How do Ownership and Control Contribute to Public Sector Bias of Citizens?
Jan Vogt, Jonas Bruder, Bernd Helmig
University of Mannheim, Germany
Public and private organizations differ in ownership and control, presumably influencing citizens’ perceptions of service delivery. Public administration research has extensively examined ownership as a contributor to public sector bias, yielding mixed findings (Marvel, 2016; Meier et al., 2022). The role of control, from monopolistic to competitive settings, has largely been overlooked (Xu & Li, 2022). Thus, drawing on the theory of motivated reasoning, we investigate how control and ownership combined influence citizens' perceptions of service delivery.
We hypothesize that citizens perceive public services delivered by public organizations as less productive but more aligned with normative performance aspects. We propose that competitive settings reduce public sector bias regarding productivity-related and normative performance aspects, whereas monopolistic settings increase it.
We will develop a 3×3 factorial survey experiment and aim for a sample of n = 1,548 German citizens, representative of age, gender, and income. The design will examine how citizens, as service users, perceive these performance aspects for public and private providers under monopolistic and competitive conditions, presenting a heating energy delivery scenario where they receive district heating with no choice options (monopoly) or gas with choice options (competition).
Our research expands our understanding of public sector bias by introducing control as a central dimension. The findings offer practical insights for public managers, providing strategies to address biases, enhance service delivery, and justify marketization or de-marketization policies.
The impact of benchmarking on decision-making processes of public managers and politicians
Daniela ROSSINI, Mariafrancesca SICILIA
University of Bergamo, Italy
In recent decades, performance management has gained increasing importance in PA and management literature. Indeed, performance measurement has become central for managing public organizations, providing decision-makers with a multitude of different performance metrics on which they need to take complex decisions.
Recently, a behavioral approach to performance management has emerged, especially looking at how people process performance information focusing on how the types, the formats and the sources of this information influence its use. In particular, James et al. (2020) highlighted that one of the variables affecting the processing of performance metrics is benchmarking, which involves presenting performance information in a comparative way. To date, however, the literature, has mainly focused on demonstrating the effect of historical versus social reference points without deeply exploring the dynamics of social comparisons and with a primary focus on citizens as the unit of analysis.
The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of different types of social benchmarks on decision-making processes through an online survey experiment conducted on a sample of public managers and politicians of Italian municipalities. The design of the experiment is a 3x3 factorial design with three independent variables consisting in the provision of comparative information and in three different dimensions of performance information (i.e. efficiency, effectiveness and equity). The dependent variable, expressing the actions taken by public managers and politicians when faced with negative performance, will be measured through a series of statements reflecting the concepts of problem definition and solution generation (Posen et al., 2018) on which respondents will express their agreement on a scale 1-10.
This study will contribute to the literature in two ways: by further investigating the impact of benchmarking on decision-making processes through different theories and by offering deeper insights into the impact of different dimensions of performance information on these processes.
The Impact of Bounded Subadditivity and Project Visibility on City Councilors’ Investment Decisions: A Survey Experiment.
Femke Eeckhoudt, Louise Surdiacourt, Kenn Meyfroodt, Sebastian Desmidt
Ghent University, Belgium
City councilors often process success probabilities, derived from strategic planning and performance information, to determine whether to invest more or less in municipal projects. Although such information can assist in making investment decisions, actual decision outcomes often systematically deviate from the predictions of rational decision-making theories. In the case of city councilors, we expect that investment decisions are impacted by bounded subadditivity and the visibility of municipal projects. We expect that city councilors are more willing to invest additional resources in a project when the investment turns an impossibility into a possibility (i.e., the possibility effect), or a possibility into a certainty (i.e., the certainty effect), than when it merely makes a possibility more or less likely. We also expect that the decision outcome is impacted by the visibility of a project: city councilors are more willing to invest in a project that is widely visible to the community compared to those with less visibility.
To study these anticipated effects, we will conduct a randomized survey experiment among city councilors of Flemish municipalities in Belgium. Specifically, we will set up a between-subjects design (6 groups) with 2 factors: success probability changes (0% to 20%, 40% to 60%, or 90% to 100%) and visibility to the community (low versus high). Additionally, we will use a within-subjects design to test whether awareness-based debiasing (i.e., explaining how bounded subadditivity may distort evaluations) for the upper and lower subadditivity groups mitigates the certainty and possibility effects respectively.
Our study aims to contribute to public management research by using prospect theory- and expected utility theory-driven interventions to improve government effectiveness for the benefit of all. Specifically, we will not only analyze decision-making biases and their role in suboptimal investment decisions but also provide insights into ways to mitigate those biases.
Performance Attainment Discrepancy and Problem Definition among Public Managers: The Moderating Role of Task Complexity
Catarina Antunes MANTAS, Joris van der Voet, Amandine Lerusse
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Public organizations must address numerous and complex policy failures expressed through performance shortfalls. Behavioral theory suggests that decision-makers search for solutions to address these shortfalls, yet public administration research largely neglects the critical process of problem definition (Cyert & March, 1963; Posen et al., 2018). How top-level bureaucrats search to understand problems remains unexplored, despite its significance in shaping problem resolution.
Our main theoretical expectation is that as performance gaps increase, decision-makers prioritize finding solutions over understanding problems. However, the complex demands of public organizations require an examination of task complexity as a crucial yet overlooked moderator. Task complexity moderates the relationship between performance gaps and problem-definition search: as tasks become more complex, decision-makers have more incentives to seek diverse inputs for understanding puzzling problems, even with increasing performance gaps.
Our study asks: “To what extent does task complexity moderate the relationship between performance gap size and the distance of problem definition search?” To answer our question, we employ a lab experiment with Dutch public managers. Search behavior is measured by asking participants to choose from audio clips representing potential team members’ inputs, selecting those they would consult to understand the problem. Problem-definition search is measured through two dimensions: search process and search quality. Our experimental design manipulates performance gap size (small, medium, large) and task complexity (low, medium, high). At the conference, we will present our hypotheses and experimental design.
References
Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. (1963). A behavioral theory of the firm. Pearson Education.
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. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0018
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