Lars Tummers

Utrecht University | UU · School of Governance (USG)

Changing behavior is often necessary to tackle societal problems, such as obesity, alcohol abuse, and debt problems. This article has two goals. First, it aims to highlight how governments can try to change the behavior of citizens. Government can use policy instruments to do so, including incentives, bans and mandates, information campaigns, and n...

Behavioral public administration is an interdisciplinary research field that studies public administration topics by connecting insights from public administration with psychology and the behavioral sciences more broadly. Behavioral public administration scholars study important public problems such as discrimination, corruption, and burnout. Behav...

How citizens behave towards public sector workers is crucial for the wellbeing and performance of workers. Scholars have mainly focused on understanding negative citizen behaviors, such as aggression. We study a positive behavior, namely compassionate behavior. We study real compassionate behavior in the form of writing a positive encouragement mes...

Governments use nudges to stimulate citizens to exercise, save money and eat healthily. However, nudging is controversial. How the media frames nudges impacts decisions on whether to use this policy instrument. We, therefore, analyzed 443 newspaper articles about nudging. Overall, the media was positive about nudges. Nudging was viewed as an effect...

Purpose To increase the number of people with disabilities in employment, we need to understand what influences employers’ hiring decisions. In this systematic review, we map out factors affecting employers’ hiring decisions about people with disabilities. Methods This study is a systematic review that applies the COM-B model to identify factors t...

What do citizens want? How do citizens think public servants should behave? Although such questions seem straightforward, little is known about the values citizens expect public servants to uphold. This paper therefore identifies such values through extensive coding of qualitative data from representative samples of United States (n = 395), Dutch (...

Background: Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing and hand washing have been used as effective means to reduce virus transmission in the Netherlands. However, these measures pose a societal challenge as they require people to change their customary behaviours in various contexts. The science of habit formation is potenti...

Background Social distancing has been implemented by many countries to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding public support for this policy calls for effective and efficient methods of monitoring public opinion on social distancing. Twitter analysis has been suggested as a cheaper and faster-responding alternative to traditional survey methods....

Background Healthcare organisations face major challenges to keep healthcare accessible and affordable. This requires them to transform and improve their performance. To do so, organisations must influence employee job performance. Therefore, it is necessary to know what the key dimensions of job performance in healthcare are and how these dimensio...

Introduction: Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing and hand washing have been used as effective means to reduce virus transmission in the Netherlands. However, they pose a societal challenge as they require people to change their customary behaviours in various contexts. The science of habit formation is potentially usef...

What views do people have of public sector workers? Public sector workers are often portrayed negatively. It is unclear, however, to what extent such negative perceptions are shared among different groups in society. Using a large representative survey in the Netherlands, we study whether people's socioeconomic status is related to having more nega...

The outbreak of COVID‐19 has turned out to be a major challenge to societies all over the globe. Curbing the pandemic requires rapid and extensive behavioural change to limit social interaction, including physical distancing. In this study, we tested the notion that inducing empathy for people vulnerable to the virus may result in actual distancing...

The popularity and use of Bayesian methods have increased across many research domains. The current article demonstrates how some less familiar Bayesian methods can be used. Specifically, we applied expert elicitation, testing for prior-data conflicts, the Bayesian Truth Serum, and testing for replication effects via Bayes Factors in a series of fo...

The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic review of leadership and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. We have analyzed 139 studies that study the relationship between leadership and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. Based on our analysis, we highlight ways forward. First, research designs can be improved by eliminating endogeneity...

The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic review of leadership and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. We have analyzed 139 studies that study the relationship between leadership and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. Based on our analysis, we highlight ways forward. First, research designs can be improved by eliminating endogeneity...

Trust in leaders is central to citizen compliance with public policies. One potential determinant of trust is how leaders resolve conflicts between utilitarian and non- utilitarian ethical principles in moral dilemmas. Past research suggests that utilitarian responses to dilemmas can both erode and enhance trust in leaders: sacrificing some people...

