Conference Agenda

In recent years, countries such as the United States and South Korea have witnessed an intensification of political conflict between conservative and progressive forces, leading to an era of "over-politicization" where politics dominates various aspects of society. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for the bureaucracy to maintain its professional expertise and political neutrality, disrupting the delicate balance between bureaucratic professionalism and political accountability. The relationship between these two elements—long a central concern in public administration—is critical for ensuring both administrative efficiency and democratic accountability.

Conflicts between bureaucratic professionalism and political accountability can arise when political pressures force civil servants to compromise their expertise in favor of political demands. In such cases, bureaucrats may prioritize political loyalty over professional judgment. However, when political accountability functions properly, civil servants are able to exercise their expertise within a policy framework that reflects the will of the people. This balance not only enhances the legitimacy and trustworthiness of the bureaucracy but also improves the quality and effectiveness of public policy.

Conversely, when bureaucratic professionalism overwhelms political accountability, the decision-making process may marginalize public opinion and democratic representation in favor of technocratic judgment. This can weaken democratic legitimacy and exacerbate tendencies toward bureaucratic self-preservation and unaccountable governance. Even if policies are technically efficient, they may lack social acceptance and legitimacy, ultimately undermining core democratic principles such as participation and accountability.

This study seeks to explore ways to effectively balance democratic accountability and bureaucratic professionalism through an empirical analysis of bureaucratic expertise, policy independence, political accountability, administrative discretion, policy continuity, and institutional consistency. By reexamining the classical challenge of balancing professionalism and democratic control in the contemporary political and administrative context, this study contributes to both theoretical and practical advancements in public administration. In particular, amid increasing political polarization and the politicization of administration, it offers institutional and managerial strategies to maintain bureaucratic autonomy and consistency while ensuring democratic responsiveness. Furthermore, by presenting concrete policy recommendations based on empirical findings, this research provides valuable insights for fostering a healthy relationship between politics and administration.

Excellent leadership plays an important role for increasing employee satisfaction and better delivery of services to the people. Leadership styles also play a crucial role determining organizational performance, employee motivation, as well as service quality in the sphere of the public administration. Transformational leadership with its power to build perspective and inspire people, as well as providing them with individual attention have been continuously associated with the positive dynamics related to the workforce participation, satisfaction, and organizational-citizenship practices. Such leaders inspire the employees to overcome individual concerns and become innovative and share goals towards public service.

Although transactional leadership can be important in terms of supporting clarity of structure and performance pay, it can have fallen short of delivering the inspiring aspect needed to ensure long-term employee motivation and flexibility; especially within the environment of public institutions, where the nature of work can be complex and dynamic. Ethical leadership has also become another essential aspect, with the focus on justice, rectitude, and care about the living conditions in society. Studies indicate that ethical leadership nurtures and encourages trust, psychological safety and organizational citizenship attributes that considerably support the preservation of the confidence of the people and quality service provision.

The present study uses a mixed-methods design with the analysis of the previously published research papers and data collected among employees of the public sector to examine the impact of transformational, transactional, and ethical leadership styles on employee engagement, job satisfaction, and efficiency of providing services to the population. The study shall offer practical ideas available to policymakers as well as public administrators interested in undertaking leadership efforts that can improve the performance of their institutions, increase the welfare of their employees, and improve the confidence of the people in the institutions. The study would balance theoretical knowledge and practice and thus be helpful in the developing literature on the topic of leadership in public administration by providing suggestions on how to develop leaders who can address the modern challenges of governance and providing services.

Keywords: Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Ethical Leadership, Public Administration, Employee Engagement, Job Satisfaction and Public Service Delivery

The definition and development of core competencies in the public sector represents a significant aspect of the public administration reform and modernisation agenda to develop people management and public service performance. First experimented with in the private sector in the USA and the UK during the 1980s, the use of competency frameworks (CFs) then spread, under the effect of New Public Management, to the public sector in the UK, Sweden and Belgium (Horton, Hondeghem, Farnham, 2002), following specific paths in each of these countries.

