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Abstract
Behavioral theory states that decision-makers engage in search in response to a performance shortfall. However, public administration research has remained remarkably inattentive of decision-makers' attention. This study conceptually disentangles problem-defining and solution-generation as two distinct search objectives, in order to test theoretical expectations concerning individual decision-makers' search in response to negative performance. Using a survey experiment among 1,562 political and managerial public sector decision-makers across 263 local government organizations that links factual performance feedback about budgetary performance and citizen satisfaction to a behavioral measure of both search objectives, the study finds increased solution-generation search in response to negative budgetary performance feedback, but not in response to low citizen satisfaction. Search of politicians and managers is found to be highly similar. These findings contribute to a behavioral understanding of how performance information influences search by politicians and managers, and reveal novel research avenues about information-processing that are of particular relevance to public administration research and theory.

AbstractThis study investigates how the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic affect local government politicians' policy preferences in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Spain. The study examines to what extent politicians prefer increasing the role of government (directive state), transferring public tasks to private sector organizations (hollow state), transferring public tasks to third sector organizations (communitarian state), or downsizing and reducing the role of government without transferring tasks (coping state). The experiment primes decision‐makers on the pandemic's negative financial and economic prospects vis‐à‐vis its impact on health and well‐being. When negative economic prospects are emphasized, the study finds decreased preferences for a directive state and increased preferences for a coping state. The study concludes that how decision‐makers interpret the nature of a crisis determines their preferred response: An emphasis on the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic is likely to increase preferences for renewed policies of austerity.

This study investigates how the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic affect local government politicians' policy preferences in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Spain. The study examines to what extent politicians prefer increasing the role of government (directive state), transferring public tasks to private sector organizations (hollow state), transferring public tasks to third sector organizations (communitarian state), or downsizing and reducing the role of government without transferring tasks (coping state). The experiment primes decision‐makers on the pandemic's negative financial and economic prospects vis‐à‐vis its impact on health and well‐being. When negative economic prospects are emphasized, the study finds decreased preferences for a directive state and increased preferences for a coping state. The study concludes that how decision‐makers interpret the nature of a crisis determines their preferred response: An emphasis on the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic is likely to increase preferences for renewed policies of austerity.

The implementation of organizational change is a considerable challenge for public organizations. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of leadership in change processes in public organizations, but limited empirical evidence exists. Moreover, the contribution of change leadership in organizational change is likely to be dependent on the particular characteristics of public organizations. This study concerns the relationship between direct supervisors' change leadership and the commitment to change of change recipients, and examines to what extent this relationship is related to the bureaucratic features that often characterize public organizations. The findings indicate that change leadership contributes to change recipients' commitment to change by providing high-quality change communication and stimulating employee participation in the implementation of change. However, the findings also indicate that red tape perceptions of change recipients and a low reliance on a transformational leadership style impede the potential of change leadership to bring about employee participation in the implementation of change.

Abstract
Issue prioritization is the first stage of attention-based theories of decision-making, but remains theoretically and empirically uncharted territory in public administration research. We propose and test how issue prioritization is informed by the characteristics of the performance information on which decision-makers rely, in particular its source (internal or external information), nature (objective or subjective information), aspiration level (historical, social, or coercive aspirations), and required cognitive effort (attention costs). Furthermore, we theorize how these characteristics of performance information determine issue prioritization decisions of political and managerial decision-makers in different ways. We empirically examine issue prioritization decisions in road maintenance and primary school education using a discrete choice experiment among 2,313 local government officials. The experiment reveals that decision-makers are more likely to prioritize issues that are signaled through objective performance measures and that are articulated relative to coercive aspirations, but that the effects of the information's source and attention costs differ between policy domains. Comparison of observational variation regarding decision-makers' roles indicates that public managers more strongly prioritize road maintenance issues that are articulated in objective performance information, but not in primary school education. The study advances public administration research and theory with a "horizontal" behavioral perspective on decision-makers' information processing to prioritize between simultaneous performance issues.

AbstractBureaucrats must balance neutral competence with responsiveness to external demands. As external demands are simultaneous and multidimensional, this study analyzes bureaucratic responsiveness according to bureaucratic actors' prioritization decisions. Using a discrete choice experiment followed by qualitative interviews in the context of EU agencies, we investigate to what extent bureaucratic responsiveness depends upon the stakeholder that expresses an external demand (source), the aspect of bureaucratic conduct that is addressed (content), and the presence of adverse media attention (salience). In addition to corroborating prior empirical findings, we provide a novel understanding of bureaucratic responsiveness by showing the way demands' source and content affect responsiveness jointly. Across the range of technical, performative, legal‐procedural, and moral demands, we identify which stakeholders can impose demands most authoritatively. We also extend previous research by demonstrating that adverse media attention strengthens responsiveness to technical and moral demands, but not to performative and legal‐procedural demands.

AbstractMulti‐level governance systems provide decision‐makers with many avenues for external responsibility attribution in response to lacking performance. This study provides a behavioral perspective that examines responsibility attribution to the national government (upward) and policy implementers (downward) as a function of performance relative to decision‐makers' aspiration levels. The study proposes that perceived accountability increases the propensity of external responsibility attribution, and that decision‐makers' political alignment to actors on other governance levels explains when responsibility is deflected upwards or downwards. Using a survey experiment that presents factual information on youth care overspending to 1086 elected local government officials, the study finds consistent evidence that performance below aspirations increases upward responsibility attribution. Accountability strengthens responsibility attribution for negative performance downward to policy implementers. Finally, responsibility is attributed upward less frequently by decision‐makers who are politically aligned with the national government, but information that signals performance below aspirations attenuates this tendency.

AbstractBehavioral theory proposes that decision‐makers engage in search to identify satisfactory policy solutions to organizational problems. For complex problems, required solutions cannot be identified merely through search, but must be created and designed. While behavioral theory suggests that negative performance will spur creative solution generation, threat‐rigidity theory provides a competing view that decision‐makers' creative efforts are ultimately thwarted through restricted information processing and constriction of control. We test these competing expectations through a survey‐experimental comparison of the creativity of policy solutions in response to negative budgetary performance, generated by a nationally representative sample of local government decision‐makers. The findings indicate that negative performance decreases the creativity of policy solutions as rated by policy experts, and reveals that key mechanisms of threat‐rigidity theory are at play. This reduced generation of creative policy solutions amidst negative performance places limits on public organizations' capacity to adapt to adverse circumstances.