Trust in leaders is central to citizen compliance with public policies. One potential determinant of trust is how leaders resolve conflicts between utilitarian and non-utilitarian ethical principles in moral dilemmas. Past research suggests that utilitarian responses to dilemmas can both erode and enhance trust in leaders: sacrificing some people t...

To help researchers conduct a systematic review or meta-analysis as efficiently and transparently as possible, we designed a tool to accelerate the step of screening titles and abstracts. For many tasks—including but not limited to systematic reviews and meta-analyses—the scientific literature needs to be checked systematically. Scholars and practi...

In this survey study of 7,208 Dutch healthcare workers, we investigate whether healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19 patients experience lower general health, more physical and mental exhaustion and more sleep problems than other healthcare workers. Additionally, we study whether there are differences in well-being within the group of healthcare...

De overheid kan gezond gedrag van burgers stimuleren aanpakken via zogeheten ‘nudges’. Nudges zijn een beleidsinstrument om gewenste keuzes te bevorderen zonder opties te verbieden of de kosten die ermee gemoeid aanzienlijk te veranderen. Denk aan het prominent weergeven van gezonde producten in de kiosk op het station. In termen van instrumenten d...

Background Conducting a systematic review requires great screening effort. Various tools have been proposed to speed up the process of screening thousands of titles and abstracts by engaging in active learning. In such tools, the reviewer interacts with machine learning software to identify relevant publications as early as possible. To gain a comp...

For many tasks - including guideline development for medical doctors and systematic reviews for research fields - the scientific literature needs to be checked systematically. The current practice is that scholars and practitioners screen thousands of studies by hand to find which studies to include in their review. This is error prone and ineffici...

This article systematically reviews 93 theoretical and empirical articles and books on the topic of teacher leadership. The included studies are analyzed on the basis of the following themes: (1) definitions of teacher leadership, (2) antecedents of teacher leadership, (3) outcomes of teacher leadership, and (4) methodological quality of studies on...

Public managers' decisions are affected by cognitive biases. For instance, employees' previous year's performance ratings influence new ratings irrespective of actual performance. Nevertheless, experimental knowledge of public managers' cognitive biases is limited, and debiasing techniques have rarely been studied. Using a survey experiment on 1,22...

The statement ‘9 out of 10 people read this article’ is a nudge. More generally, a nudge is a way to change behavior without prohibiting options or significantly changing its costs (Thaler & Sunstein, 2007). To change behavior we could also think about making reading the article mandatory. This would not be a nudge, as it prohibits options. Paying...

Field experiments have become popular in public administration. By allowing for the identification of causal effects in realistic settings, field experiments may become central in several research agendas of relevance to the field. Conducting field experiments is difficult and problems often occur along the way. However, researchers new to the meth...

Background: Electronic health (eHealth) tools are increasingly being applied in health care. They are expected to improve access to health care, quality of health care, and health outcomes. Although the advantages of using these tools in health care are well described, it is unknown to what extent eHealth tools are effective when used by vulnerable...

This article presents a systematic literature review of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the public sector. The findings show that although OCB is gaining more attention in the public sector, research often does not take specific public sector characteristics or concepts into account. Based on the available evidence, the authors develop...

Translating medical evidence into practice is difficult. Key challenges in applying evidence-based medicine are information overload and that evidence needs to be used in context by healthcare professionals. Nudging (i.e. softly steering) healthcare professionals towards utilizing evidence-based medicine may be a feasible possibility. This systemat...

A new edition of a popular textbook that provides a systematic and up-to-date introduction to the different approaches to understanding leadership in the public sector. This text draws together a wide range of enduring and cutting-edge scholarship to provide a clear and concise overview of the area. Written by two of the field’s leading experts,...

Street-level bureaucrats – such as teachers, social workers and police officers – have to implement public policies. However, they are not simple machines implementing rules, but have opportunities to make their own decisions. In other words, they have autonomy, or discretion in their work. This chapter shows how a psychological perspective can be...

