Bram Steijn

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Purpose To overcome external challenges and deliver high-quality public services, public organizations must balance efficiency and innovation, becoming ambidextrous. The main purpose of the paper is to gain more insight into the impact of red tape on ambidexterity and the moderating role of public service motivation (PSM) by examining the perceptio...

Nederland telt bijna een miljoen arbeidsmigranten. Gezien dit aantal is het opmerkelijk dat het onderwerp `HRM voor arbeidsmigranten’ zowel in de praktijk als in de wetenschap nauwelijks systematisch aandacht krijgt. In dit artikel komt het HRM-collectief Future of work, een groep van hoogleraren die zich verbonden voelt met arbeidsvraagstukken, me...

© HRM-collectief Future of work. Het vertrouwen van burgers in de overheid is laag. Zij zien een overheid die er niet in slaagt complexe maatschappelijke vraagstukken op te lossen zoals de stikstofcrisis, het migratievraagstuk en de afhandeling van de kindertoeslagaffaire. Vanaf (de val van) kabinet-Rutte IV klinkt (opnieuw) de roep om een andere...

This study investigates the career consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic among both clinical and non-clinical academics in a University Medical Center (UMC) based on literature on career shocks and the Job Demands-Resources theory. The study is based on a survey conducted in May 2021 among early- and mid-career academics working within a university...

In dit artikel wordt een aantal factoren besproken die naar onze mening mondiaal van invloed zullen zijn op de toekomst van arbeid. We lichten er drie belangrijke factoren uit, namelijk ecologische, technologische en politieke invloedfactoren. Uit onze beschouwing komt een gemengd beeld over de toekomst van werk naar voren. We zien groei van vakman...

This study examines municipal enforcement officers’ role perceptions because their role has shifted from a traditional officer to a broader, social role within the community as a “city host.” Furthermore, we investigate whether role perceptions influence how officers cope with role conflicts. Interviews showed that municipal enforcement officers pe...

While it is known that life events are predictive for psychological and physiological illnesses, empirical research on the relationship between private life events and their effect on work-related outcomes in a public sector context is scarce. Based on the extended job demands-resources model, this study argues that experiencing private life events...

Civil servants’ work is being affected by an increasing variety of government reforms. As such, the role of civil servants is a major topic of research. Nevertheless, no validated measurement scales exist for how civil servants themselves perceive their own role in a complex and constantly changing environment. We develop and validate measurement s...

Attention to shaping the direction of one’s career according to personal needs and preferences is growing. However, there is limited understanding how contextual antecedents affect career authenticity. Moreover, little is known about whether antecedents of career authenticity operate in the same way for men compared to women and if the impact of th...

Background: Bringing together professionals with different knowledge and skills comes with the opportunity to spur the innovativeness of primary care teams. Nevertheless, empirical evidence shows that it is not self-evident that these innovations are also realized. The social categorization theory suggests that a better understanding of whether th...

Purpose The purpose of this explorative study is to investigate through the lens of gender the role of career shocks in career advancement experiences in academia. By taking a contextual approach, this study increases understanding of the role of the academic career script as a potential boundary for career shock implications. Design/methodology/a...

The COVID-19 crisis has affected numerous areas of civil servants’ working life. We investigate, using the JD-R model, the impact of the current crisis on civil servants’ wellbeing. Furthermore, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic might have different consequences for civil servants with various role perceptions. We distinguish between traditional,...

Governments initiate major public sector reforms for various reasons. Although change leadership appears crucial, its role in implementing reforms in public organizations receives scant attention. Insights from public administration and change management literature help to bridge the gap between these macrolevel and microlevel perspectives. Our mul...

Objectives New legislation on youth care in the Netherlands led to the implementation of community-based support teams, providing integrated primary youth care. Important aims of the new Youth Act were more integrated, timely care and less use of intensive forms of care. Our aim was to study changes in youth care use in time and the role of newly i...

This article examines the relationship between the valence of formal learning (perceived usefulness of the outcomes of formal learning for daily work and ambitions) and the employability‐related competences of public sector employees. Furthermore, the moderating roles of social informal learning and transformational leadership (TFL) are investigate...

This article systematically reviews 35 empirical articles on the topic of networks and career advancement into academic leadership positions. Our objectives in this systematic review are to clarify (a) the functions that networks fulfil, (b) the outcomes of these functions in terms of career advancement and (c) whether networks are likely to result...

This chapter deals with an important issue in every public organization: employees’ well-being, which the academic literature consistently relates to organizational performance. After addressing the definition of well-being, the chapter presents the two main theoretical lenses through which well-being is considered: the job demands–resources (JD–R)...

In this chapter, we focus on the opportunities and challenges of a specific application of artificial intelligence (AI) within the police organisation, i.e. the application of AI to the crime reporting process. Various considerations underlie the use of AI by the police. The overarching shared objective of the entire security domain is one of makin...

