Internal Management and Perceived Managerial Trustworthiness: Evidence From a Survey Experiment

Abstract

What is the effect of internal public management on individuals' perceptions of managerial trustworthiness (MTW)? MTW is associated with a range of positive organizational outcomes, but research examining how a public manager might affect employees' perception of MTW is sparse. This article complements extant research on MTW in public organizations with causal evidence from a randomized survey experiment among 1,829 U.S. residents. We examine how five aspects of internal public management affect individuals' perception of MTW: (a) setting challenging but feasible goals, (b) making credible commitments, (c) encouraging employee participation, (d) providing frequent performance feedback, and (e) rewarding employees who perform well. We find positive effects of the "credible commitment" and "performance feedback" treatments on overall MTW perception. In addition, we find significant effects for four of the treatments (a-d) when looking separately at the three sub-dimensions that together comprise the multidimensional MTW construct (ability, benevolence, and integrity).

Citizen perceptions of procedural fairness and the moderating roles of ‘belief in a just world’ and ‘public service motivation’ in public hiring

“…While US MTurk samples are generally more representative of the US population than more traditional convenience samples (Berinsky et al ), this limitation engenders some caution. In line with other studies using data collected through MTurk or similar online platforms (e.g., Jilke et al ; Kaufmann and Tummers ; Marvel ; Pedersen and Stritch ; Smith ), our results should be interpreted in light of this caveat.…”

“…The survey was accessible to people with a US IP address. Similar to other public administration studies that examine citizen attitudes and perceptions using data collected on MTurk or similar crowdsourcing platforms (Pedersen ; Jilke et al ; Kaufmann and Tummers ; Marvel ; Pedersen and Stritch ; Smith ), our procedure warrants some caution in extrapolating from the sample. For a more detailed discussion of MTurk and its research potential in public administration scholarship, see Stritch et al ().…”

Designing to Debias: Measuring and Reducing Public Managers’ Anchoring Bias

“…Fifth, the consider‐the‐opposite strategy could also be applied to counteract other association‐based biases, such as confirmation bias and hindsight bias (Larrick 2004). Additionally, a consider‐the‐opposite approach could be adapted to other internal management practices in the public sector such as practices to build trust or increase participation in decision‐making (Favero, Meier, and O'Toole 2016; Pedersen and Stritch 2018a). Furthermore, possible applications are related to street‐level decisions such as during client‐employee interactions, where associations concerning client deservingness are known to play a role (Guthrie and Orr 2006; Jilke and Tummers 2018; Schafer and Schafer 2018).…”

“…In this article, two earlier anchoring experiments are replicated (Bellé, Cantarelli, and Belardinelli 2017, 2018). These experiments represent two core categories of internal management practices (Favero, Meier, and O'Toole 2016; Pedersen and Stritch 2018a). Internally focused managerial practices aim to change employees’ behavior.…”

“…This article reports on a research strategy of initially replicating two experiments by Bellé, Cantarelli, and Belardinelli (2017, 2018) on cognitive biases in the public sector. These experiments represent two types of core internal management practices in the public sector: goal setting (e.g., establishing the maximum number of days within which to respond to emails) and performance feedback (e.g., performance ratings) (Favero, Meier, and O'Toole 2016; Pedersen and Stritch 2018a).…”