Professionals in healthcare are increasingly encouraged to work together. This has acted as a catalyst for research on interprofessional collaboration. Authors suggest developing interprofessional collaboration is not just the job of managers and policy makers; it also requires active contributions of professionals. Empirical understanding of wheth...

Het veranderen van gedrag is vaak noodzakelijk om maatschappelijke problemen aan te pakken. Zo kun je gedrag veranderen via economische prikkels (denk aan subsidies voor elektrische auto’s), geboden/verboden (zoals gevangenisstraffen voor drugssmokkel), communicatie (bijvoorbeeld campagnes van de rijksoverheid), en nudges (bijvoorbeeld standaard do...

De stelling is deze oratie is dat bestuurskundigen en psychologen moeten samenwerken om te komen tot gedragen gedragsverandering. Het veranderen van gedrag is vaak noodzakelijk om maatschappelijke problemen aan te pakken, zoals schulden bij studenten of een tekort aan orgaandonoren. De psychologie laat zien dat je bijvoorbeeld via nudges (duwtjes)...

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...

Background: Despite numerous calls for a more evidence-based provision of post-disaster psychosocial support, systematic analyses of post-disaster service delivery are scarce. Objective: The aim of this review was evaluate the organization of post-disaster psychosocial support in different disaster settings and to identify determinants. Methods...

Teacher leadership; een term die steeds vaker opduikt en die we – gebaseerd op wetenschappelijke literatuur - definiëren als: het proces waarin leraren, individueel of collectief en vanuit formele of informele posities, hun collega’s, leidinggevenden, en de bredere (school)gemeenschap beïnvloeden met het doel zichzelf en hun professie te ontwikkele...

A stakeholder perspective on public sector innovation: Why position matters Studies on the adoption of innovations often treat an organization as a uniform entity. Such studies implicitly assume that perceptions regarding the adoption of an innovation are identical across the organization. However, organizational theory and change management litera...

Innovation in the public sector: Towards an open and collaborative approach Innovation in the public sector is high on the agenda of politicians, civil servants and societal organizations. This attention in practice is mirrored in an increasing number of scholarly articles. In this introduction to the special issue on public sector innovation, we d...

The topic of discretion continues to be hotly debated in policy design and policy implementation. In top-down theories, discretion at the frontline is often seen as a control problem: discretion should be avoided as it can mean that the policy is not implemented as intended. Conversely, bottom-up theories state that discretion can help policy imple...

Innovation in the public sector is high on the agenda of politicians, civil servants and societal organizations. This attention in practice is mirrored in an increasing number of scholarly articles. In this introduction to the special issue on public sector innovation, we discuss how the scholarly perspectives on innovation have changed. Previously...

Street-level bureaucrats have to cope with high workloads, role conflicts and limited resources. An important way in which they cope with this is by prioritizing some clients, while disregarding others. When deciding on whom to prioritize, street-level bureaucrats often assess whether a client is deserving of help. However, to date the notion of th...

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....

Western governments are increasingly trying to stimulate citizens to coproduce public services by, among other strategies, offering them financial incentives. However, there are competing views on whether financial incentives stimulate coproduction. While some argue that financial incentives increase citizens' willingness to coproduce, others sugge...

This article synthesizes the extensive literature on the diffusion and adoption of public sector innovations. Although various subfields within public administration have studied diffusion and adoption, these have tended to develop relatively independently. Hence, the lessons learnt in one area might not be evident elsewhere. We have therefore cond...

Many public organizations implement teleworking: an organizational innovation expected to improve the working conditions of public servants. However, it is unclear to what extent teleworking is beneficial for public servants. This study adds to the literature by studying the effects of teleworking on a day-to-day basis. We used a daily diary method...

Well-known public administration scholars have stressed the importance of psychological research for the study of public administration. Neighboring disciplines such as economics and political science have witnessed the emergence of the psychology-informed subfields of behavioral economics and political psychology. Along the same lines, an emerging...

