012; Guy, & Lee, 2015; Levitats & Vigoda-Gadot, 2017; Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler); and (2) Research endeavors aimed at examining how leaders' emotional intelligence affects their followers' outcomes (e.g., Ruestow, 2008; Levitats et al., 2019). While the existing studies have made a significant contribution to the PA literature on leadership and EI, they are limited in the sense that they used only one rating source, typically self-ratings, to assess leaders' EI. To gain a better understanding of leader EI and its effects on follower outcomes, both leaders’ and followers’ assessment of leader EI should be considered simultaneously, raising an important question: are there consequences to the (in)congruence between follower's and leader's perceptions of leaders’ EI for followers’ work outcomes?

This study draws from self-other agreement (SOA; Atwater & Yammarino, 1992) theory to consider how (in)congruent perceptions of leader EI influence four follower outcomes – job engagement, burnout, turnover intentions, and organizational citizenship behaviors. An SOA approach is especially valuable to topics of a perceptual, social nature such as leadership, because individuals perceive social interactions differently, and our interpretations of these interactions are deeply linked to our behaviors. The study is conducted using a large sample of employees from five public Canadian hospitals (N = 202 leaders; 2,055 followers). Using multi-level polynomial regression analysis, we find no relationships for leader-follower congruency on follower outcomes, but we find significant relationships for leader-follower incongruency on follower engagement, burnout, and turnover intentions.