Gregg Van Ryzin

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey | Rutgers ·  School of Public Affairs and Administration

This study compares surveys of user and community co-delivery of prevention activities internationally, exploring both the level of co-delivery, as revealed by citizens, and the characteristics of those citizens most likely to co-produce. It draws upon a baseline survey of five EU countries in 2008, more recent updates from two of these countries i...

Despite its grounding in prestigious theories of behavioral science, the findings of both academic and applied behavioral public administration (BPA) have tended to present a rather mixed picture of often contradictory results that appear highly context dependent. And more developed theory and better methods may not do much to remedy the situation....

Recommended reporting guidance for experiments in public management and related research.

Representative bureaucracy has been investigated empirically and debated normatively, but there exists little evidence about how the general public views representative bureaucracy—especially the legitimacy of active representation. Using a survey experiment, this study explores people's fairness judgments of active representation in two important...

Symbolic representation and bureaucratic reputation both refer to perceptions of government agencies, but few studies have examined how these concepts interact. We employed a survey experiment in a Brazilian favela, a unique audience of vulnerable citizens defined by the intersectionality race, class, and spatial segregation, to probe how citizens...

In addition to descriptive and definitional questions, there remain important causal questions about the antecedents and consequences of coproduction. In this chapter, we review studies in public management and related fields that used randomised experiments as a method of research to investigate important causal questions about co-production. Our...

Despite calls for an evidence-based focus on outcomes as a way to enhance accountability for public performance, findings from a prior study suggest that the public may be more impressed by high frequency (low cost) but ambiguous outputs (such as people served) rather than more meaningful but costly outcomes (causal effects). We attempt to replicat...

Transparency is popularly believed to enhance the public's trust in government, yet experimental studies have found mixed results. One explanation is that public trust may respond more positively to a kind of “latent transparency” in which citizens highly value the mere potential for open access to government information, even if they may have more...

A growing body of empirical work suggests that identifying the actors formally tasked with implementing policy can focus attention away from incumbent politicians. We examine the effects on blame attribution and voting intention of (a) the identifiability of a responsible policy worker (administrator), and (b) the evaluability of the policy work or...

Cambridge Core - Organisation Studies - Behavioral Public Performance - by Oliver James

Evidence suggests that citizens evaluate government performance differently when equivalent performance information is presented with either a positive or negative framing—but do experienced public managers also suffer from this framing effect? To address this question, we conducted an experiment with 191 public service professionals in the U.S. in...

Bureaucratic reputation has been defined as a set of beliefs about a public organization’s capacities, roles, and obligations that are embedded in a network of multiple audiences (Carpenter, 2010). Although one of the most important audiences in a democracy is the citizenry, very little empirical investigation has looked at citizens’ beliefs about...

Behavioral public administration (BPA) research aspires not only to draw on developments in behavioral science but also, importantly, to address central themes in public administration. By focusing a symposium on bureaucratic red tape, administrative burden, and regulation, we encouraged BPA scholarship to engage with fundamental public administrat...

Bureaucratic reputation in the eyes of citizens : An analysis of US federal agencies Bureaucratic reputation has been defined as a set of beliefs about a public organization’s capacities, roles, and obligations that are embedded in a network of multiple audiences (Carpenter, 2010). Although one of the most important audiences in a democracy is the...

Recent studies find motivated reasoning in citizens' processing of information about public performance. Using experiments in the US and Denmark, we examine effects on an accuracy-based task of two forms of motivated reasoning: partisan identity-based reasoning and reasoning from ideology-based governance preferences (favoring either the public or...

Many official statistics reported to the public appear in the form of rates, such as crimes or diseases per 100,000 people, with the choice of a base number (for example per 1,000,000, per 100,000, or per 1,000) remaining largely a matter of the choices or traditions of statistical agencies. Because prior studies have shown that people tend to judg...

Recent studies find motivated reasoning in citizens’ processing of information about public performance. Using experiments in the US and Denmark, we examine effects on an accuracy-based task of two forms of motivated reasoning: partisan identity-based reasoning and reasoning from ideology-based governance preferences (favoring either the public or...

While previous research has investigated how coproduction can improve the quality and efficiency of public services, less is known about its effects on how citizens view government. Thus, we investigate how coproduction may influence trust in government using a series of survey experiments. Although our main results are generally in the expected di...

Despite growing interest in bureaucratic reputation as a theoretical construct, the field lacks a standardized measure that can be used in surveys to capture individual-level variation in the reputation judgments of citizens and other audiences. The aim of this study, therefore, is to develop a standardized, individual-level measure of bureaucratic...