Although there is consensus among scholars that red tape has negative consequences, there is a lack of synthesis on these negative effects. We conduct a meta‐analysis and meta‐regression of public administration evidence and ask: What is the impact of red tape on organizational performance and employee outcomes, and which conditions moderate this i...

Post-bureaucratic, collaborative organizational arrangements possess great potential for innovation, but alignment of the dissimilar goals, values and interests of participants is required. We propose and empirically test how visionary leadership can increase innovation in multidisciplinary teams, by fostering internal team cohesion and external te...

Verschillend organiseren, verschillend functioneren? De invloed van de organisatie van Jeugd- (en Gezins)teams op het teamfunctioneren Objective: there are regional differences in the organization of local Youth Teams, that have been given a crucial role in delivering Youth Care since the transition of Youth Care in 2015. The aim of this article is...

This study aimed to unravel the complexity of interprofessional teamwork in primary care teams by testing the relationship between functional heterogeneity and team performance through the mediating role of information elaboration, and the moderating roles of directive leadership and participative leadership. The moderated mediation model was valid...

A growing body of scholars, educators and policy makers has argued for reconceptualising schools as “learning organisations” in the last 25 years as. However, a lack of clarity on the concept has hindered its advance in theory and practice. This study responds to this problem by developing a schools as learning organisations scale that expands and...

Does the school as a learning organisation affect staff outcomes? This article examines the relationship between the school as a learning organisation and staff job satisfaction and the school’s responsiveness to staff needs using a purposefully designed “Schools as Learning Organisations Survey” completed as part of an OECD study in Wales. A posit...

This study examines how changes in relational job characteristics relate to the prosocial motivation of public professionals. Drawing on relational job design theory, changes in job contact and job impact are hypothesized to covary with prosocial motivation. With a unique longitudinal design, we study youth care professionals in The Netherlands, wh...

We investigate the impact of policy consistency on frontline workers’ perceptions of policy meaningfulness and legitimacy. The results from an experiment involving 779 teachers indicate that policy consistency does have a positive effect on legitimacy and to a lesser extent on meaningfulness. However, the extent depends on policy content and the de...

Nowadays, many European countries delegate health and social care responsibilities from the national level to local authorities. In January 2015, the Netherlands similarly introduced a policy programme authorizing municipalities to set their own social welfare policy. A specific feature of this programme is that it stimulates municipalities to impl...

Managing incidents in education Incidents in organizations are inevitable. Sometimes these incidents get out of hand and reach the newspapers. But there are also incidents that are addressed in a timely and effective manner and do not escalate to become serious failures. Based on six concrete ‘near misses’ within the education sector, we have inves...

Interventions aimed at increasing priority for employee safety could lead to better safety climate and safety behavior of employees. However, current studies reporting on safety climate interventions lack diversity in contexts and settings, they focus mainly on supervisors and do not take into account the implementation process of the intervention....

Recent studies suggested that the relationship between prosocial motivation and job satisfaction is mediated by relational job characteristics (e.g., job impact and job content). Based on a study of Dutch child welfare professionals, we theorize and empirically assess how red tape negatively impacts the relational job characteristics and job satisf...

Vitality refers to the experience of having energy available to one’s self. Vital employees are full of positive energy when they work and feel mentally and physically strong. Such employees often show higher job performance and lower stress than their less vital colleagues. Despite the importance of vitality, few public administration studies have...

Over de gevolgen van de transitie voor gemeenten en cliënten wordt veel gepraat. Maar wat betekent deze omslag voor hoe jeugdhulpverleners tegen hun werk aankijken? Bram Steijn en Joris van der Voet onderzochten hoe zij gemotiveerd blijven.

This study assesses the relationship between prosocial motivation and commitment to change among youth care professionals. We draw on person–environment fit theory to propose that this relationship is conditional on employees’ perceived meaningfulness of the change for society and clients. Our results confirm the expected positive relationship betw...

Extrinsic motivation, PSM and labour market characteristics: a multilevel model of public sector employment preference in 26 countries Research findings have been contradictory with respect to the determinants of why people choose a public sector job. In this article we use an internationally comparative design with data from 26 countries to explai...

To achieve greater sustainability, governments need to continuously adapt their purchasing activities to innovations in the market. Sustainable procurement is a decision-making process in which the decisions of procurers determine if the full potential of sustainable procurement is used. The decisions and thus behaviour of procurers are therefore c...

Research mainly looked at problems public professionals have with specific policy programmes. However, policies are not developed in a vacuum. Public professionals are often confronted with (a series of) policy changes, intended to refine, replace or complement other policies. This policy accumulation results in professionals having a certain predi...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to map and understand work-family state support for the self-employed compared to employees across European countries. Design/methodology/approach – To map state work-family support policies for the self-employed, an overview of public childcare, maternity, paternity, and parental leave arrangements across Eu...

