Lynn Colder, Eduard Schmidt, Sandra Groeneveld, Jet Bussemaker
{"title":"Accountability at Work: Effects of Employee Accountability on Emotional Exhaustion and Engagement among Healthcare Professionals in the Netherlands","authors":"Lynn Colder, Eduard Schmidt, Sandra Groeneveld, Jet Bussemaker","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251390513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251390513","url":null,"abstract":"Accountability plays an important role in the daily work of frontline professionals, yet it is unclear whether it affects them either positively or negatively at work. This study therefore examines how employee accountability (EA), as a job demand, impacts employee engagement and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, we assess to what extent psychological safety, as a job resource, moderates the impact of EA on emotional exhaustion and engagement. Based on a survey among 3,691 frontline professionals in Dutch healthcare, we show that different dimensions of employee accountability have contradictory, albeit small, effects on emotional exhaustion and engagement. In addition, our study reveals that the validity and reliability of the measurement of employee accountability are dependent on professional and national contexts. Recommendations for future research are discussed.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"183 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145836063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pension Reform and Employee Satisfaction With the Public Service Profession: Evidence From the 2015 Public Officials Pension Reform in South Korea","authors":"Haeil Jung, Sun Young Kim, Seungmin Jeon","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251395027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251395027","url":null,"abstract":"While pension reforms for public employees are implemented frequently around the world, there is still limited understanding of how these employees respond to and adapt to such changes. Utilizing the 2015 Public Officials Pension Reform in South Korea as the research context, this study investigates the impact of pension reform on employee satisfaction with the public service profession during the reform period and how this impact evolved in the post-reform years. Drawing on yearly repeated cross-sectional data from 15,270 public employees collected between 2013 and 2019, our empirical analysis reveals a significant decline in employee satisfaction with the public service profession following the initiation of pension reform in 2014, with a subsequent rebound to pre-reform levels in the later years. These findings offer valuable insights for navigating the challenges of pension reform and enhancing employee satisfaction during the reform process.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145801020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Professionalism and Financial Management: A Study of CFOs and Supervisory Roles in U.S. Federal Agencies","authors":"Heonuk Ha","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251395040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251395040","url":null,"abstract":"Professionalism plays a critical role in public management, yet prior research has faced challenges in defining the professionalism of key officials and in identifying appropriate measures to assess its relationship with performance. Specifically, although agency chief financial officers (CFOs) are central to managing federal finances, their influence on financial performance has been largely unexamined. This study analyzes the effects of CFO professionalism—defined by specialized education, work experience, and career aspirations—on the financial management performance of 26 U.S. federal agencies from 2003 to 2021. It also examines how agency-level professionalism, particularly the presence of experienced professionals in supervisory positions, influences financial performance. Using an ordinary least squares (OLS) model with agency and year fixed effects, the findings indicate that CFOs’ prior work experience, especially their tenure, is positively associated with financial performance, whereas educational background shows no significant effect. At the agency level, a higher proportion of professional specialists in supervisory positions is associated with a higher level of financial performance. These results underscore the importance of both individual executive attributes and broader organizational professionalism in enhancing public management outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"155 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145770682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Managing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Public Service Organizations: A Liberatory Justice Approach Managing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Public Service Organizations: A Liberatory Justice Approach (Authors: ChordiyaRashmiSabharwalMeghna)","authors":"Imane Hijal-Moghrabi","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251392577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251392577","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145770683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Trust Reforms to Trust-in-Leader: The Role of Employee-Involvement","authors":"Tina Øllgaard Bentzen, Carina Saxlund Bischoff","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251371243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251371243","url":null,"abstract":"Trust is a coveted resource in public organizations, fostering innovation, collaboration, and effective problem-solving. Yet, decades of New Public Management reforms have strained vertical trust between leaders and employees. In response, governance reforms—so-called trust reforms—aim to rebuild this trust. While their ambitions and implementation are increasingly studied, their actual effects remain unclear. Using survey data from Danish municipalities, this study examines whether trust reforms are associated with higher trust between employee representatives and leaders in formal collaboration committees. Recognizing that trust-building requires vulnerability, we explore the role of employee involvement in fostering trust in leaders. As trust-development is a two-way street, it depends on both leaders and employees’ willingness to take the risk of showing vulnerability toward each other. Our findings suggest that trust reforms alone do not enhance vertical trust; rather, they are effective only when accompanied by substantial employee involvement, highlighting the importance of mutual engagement in trust-building.