Evidence‐based management is on the rise as a strategy to promote more rational decision‐making and effectiveness in governance and public service delivery. To understand how widespread the use of evidence is among managers in various settings, and why evidence is emphasized more in some settings than others, it is necessary to have a good measure...

Employing a theoretical framework of symbolic representation, our study examines whether varying the representation of black police officers in local agencies influences how black and white citizens judge the agency's performance, trustworthiness, and fairness in terms of civilian complaints of police misconduct. We use an online survey experiment...

This article introduces the symposium on the emerging subfield of behavioural public administration. The nine articles of the symposium each combine a focus on behavioural theory with the use of experiments as the method for testing theoretical expectations. The contribution of this work to public administration theory is revealed in the expanding...

Interest in experimental research in public management is on the rise, yet the field still lacks a broad understanding of its role in producing substantive findings and theoretical advances. Written by a team of leading international researchers, this book sets out the advantages of experiments in public management and showcases their rapidly devel...

Introduction Red tape (or, more precisely, red ribbons or strings), an attractive and useful physical artifice for securing official documents in the late Middle Ages, ceased to be a symbol of order and efficiency long ago (Bozeman 2000; Brewer and Walker 2010). Instead, modern lexical usage of the term bureaucratic red tape has been unequivocally...

The growth in the use of experiments in public management over recent years is reflected in the studies that are set out in this volume. We have framed the discussion in the context of the discipline and the current and potential contribution of experimentation. The substantive contributions are increasingly broad and deep, and span a range of rese...

Introduction Before the 1990s, there was very little public management research that employed experimental methods, despite some evidence of early experimentation in the classical roots of public management as discussed in Chapter 3. Margetts (2011), in her review of public management studies using experimental methods, found only a scattering of e...

Introduction This chapter introduces key concepts in causal inference, with a focus on the design and analysis of experiments. It is principally aimed at readers who do not have formal training or extensive experience in experimentation but who want to get the most out of the chapters in this volume, critically interpret experimental studies and th...

Introduction Over the past decades, public management and administration research has generated a vast body of knowledge using survey research. Some even argue that surveys have become the modus operandi for much contemporary public management scholarship (Groeneveld et al. 2015). Indeed, a large share of published empirical evidence about public m...

Introduction Citizen satisfaction with public services and organisations has been a consistent topic of investigation for several decades in public management research. This interest is in large part because satisfaction has become a key outcome that government agencies seek to measure as a valuable indicator of performance (Roch and Poister 2006;...

Introduction Representative bureaucracy as a topic within the field of public administration and management reaches back more than half a century to the work of J. Donald Kingsley (1944). The initial work approached the topic descriptively and normatively, asking to what extent is the bureaucracy representative of the people it serves and to what e...

Interest in experimental research in public management is on the rise, yet the field still lacks a broad understanding of its role in producing substantive findings and theoretical advances. Written by a team of leading international researchers, this book sets out the advantages of experiments in public management and showcases their rapidly devel...

Introduction There is an emerging experimental approach to public management research that is reflected in a substantial increase in published studies using this method. Experimental studies are becoming more common across a broad range of topic areas in public management and, relatedly, public organisations and public services. This trend is, in p...

Scholars and practitioners have long questioned whether the race, ethnicity, and gender of public bureaucrats matter to the efficacy and legitimacy of public services. Representative bureaucracy theory and research provide a growing body of empirical evidence that it does. This article examines some of the rich scholarly work that has been generate...

This chapter introduces key concepts in causal inference, with a focus on the design and analysis of experiments. It is principally aimed at readers who do not have formal training or extensive experience in experimentation but who want to get the most out of the chapters in this volume, critically interpret experimental studies and their findings,...

Public performance reporting is often promoted as a means to better inform citizens? judgments of public services. However, political psychology has found evidence of motivated reasoning, with citizens? accuracy motives often supplanted by biased searching for and evaluation of information to defend prior political attitudes, beliefs or identities....

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which public service motivation (PSM) can be explained by the big five personality factors. Design/methodology/approach Original data are gathered from two online surveys of public service professionals from across the USA. The two surveys employ the same measures of personality traits...

Representative bureaucracy has been a topic of research for over half a century, but only recently studied experimentally. Initial empirical findings from two prior experiments – one involving policing, the other recycling – showed gender representation effects on citizens’ trust and cooperation. In this conceptual replication, we examine gender re...

