of the public sector nevertheless are refl ected in how citizens perceive the performance of public service provision.Answering this question involves the methodological challenge of isolating the eff ect of publicness on perceptions of organizational performance from other factors that may be systematically related to sector, such as diff erences in tasks, organization size, and clientele. Poister and Henry (1994) study how ratings of the quality of local public services compare with evaluations of other services commonly provided by businesses and fi nd no systematic diff erence. However, their comparison relies on observational cross-sectional data and thus could be a result of other diff erences between local public and private providers. Studying public and nonprofi t providers, Van Slyke and Roch (2004) fi nd that people are more likely to misidentify a nonprofi t organization as a government agency when they are unsatisfi ed with the service they have received. Although this result suggests that users rate public sector organizations more negatively than Abstract: Media, politicians, and reform proponents frequently assert that public sector organizations are inefficient and burdened by administrative procedures. But are negative stereotypes of the public sector refl ected in people's perceptions of public service provision? Given the methodological challenges of isolating the perception of publicness from other factors related to public organizations, little is known about whether public organizations have a negative image. Th e authors use a survey experimental design to isolate the eff ect of publicness on perceptions of the performance of hospitals. Th e results suggest that public sector organizations have a negative image on productivity-related aspects of performance but not on normative aspects of performance. As this article is a randomized experiment, it provides strong evidence regarding the causal nature of the relationship between publicness and perceptions of performance. Implications for researchers aiming to understand these mechanisms and for public managers concerned about the image of their organization are discussed. Practitioner Points• Using an experimental design, we fi nd that public organizations are perceived as less effi cient than similar private organizations simply because they are public. • However, public organizations also tend to be seen as more benevolent in the sense that they genuinely care about the interest and well-being of the people they serve. • Practitioners working to improve the legitimacy of government, recruit candidates, or build political support may use these results for communication strategies that emphasize the multiple goals they pursue, how they prevent burdensome rules and procedures, and the eff ort they put into helping the people they serve.
Public managers and researchers devote much attention to the benefi ts of coproduction, or the mixing of the productive eff orts of public employees and citizens in public service design and delivery. One concern, however, is the distributional consequences of coproduction. Th is article proposes that disadvantaged citizens may be constrained by a lack of knowledge or other resources necessary to contribute to and benefi t from the coproduction process. From this assumption, the authors develop the theoretical argument that if coproduction programs were designed to lift constraints on disadvantaged citizens, they might increase both effi ciency and equity. Th is claim is tested using a fi eld experiment on educational services. A coproduction program providing immigrant parents with knowledge and materials useful to their children's early educational development had a substantial positive impact on the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children, thereby diminishing inequity. Economically, the program was more effi cient than later compensation of low-performing children.
Performance evaluations are a central component in the administration of public organizations. The predominant model of how both public managers and citizens evaluate performance suggests that satisfaction judgments about performance are based on a comparison of performance to some adapted standard like expectations or goals. However, in a number of experiments we show that perceptions of performance and satisfaction are formed in ways that are not so consistent and better explained by an intuitive mode of thinking. The results question the validity of citizen satisfaction as a measure of performance but also raise more general questions about how performance information is processed by citizens and public managers. Suggestions for a more adequate theory of the relationship between performance and satisfaction and implications for the use of performance information in public organizations are presented and discussed.
Despite laws of universalistic treatment, bureaucrats have been shown to discriminate against minorities. A crucial question for public administration is how bureaucracies can be organized in ways that minimize illegitimate discrimination. Especially, since theories suggest that prejudices happen unintentionally and particularly under high workload, bureaucrats' working conditions may be important. Four randomized experiments support the notion that bureaucrats discriminate as a way of coping with high workload. Most notably, a field experiment randomly assigned teachers to reduced workloads by giving them resources to have more time with the same group of students. In a subsequent survey experiment-using a fictitious future scenario unrelated to the resources provided in the field experiment-discrimination was minimized in the field treatment group, but persisted in the control group. The results thereby support the notion that even though discrimination among bureaucrats does not (only) occur in a reflective manner it can be reduced by altering the way bureaucrats' work is organized.
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