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145704140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do You Dare to Break the Rules? The Influence of Leadership and Uncertainty on Prosocial Rule-Breaking Behavior Among Dutch Social Welfare Professionals","authors":"Bernard Bernards, Eduard Schmidt","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251379498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251379498","url":null,"abstract":"Bureaucratic organizations emphasize rule-following to pursue public interests. However, rules may not always capture the complexities of daily life, making them seem burdensome to citizens and professionals. In such cases, prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB) can be a means to better serve the public. We investigate antecedents of PSRB, hypothesizing that goal and task uncertainty reduce professionals’ engagement in PSRB and that supervisors’ leadership mitigates uncertainty, affecting PSRB behavior. Using data from Dutch social welfare professionals ( <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">N</jats:italic> = 823) and their supervisors ( <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">N</jats:italic> = 63), we found that task uncertainty is negatively related to PSRB, while goal uncertainty and supervisor leadership have no impact on PSRB. These findings advance research on discretion by highlighting uncertainty as an individual level antecedent of PSRB. Practically, they underscore the need for managerial and HRM support to help professionals navigate task uncertainty when organizations want to foster PSRB.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145447130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Halos, Performance Matching, and PSM: Experimental Evidence of Performance Appraisal Bias Among Korean Government Workers","authors":"Phil Kim, Jesse W. Campbell","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251371241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251371241","url":null,"abstract":"Performance appraisal is a central human resource management tool in government, and high-quality, fair, and objective appraisals contribute to organizational performance. By contrast, biased performance appraisal undermines employee morale and, ultimately, the merit system. This study examines three sources of bias in performance evaluations: the halo effect, similarity-attraction factors between rater and rate, and public service motivation (PSM). Using a two-by-two vignette-based survey experiment and a large sample of Korean government workers, we confirm earlier findings on the biasing influence of unrelated information on performance ratings. Second, while we find no effect of gender matching, we show that raters who self-identify as high-performance employees give lower than average ratings to low-performance workers, thereby amplifying the halo effect. Finally, we find that PSM is associated with inflated performance ratings across genders and performance categories. We discuss how our results can inform efforts to improve the fairness and accuracy of employee performance appraisals.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145289503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strategic Human Resource Development in Practice: Leveraging Talent for Sustained Performance in the Digital Age of AI - A Book Review YorksLAbelA. L.RotatoriD. (2022). Strategic human resource development in practice: Leveraging talent for sustained performance in the digital age of AI. Springer. 199 pp. $87.29 hardcover. ISBN: 978-3-030-95775-9.","authors":"Muhammad Rofi’ud Muta’al, Putri Wahyu Widayanti","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251377382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251377382","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145181200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Martin Sievert, Claudio Buongiorno Sottoriva, Petra van den Bekerom
{"title":"Who’s Here and Who’s Coming: Rethinking Symbolic Representation in Public Sector Recruitment","authors":"Martin Sievert, Claudio Buongiorno Sottoriva, Petra van den Bekerom","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251369127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251369127","url":null,"abstract":"This article connects symbolic representation research to public sector recruiting. We theorize how gender diversity signals in hiring may affect job seekers’ intentions to apply and perceived organizational attractiveness. We contribute to representative bureaucracy by offering an extended reasoning about distinctive cognitive mechanisms, separating descriptive from prescriptive symbolic representation. The former reflects current representation related to identity-fit considerations, while the latter constitutes stated organizational goals for gender diversity, which evoke value congruence assessments. We investigate whether these signals impact organizational attractiveness and application intentions using a survey experiment ( <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 1,469 adults). The statistical analysis unveils mostly null findings when accounting for participants’ gender. Results indicate that public organizations cannot easily harness the benefits of symbolic representation signals, at least not in their initial recruiting efforts. Future research should further examine whether (symbolic) representation has positive effects in later stages of the recruitment process, such as interviews or selection procedures.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Representation of Invisible Identities in the Workplace: Faith, Spirituality, or Religious Beliefs Among Female Civil Servants in Federal Law Enforcement","authors":"Helen H. Yu, Ashley M. Alteri","doi":"10.1177/0734371x251365991","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251365991","url":null,"abstract":"Decades of scholarship exist on passive representation and visible identities such as gender, race, and ethnicity. However, literature on passive representation and invisible identities such as religion is practically non-existent in the public administration domain. Drawing on survey data from 427 female civil servants representing 47 federal law enforcement agencies in the United States, this study introduces a religious profile of the federal workforce, while investigating faith, spirituality, and religious diversity. Findings suggest that the federal workforce is broadly representative of the U.S. population that identify as religious or spiritual (82.5%). However, when examining for specific religions or faiths, the percentage that identify as Catholic and spiritual but not religious are notably higher than the national average. Likewise, the percentage that identify as Protestant and non-religious are notably lower than the national average. Furthermore, this profile of the federal workforce that reports faith, spirituality, or religion as “very important” in their life (47%), with another 24.3% reporting that it is “somewhat important,” is also notably higher than the national average. These findings are important because they extend the discourse for capturing invisible identities such as faith, spirituality, or religion in the federal workforce and have implications regarding passive representation for other organizations in public service.","PeriodicalId":47609,"journal":{"name":"Review of Public Personnel Administration","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144898329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}