Research findings have been contradictory with respect to the determinants of why people choose a public sector job. In this article we use an internationally comparative design with data from 26 countries to explain public sector employment preference. The study shows that on the individual level, public service motivation and extrinsic motivation...

This article examines the level of work-family conflict of self-employed persons, a changing but neglected group in work-life research, compared to employees in Europe. Differences between the two groups are explained by looking at job demands and resources. The inclusion of work-family state support makes it possible to examine differences between...

Employees who show high vitality at work have a high level of activation and positive energy, and often have higher job performance than their less vital colleagues. However, few studies within public administration examine vitality, looking more often at for instance job satisfaction or commitment. This study analyzes how two important work charac...

Wanneer integriteitkwesties in organisaties opzien baren in de media, gaat het vaak om ernstige zaken en om individuen die in opspraak zijn. Het gaat bijvoorbeeld over directeuren, bestuurders, of toezichthouders die hebben gefraudeerd, zichzelf onrechtmatig of ongepast hebben verrijkt, hun vrienden hebben voorgetrokken bij aanbestedingen, of onver...

Innovation is key to ensuring that public sectors are able to deliver services efficiently and effectively while also creating a system that can cope with the many societal challenges that exist in today's world. In this compelling collection,contributors explore ways in which civil services are adapting to meet the many challenges they now face.

Background One of the main goals of Human Resource Management (HRM) is to increase the performance of organizations. However, few studies have explicitly addressed the multidimensional character of performance and linked HR practices to various outcome dimensions. This study therefore adds to the literature by relating HR practices to three outcome...

Public employees are confronted with various pressures, such as increased work demands and the need to implement controversial policies. This study uses work alienation and policy alienation models to analyze work and policy pressures. Based on a survey of 790 respondents, it was firstly found that work alienation results in less work effort and mo...

Background: In recent years, the high prevalence of mental health problems among health care workers has given rise to great concern. The academic literature suggests that employees’ perceptions of their work environment can play a role in explaining mental health outcomes. Purposes: We conducted a systematic review of the literature in order to an...

Many studies have recently been devoted to transformational leadership in public sector organizations. However, these seldom address the relationship between transformational leadership and work motivation. By combining separate findings in the public administration literature about transformational leadership style and goal setting and about the w...

Ik moet bekennen dat toen ik voor het eerst over de ‘zelfstandig ondernemende ambtenaar’ (ZOA) las, ik sceptisch heb gereageerd. Wat is dat nu weer? Zeker de volgende hype waar we over een tijdje niets meer over zullen horen? Nu ik aan de term gewend geraakt ben, ben ik echter (aanzienlijk) positiever. In dit essay zal ik eerst ingaan op de positie...

Sustainable procurement is often used to reduce negative environmental impacts related to production and consumption. Several studies in the sustainable procurement literature have identified potential drivers of and barriers to sustainable procurement, which are often organisational in nature. Using an organisational perspective, this paper examin...

With the rise of New Public Management, public organizations are confronted with a growing need to demonstrate efficiency and cost-effectiveness. In this study, we examine the relationship between public organizational performance and human resource management (HRM). Specifically, we focus on job satisfaction as a possible mediating variable betwee...

In this chapter, we explore the pressures faced by professionals when implementing public policy programs. This is relevant, as many of the pressures exerted on professionals are related to the policies that are implemented (Duyvendak et al. 2006; Freidson 2001). This chapter will specifically focus on the public professional in his relationship wi...

Over the past decade, public services have come under increasing pressure to perform like private-sector organisations. This study demonstrates that professionals have much leeway in coping with changes caused by IT developments, distributed knowledge and more demanding public which have all created new pressures on public services. The authors con...

Over the past decade, public services have come under increasing pressure to perform like private-sector organisations. This study demonstrates that professionals have much leeway in coping with changes caused by IT developments, distributed knowledge and more demanding public which have all created new pressures on public services. The authors con...

Ondanks de grote belangstelling voor Human Resource Management (HRM) bestaan er nauwelijks boeken in het Nederlands taalgebied die specifiek aandacht besteden aan HRM in een publieke context. Deze volledig herziene editie van Strategisch HRM in de publieke sector voorziet vanuit een strategische invalshoek in deze lacune. In het Strategic Human Pe...

According to many, professionals are under pressure. They are supposed to face businesslike managers, a lack of occupational recognition, excessive monitoring and accountability demands, and a lack of autonomy. The rise of managerialism is blamed for this. This book goes beyond such simple descriptions and explanations of professional work in publi...

