Dear colleagues,
See below the call for papers for our newly developed Permanent Study Group at the EGPA (24-26 August 2016) on "Behavioral Public Administration" (combining psychology & PA). See for more info on Behavioral Public Administration the Virtual Issue in JPART: https://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/jopart/behavioral_public_admin_vi.html
Hope to see you in Utrecht!
Best,
Martin Bækgaard (Aarhus University, Denmark), Sebastian Jilke (Rutgers University, US), Piret Tõnurist (Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia) & Lars Tummers (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands).
Call for Papers
EGPA Permanent Study Group XXII Behavioral Public Administration
Annual EGPA conference, 24-26 August 2016, Utrecht, The Netherlands
The newly established EGPA Permanent Study Group (PSG) on "Behavioral Public Administration" aims to contribute to our understanding of core public administration topics by combining insights from psychology (and the behavioral sciences more broadly) and public administration. It does so by studying the micro-foundations of public administration theory and practice. The behavioral approach towards public administration therefore constitutes three defining features: 1) it rests on a micro-level focus (i.e. (groups of) citizens, employees and managers); 2) it studies the behavior and attitudes of these people; and, most importantly, 3) it does so by integrating insights from psychology and the behavioral sciences into the study of public administration.
The Study Group's 2016 theme: Public employees' attitudes and behaviors towards citizens
The study group's strategic aim for 2016-2019 is to study the micro-foundations of public services from both the supply (e.g., frontline workers) and the demand side (e.g., citizen-clients). In particular, the theme of 2016 will be on public employees' attitudes and behaviors towards citizens. This includes the relationship between citizens and public employees, for example how do frontline workers cope with increasingly vocal (and sometimes even aggressive) clients? But also how public employees respond to phenomena like bureaucracy bashing and bullying? Next to this, we are interested in exploring how public sector workers decide whether to help certain clients, and not others. What roles do specific client characteristics such as age, gender, or perceived worthiness play here? Do public sector workers' pre-existing attitudes and beliefs determine such potential unequal treatment? Furthermore, we are interested in how far the politico-administrative work context in which public employees operate affects the attitudes and behaviors of public employees towards citizens. Examples may include the effects of leadership and managerial practices (such as performance management or transformational leadership), or actions by policy makers and politicians (such as new governmental policies). In doing so, studies should be interdisciplinary, combining insights from psychology (and the behavioral sciences more broadly) and public administration - for instance in the use of theory, the use of methods, or the empirical cases studied.
Next to this particular yearly theme, we invite theory-based, empirical contributions about other substantive and methodological topics with a clear link between the behavioral sciences and public administration, but are also open to other topics related to behavioral public administration. Examples may include (but are not limited to):
· Citizen-state interactions more broadly;
· Judgment and decision-making in public organizations;
· Citizen satisfaction and trust in government;
· The interpretation of performance information by citizens/ public managers;
· The effects of administrative reforms on citizens/ public employees;
· The use of behavioral science by public officials (for instance through nudges);
· Methodological contributions to study Behavioral Public Administration.
The meetings of the permanent study group will be used to develop a joint research program on the topic of Behavioral Public Administration, including international publication opportunities.
Procedure
Abstracts should be 300 words maximum (excluding references), written in English, single spaced, plain text, with no tables or figures. It should include title of the proposed paper, overview of the main argument, research methods, and the name(s), affiliation(s) and contact information of the author(s).
Deadline for the submissions is April 15th, 2016. Please submit via the EGPA website: http://egpa-conference2016.org. For additional information or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
For an online version of the CfP, see here: http://egpa-conference2016.org/CFP/2016Utrecht_GEAP_CFP_PSG22_GB.PDF
Hope to see you in Utrecht!
Best regards,
Martin Bækgaard (Aarhus University, Denmark);
Sebastian Jilke (Rutgers University, US);
Lars Tummers (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands);
Piret Tõnurist (Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia)
Dr. Lars Tummers
Associate Professor Erasmus University Rotterdam
Research Fellow Arizona State University
Associate Editor Public Administration Review
www.larstummers.com