Contrarily to most studies of the antecedents of public service motivation (PSM) focusing on the proximal work environment or personal characteristics, we seek to explore plausibly important deep antecedents of PSM that lie in the formative years of a person’s upbringing. Using an online survey of public service professionals that asked detailed ba...

Government performance measurement is often faulted for focusing on outputs, while citizens are said to demand more information on outcomes to hold government accountable. To compare the influence of these measures, we randomized 774 participants to receive outcome or output information about a real HIV prevention program, with or without cost info...

Relying on the theory of representative bureaucracy—specifically, the notion of symbolic representation—this article examines whether varying the number of female public officials overseeing a local recycling program influences citizens’ (especially women's) willingness to cooperate with the government by recycling, thus coproducing important polic...

The 'end of history illusion' refers to the tendency of people to underestimate change in their future values and preferences. Could this cognitive bias apply to the work motivations of those in public service? To examine this question, a sample of public service professionals was asked about their current work motivations and then randomized to be...

The choice-overload hypothesis states that increasing the number of alternatives reduces people’s motivation to choose. Possible adverse effects of choice overload in liberalized public service markets have been discussed repeatedly, however, an empirical evaluation of whether this holds true is missing. In this study, we extend and test the theory...

User and community co-production of public services first became topical in the late 1970s, both in private and public sectors. Recent interest has been triggered by recognition that the outcomes for which public agencies strive rely on multiple stakeholders, particularly service users and the communities in which they live. Extra salience has been...

Initiatives to boost public trust of government often rely on better reporting of the efforts and accomplishments of government agencies. But if citizens disbelieve the performance reports of agencies, especially information about good performance, then these initiatives may be do little to enhance trust. We ask the following questions: Do citizens...

It is often assumed that citizens evaluate government based on service quality or outcomes (such as safe neighbourhoods or good schools), but aspects of administrative process (such as fairness and respect) are also important. Using data from two US surveys, this study examines how service quality and administrative process influence citizens’ eval...

This paper analyses public support for government spending on science and technology (S&T) and its determinants. It constructs hypotheses based on previous findings from two streams of research: public preferences for government spending and public understanding of science. Using data from a large national survey in Spain, it develops multivariate...

This paper analyses public support for government spending on science and technology (S&T) and its determinants. It constructs hypotheses based on previous findings from two streams of research: public preferences for government spending and public understanding of science. Using data from a large national survey in Spain, it develops multivariate...

Drawing on the theory of representative bureaucracy, specifically the theory of symbolic representation, we examine whether or not gender representativeness in a police department’s domestic violence unit influences how citizens judge the agency’s performance, trustworthiness, and fairness. To examine this question, we use an online survey experime...

Performance management is widely assumed to be an effective strategy for improving outcomes in the public sector. However, few attempts have been made to empirically test this assumption. Using data on New York City public schools, we examine the relationship between performance management practices by school leaders and educational outcomes, as me...

The traditional concept of the state, as represented by Max Weber’s model of bureaucracy, is characterized by hierarchical and rule-based decision making and by public service delivery through government agencies. However, hierarchical authority is no longer the dominant element of the state, as participatory structures and processes in public admi...

Many nonprofits rely on private donations and government grants, but it is still unclear how these sources of funding may interact or even influence each other. To examine the behavioral aspect of the crowding-out hypothesis, we conducted an online survey experiment (n = 562) to test if government funding of a hypothetical nonprofit would influence...

Local governments in the United States have been moving toward more open and complete reporting of their performance, yet many citizens remain broadly distrustful of government. Do citizens believe government-issued performance reports? To answer this question, an online survey experiment was conducted in which respondents were shown a basic perfor...

Although there is little theory about the effects of economic conditions on public support for science and technology (S&T), some evidence suggests that an economic crisis could produce a decline in support for S&T because of more pressing priorities, such as jobs and social services. But the public may also view S&T as a strategic pathway out of a...

We employ data from an original survey of citizens in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, and the Czech Republic to examine correlates of citizen co-production of public services in three key policy areas: public safety, the environment, and health. The correlates of co-production we consider include demographic factors (age, gender, education, and e...

A number of prior studies have found evidence for the expectancy-disconfirmation theory of citizen satisfaction with public services, which holds that citizens judge public services not only on experienced service quality but also on an implicit comparison of service quality with prior expectations. But the evidence to date has been based on survey...

Government agencies can provide various benchmarks when reporting their performance to citizens, but not much is known about how citizens understand and respond to benchmarking information. Thus, this study aims to test what performance benchmarks appear most salient and persuasive to citizens. We conducted an online survey experiment in which n =...