Western governments are increasingly trying to stimulate citizens to ‘co-produce’ public services, among others, by offering them financial incentives. However, there are competing views on whether financial incentives stimulate co-production. While some argue it increases citizens’ willingness to co-produce, others suggest that it would decrease t...

In this study, we aim to replicate and extend the negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction by conducting an experiment via the online crowdsourcing service MTurk. Our findings indicate that a higher level of red tape is indeed associated with lower procedural satisfaction. We also find support for a statistically significant interacti...

Co-creation in public service delivery requires partnerships between citizens and civil servants. The authors argue that whether or not these partnerships will be successful depends on state and governance traditions (for example a tradition of authority sharing or consultation). These traditions determine the extent to which co-creation can become...

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...

Co-creation – where citizens and public organizations work together to deal with societal issues – is increasingly considered as a fertile solution for various public service delivery problems. During co-creation, citizens are not mere consumers, but are actively engaged in building resilient societies. In this study, we analyze if and how state an...

Studies on the adoption of innovations often treat an organization as a uniform entity. Such studies implicitly assume that perceptions regarding the adoption of an innovation are identical across the organization. However, organizational theory and change management literature argue that organizations are composed of distinct groups that have diff...

This study examines the attributes of organizational rules that influence rule following. Rule following fosters organizational effectiveness by aligning individual behaviours with organizational preference. While a range of theoretical explanations have been offered for rule following, the characteristics of rule design and implementation have rec...

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...

Policy alienation is a framework that examines the experiences of employees with new policies/changes they have to implement. It can be used to analyse main reasons why employees show resistance towards a new policy or change. This essay in the Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance on policy alienation has thre...

Met deze uitgave maakt u kennis met de wereld van het openbaar bestuur en de centrale begrippen, modellen, theorieën, benaderingen en vraagstukken die daar aan de orde zijn. De kracht van Openbaar Bestuur, beleid, organisatie en politiek is dat het een overzichtelijke algemene inleiding is in de wereld van het openbaar bestuur. Het is bedoeld voor...

Workers on the frontline of public service, such as teachers and social workers, cannot provide unlimited support to all their clients, because of among else scarce time and money. To deal with this, they use various coping strategies. We analyze one important coping strategy such “street level bureaucrats” can use: prioritizing motivated clients o...

In this article we show that theories and methods from psychology are valuable for public administration scholars and practitioners. We advocate the development of an interdisciplinary approach entitled ‘Behavioral Public Administration’. It is not the intention that Behavioral Public Administration replaces traditional public administration resear...

This article on public leadership contributes to the literature by (1) focusing on the ‘public’ aspect of leadership and (2) developing quantitative scales for measuring four public leadership roles. These roles all refer to the extent to which public leaders actively support their employees in dealing with public sector issues: (1) accountability...

In many regions of the world, urban water systems will need to transition into fundamentally different forms to address current stressors and meet impending challenges-faster innovation will need to be part of these transitions. To assess the innovation deficit in urban water organizations and to identify means for supporting innovation, we surveye...

Behavioral public administration is the analysis of public administration from the micro-perspective of individual behavior and attitudes by drawing upon insights from psychology on behavior of individuals and groups. We discuss how scholars in public administration currently draw on theories and methods from psychology, and related fields, and poi...

The field of public management is methodologically underdeveloped as compared to other disciplines. In order to derive the fullest benefits of methodological advancements, the field needs to invest in discussing and deliberating over the state-of-the-art in methodological advances. Using state-of-the-art methods helps to produce knowledge that is u...

For public administration scholars, psychological theories and methods can be extremely helpful, especially when studying attitudes or behaviors of (groups of) citizens, public professionals or public managers. Behavioral public administration explicitly connect public administration and psychology. For this Virtual Issue, we analyzed the articles...

Purpose - Public employe