In this logic of diffusion, international organisations have been playing a role in disseminating the competency-based approach since the 2000s, first and foremost the UN (2005), the OECD, through the Working Party on Public Employment Management (2011), and the European Union (2015). Since the end of the 2010s, this logic of international dissemination has been amplified.

The UN (2018) has included competencies development among the ‘Principles of effective governance for sustainable development’. The OECD (2021) has listed the shift from a logic of selection and development of HR based mainly on qualifications and technical knowledge to a “competence-based” logic, focused on analytical and behavioural skills, as one of the major challenges to respond. The OECD recommends the establishment of common CFs to identify transversal competencies. Finally, the European Commission (2023) has identified the ‘Public Administration Skills Agenda’ as one of the pillars of the ComPAct initiative to enhance the European administrative space.

In this context, some European countries, with the support of the National Schools of Government, are engaged in the definition and improvement of new CFs, also in support of the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans.

The CFs are organisational tools that aim to standardise behavioural expectations for those working in an organisation. Such models comprise a set of cross-functional competencies that can inform the processes of recruitment, training and development, career progression and remuneration (Boyatsis 1982; Spencer and Spencer 2017). The development of such models may be conducted employing various methodologies. One approach is a top-down methodology, which entails the input of management and/or experts. An alternative methodology is the bottom-up approach, which prioritises the involvement of employees in the analysis of behaviours deemed most effective for the role in question (Horton, 2000).

The paper presents and compares the experiences of France, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, and Spain in defining and implementing CFs in the recruitment and/or in the training of civil servants, with a specific focus on leadership competencies and at the influence of the international recommendations. The paper also explores how CFs are being used — or envisioned — to support performance evaluation, talent management, and the anticipation of future skills needs, based on lessons learned.

The paper is realised in the framework of the ‘Research Group on Competency Frameworks” composed by the NSGs of France (INSP), Italy (SNA), Portugal (INA), Spain (INAP) and the KTU (Lithuania).

Scholars have long recognized the importance of a positive workplace environment for a wide range of desired workplace attitudes and behaviors. The nature of interpersonal relationships among colleagues is often identified as a key to building a healthy work atmosphere. However, little scholarship has examined the factors that correlate with positive relationships between coworkers. This situation is likely due to the lack of a theoretical framework that identifies testable hypotheses about organizational climate.

However, religiosity is one individual-level trait that has the potential to explain work-related attitudes, including one workers hold about their colleagues. While religion has received little attention for explaining worker attitudes in public administration, a robust literature has been amassed by business management scholars. In much of this literature, religious employees are generally regarded to be an asset to the organization. Little attention has been paid to the “dark side” of a worker’s religiosity. For instance, religion creates strong in-group ties that lead to those who are not members of the in-group being treated less generously. Such an effect could have negative consequences for the quality of workplace relationships. For this reason, the current project will examine the relationship between individual religiosity and perceptions that public employees have about their coworkers.

The research questions to be addressed in this project are: What is the relationship between religiosity and perceptions of the quality of workplace relationships among public employees? Is this relationship moderated by the national context? What implications do the findings have for management in the workplace?

To answer the above questions, we will use data provided by the International Social Survey Programme. The 2015 Work Orientation IV module will be used which includes 37 national samples. Responses to the following survey item are used for the dependent variable in the analysis: “In general, how would you describe relations at your workplace … between workmates/colleagues?” A five-category ordinal set of response options was provided that ranged from “very bad” to “very good.” An individual’s religiosity will be measured using responses to the question: “Apart from such special occasions as weddings, funerals, etc., how often do you attend religious services?” Socio-demographic characteristics will be included as additional individual-level variables.

The cross-national nature of the data permits considering the impact of national context. In particular, government support and regulation of religion, level of religiosity in a country, and religious diversity in a country will be variables that represent the national context. Cross-level interaction terms will be created to determine how national context influences the relationship between an individual’s religiosity and their perceptions of workplace relationships. Due to the nested nature of the data and the categorical dependent variable, multilevel logistic regression models will be estimated. With the focus on cross-national variation in work-related attitudes and a consideration of the moderating effect of national context, the proposed research project directly contributes to the public personnel policies study group’s theme of “the importance of context for people management.”