Spain experienced an outbreak of public sector corruption— much of it related to the involvement of regional and local administrators and politicians in the country’s urban development boom—that angered the public and sparked calls for government reform. Using data from a 2009 survey that followed these events, the authors examine the association b...

Although a considerable amount is known about public preferences for multilevel government in the US, there is less empirical evidence for other types of federations. Moreover, prior studies have neglected regional differences in intergovernmental policy preferences, despite the relevance of regional variation in places where territorial claims for...

Spain experienced an outbreak of public sector corruption—much of it related to the involvement of regional and local administrators and politicians in the country's urban development boom—that angered the public and sparked calls for government reform. Using data from a 2009 survey that followed these events, the authors examine the association be...

Government job satisfaction has been shown to reflect individual, job and organizational characteristics, but important national crises or events that dramatically alter the image of public service in society and the meaning of work in the public sector may also play a role. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are an important example, yet...

Although a considerable amount is known about public preferences for multilevel government in the United States, there is less empirical evidence for other types of federations. Moreover, prior studies have neglected regional differences in intergovernmental policy preferences, despite the relevance of regional variation in places where territorial...

The United Kingdom (UK) instituted a performance framework for the National Health Service (NHS) in the late 1990s that, inspired by the New Public Management (NPM), employed performance measurement and management in an effort to improve the quality of health services to citizens, in addition to realizing efficiency goals. Using data from the 1996...

As government websites emerged as central features of e-government and even as public service delivery, concerns have grown about the digital divide—the separation of society into online and off-line citizens with varying access to this new source of government services and information. Yet, little is known about the characteristics of citizens tha...

The public administration literature has consistently questioned the validity of satisfaction surveys as a measure of government performance, particularly in comparison with more objective official measures. The authors examine this objective-subjective debate using unique data from a large survey distributed to nearly 1 million parents of children...

Public management reform and citizen perceptions of the UK health system The United Kingdom (UK) instituted a performance framework for the National Health Service (NHS) in the late 1990s that, inspired by the New Public Management (NPM), employed performance measurement and management in an effort to improve the quality of health services to citiz...

Performance reporting to citizens is an important way to keep government accountable and transparent. This study uses data from a national online survey to examine the sources through which citizens obtain performance information about local government, how much they trust these sources, and their assessments of local government efforts at performa...

This study aims to compare two widely used methods of original data collection in nonprofit research: web and mail surveys. We employ an experimental design to assign a web-based survey and a mail survey to nonprofit professionals working in human services organizations in New Jersey. We then compare responses generated from the two survey methods...

The contemporary performance movement has tended to assume that a key to restoring public trust in civil servants lies in a focus on outcomes or results. But there is growing evidence from various fields that trust in people and institutions of authority often depends more on process (such as fairness and equity) than on outcomes. This finding that...

Surveys of citizen satisfaction with local public services have become widespread, with the results increasingly used to reorganize services, to allocate budgets, and to hold managers accountable. But evidence from a split-ballot experiment that we conducted suggests that the order of questions in a citizen survey has important effects on reported...

This paper is part of an international project assessing the quality of public sector management and public sector as well as public trust and satisfaction with the public sector and the degree to which the public is involved in decision making in the public sector. The results are based on an initial and exploratory sample of 1,104 citizens who re...

This paper is part of an international project assessing the quality of public sector management and public sector performance as well as public trust and satisfaction with the public sector and the degree to which the public is involved in decision making in the public sector. The results are based on an initial and exploratory sample of 1,104 cit...

Citizen surveys often measure service use as well as perceived performance, typically in the form of quality or satisfaction ratings. But little attention has been paid to the relationship between public service use and satisfaction. How do the service ratings or satisfaction judgements of frequent users differ from those of infrequent users? Is th...

Municipalities across the world are rapidly adopting e-government to improve public service delivery and provide one-stop government access to citizens. Using data from a sample of world cities, we describe the features of municipal websites and employ cluster analysis to create an empirical typology. Our results suggest that world cities can be cl...

This exploratory study examines the extent to which police departments across the United States and Canada report that they have factored social equity into their performance measurement programs. The results of a survey administered to 148 randomly selected police departments and a content analysis of their public documents provide a preliminary l...

Social entrepreneurship is an increasingly important concept in the study of voluntary and nonprofit organizations. In spite of the growing recognition of this concept, little is known about what individual characteristics might describe or explain who in society is likely to be (or become) a social entrepreneur. This preliminary study empirically...