Nowadays, public policies often focus on economic values, such as efficiency and financial transparency. Public professionals often resist implementing such policies. We analyse this using the concept of ‘role conflicts’. We use a novel approach by conceptualizing and measuring role conflicts on the policy level, thereby linking policy implementati...

Nowadays, public policies often focus on economic values, such as efficiency and financial transparency. Public professionals often resist implementing such policies. We analyse this using the concept of ‘role conflicts’. We use a novel approach by conceptualizing and measuring role conflicts on the policy level, thereby linking policy implementati...

There is a two-way relationship between HRM and IT. First, IT can affect the HR function itself. Secondly, HRM can also help IT to be used to its full potential. This chapter mainly deals with the first factor by focusing on the diffusion of electronic HRM (e-HRM). We will show that this diffusion has been rather slow, although in the last decade i...

The willingness of public professionals to implement policy programmes is important for achieving policy performance. However, few scholars have developed and tested systematic frameworks to analyse this issue. In this study, we address this by building and testing an appropriate framework. The aims have been: (1) to build a three-factor model (pol...

Een van de manieren waarop de Nederlandse overheid probeert om het lerarenberoep aantrekkelijker te maken, is via de zogenoemde functiemix. Hierdoor kunnen leraren promotie maken naar een hogere salarisschaal. Met behulp van inzichten ontleend aan de theorie over het psychologisch contract hebben we geprobeerd de houding ten aanzien van deze functi...

This editorial offers an introduction to the current issue.

Currently, there is an intense debate on the pressures facing public professionals in service delivery. Several studies show increasing discontent among professionals toward policies they have to implement. In this article, we aim to contribute to this topic by analyzing this discontent of public professionals in terms of ‘policy alienation’. The p...

The motivation of public servants in general and public service motivation (PSM) in particular have become important issues in public administration and public management research in recent years.1 Whereas the former refers to motivation in general, the latter refers to the motivation people have to contribute to society and is therefore a specific...

Introduction: governance networks, wicked problems and outcomes Governments face many complex problems that require collective solutions involving multiple actors who often disagree both on the nature of the problem and on the necessary solution (Rittel and Webber, 1973). The difficulties are often exacerbated because actors tend to have insufficie...

There is a large amount of literature and research on network management activities. This article explores the role of network managers in governance networks. It fits into the discussion of managerial activities and their outcome. This article discusses and analyses the results of a survey that was conducted in 2006–2007 among those involved in en...

During the past three decades, the performance of public organizations has become more and more of an issue. However, academic research on public administration pays relatively little attention to how organizational performance is related to work environment and human resources within organizations. In this research, work environment characteristic...

The central idea of public private partnerships (PPPs) is that added value can be achieved from greater co-operation between public and private actors. In general, the literature speaks of PPPs in which public and private actors develop a more or less sustainable co-operation through which they realize products, services, or policies together, shar...

Het is een goede gewoonte dat de redacteuren van TvA bij toerbuurt eindredacteur zijn van één van de nummers van het tijdschrift. Eén van de taken die daarbij hoort is het schrijven van een inleiding tot dat nummer. De titel van mijn vorige inleiding (bij het tweede nummer van jaargang 2009) is nog steeds actueel. Deze luidde: ‘De geschiedenis herh...

The notion of work alienation has been fascinating scholars and practitioners for a long time. In recent years, a related concept has been developed in the public administration discipline: policy alienation, which examines the alienation of public professionals from the policy they have to implement. In this paper, our goal is to study the distinc...

Innovation in the Public Sector addresses issues relevant to an understanding of the innovation journeys on which public organizations have embarked. If public innovation is defined as a necessary condition for establishing meaningful interactions between the government and society, what are the relevant issues that may explain successful processes...

Innovation in the public sector can be described as a learning process in which governments attempt to meet specific societal challenges, such as the fight against crime, the fight against rising sea levels or the fight against traffic congestion. The way in which governments are able to develop and implement new services, technologies, organizatio...

In March 2000, when the European Council met in Lisbon, it set out the Lisbon Strategy, also known as the Lisbon Agenda. This strategy is an action and development plan for the European Union (EU). Its aim is to make the EU ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and be...

There is a large amount of literature and research on network management strategies. However, only a limited portion of this literature examines the relationship between network management strategies and outcomes (for an exception, see Meier and O’Toole 2001). Most of the research focuses on managerial activity or networking rather than on the ques...

Governance networks are characterized by complex interaction and decision making, and much uncertainty. Surprisingly, there is very little research on the impact of trust in achieving results in governance networks. This article asks two questions: (a) Does trust influence the outcomes of environmental projects? and (b) Does active network manageme...

Does democracy matter? This is an intriguing question. Not only as a normative question, democracy is a value in itself that can be cherished for that reason alone but also as a question of its impact on the outcomes of governance processes. In this article, the authors look at the question of to what degree citizens and politicians are involved in...