Abstract
Recent studies have examined whether, all else equal, there is a general tendency among citizens to perceive public service providers as lower performing than their private counterparts. As public organizations are commonly stereotyped as “bureaucracies”, it is unknown whether the negative image of public organizations is caused by their publicness or by their structural bureaucratic characteristics. This article makes a novel contribution to this literature by disentangling these two variables, and examines to what extent the proclaimed negative effect of publicness on citizens’ performance perceptions is dependent on citizens’ perceptions regarding the bureaucratic structure of public organizations. This is investigated through a survey-experiment conducted among 422 Dutch undergraduate students in public administration. The main findings of the study are that we find no evidence for direct negative effects of publicness, and that the bureaucratic structure of the organization positively affects the degree in which citizens perceive public organizations to be equitable and responsive. These findings suggest that the relationship between publicness and perceived performance is more situational than is assumed in prior studies.
Highlights
Recent studies have examined whether, all else equal, there is a general tendency among citizens to perceive public service providers as lower performing than their private counterparts
The aim of this article was to examine to what extent the proclaimed negative effect of publicness on citizens’ performance perceptions is dependent on citizens’ perceptions regarding the bureaucratic nature of public organizations
This study suggests that publicness effects may not be universal among citizens, even among citizens such as Public Administration undergraduates that can be expected to be likely to detect such public-private differences as a result of their education and interests
Summary
Recent studies have examined whether, all else equal, there is a general tendency among citizens to perceive public service providers as lower performing than their private counterparts. This article makes a novel contribution to the literature by disentangling these two variables, and examines to what extent the proclaimed negative effect of publicness on citizens’ performance perceptions is dependent on citizens’ perceptions regarding the bureaucratic structure of public organizations. This is investigated through a survey-experiment conducted among 422 Dutch undergraduate students in public administration. VIndeed, prior survey-experimental research (e.g. Hvidman & Andersen, 2016; Hvidman, 2019) has demonstrated that citizens rate the perceived performance of public organizations lower on a multi-dimensional performance scale In explaining this effect, the bureaucratic nature of public organizations features as a cause for Vnegative performance perceptions. Van den Bekerom et al, 2021 that do not adhere to bureaucratic principles evaluated more favorably? Our central research question is: What are the (combined) effects of publicness and organizational structure on citizens’ performance perceptions?
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