The Role of Generative Artificial Intelligence Use in Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Discretion and Enforcement Styles: A Multigroup Analysis

ABSTRACTThis research examines the intricacies of street-level bureaucracy, focusing on how bureaucrats’ discretionary powers affect their enforcement strategies during face-to-face interactions with clients. The study constructs an in-depth theoretical framework that blends elements from street-level bureaucracy theory and implementation studies. Structural equation modeling reveals a significant positive correlation between bureaucratic discretion and the perceived meaningfulness to clients, highlighting the roles of facilitation and accommodation enforcement style in determining enforcement approaches. However, the legalistic enforcement approach tends to create adverse impressions among clients and confines the decision-making capabilities of bureaucrats. The findings shed new light on street-level bureaucrats’ complex enforcement styles and behaviors, underscoring the critical interplay between their perceptions and enforcement methods in shaping their approach to policy implementation and public engagement. The study concludes by discussing these findings’ theoretical and practical implications, thereby enriching the conversation surrounding public administration theories and personnel management within public sector institutions.

India's fight against Tuberculosis (TB) has evolved from the National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Program (NTCP) in 1962 to the current National TB Elimination Program (NTEP), guided by the National Strategic Plan (2020-2025). Despite ambitious goals, TB incidence remains high at 199 cases per lakh, with only a 3% annual reduction, far from the 15% target. Systemic issues, especially in human resources, hamper effective policy implementation. Frontline workers (FWs), crucial to the program, face heavy workloads, inadequate upgradation of training, and limited support, yet their voices are rarely heard. This study uses Lipsky's Street-Level Bureaucracy (SLB) theory to explore FWs' challenges under NTEP and offers insights to strengthen India's TB elimination efforts. Twenty-three in-depth interviews were conducted with frontline workers (FWs) in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, a TB hotspot. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically coded using a deductive approach informed by Lipsky's Street-Level Bureaucracy (SLB) theory. Three key themes emerged: (1) TB program-specific contextual challenges, (2) human resource constraints, and (3) leadership support. Consistent with street-level bureaucracy theory, frontline workers, despite the formal constraints of their contractual employment, exercised practical discretion to manage high workloads, adverse working conditions, and limited resources.. Supervisory leadership style influenced worker attitudes, transformational leadership fostered motivation and greater engagement with program activities , whereas transactional leadership was linked to dissatisfaction and program alienation. Difficult working conditions coupled with resource deficits hinder effective program implementation. However, supervisory leadership significantly shapes FWs' engagement with program objectives, highlighting its critical role in advancing TB elimination efforts. We recommend improving working conditions for TB health workers by addressing staff shortages, offering risk-based incentives such as paid leave, medical insurance, and nutritional support, and ensuring safer workplaces. Additionally, effective leadership training for District TB Officers, City TB Officers, and Medical Officers, along with recognition and capacity-building for frontline workers such as TB Health Visitors (TBHVs), is crucial.

<p><strong>Although China has undergone rapid economic and social development, poverty in rural regions has curtailed the leadership’s goal of creating a moderately prosperous society. Consequently, the state has undertaken a targeted top-down approach to alleviating impoverishment. Few studies have investigated how this policy is implemented in practice, and fewer still consider the perspective of grassroots level policy practitioners. These “street-level bureaucrats” play a decisive role in policy implementation at the grassroots level where a tension exists between their status as ‘agents of the state’ and ‘spokespeople for community interests’. Policy implementers at the grassroots level face competing pressures and demands from organisational hierarchy, local society and market forces. How they implement Targeted Poverty Alleviation polices in this complex and volatile environment is the focus of this study. This study provides a micro-level perspective on the implementation of national poverty reduction policies from the perspective of rural grassroots actors and uses an impoverished village (Village G) in China as a specific case study. Adopting an ethnographic approach, this work collects, analyses and interprets a large corpus of primary data, drawn from eight months of exhaustive field observations and in-depth interviews. The research overcame barriers in cultural practices, language communication, and transportation, as well as limited access to resources (particularly difficult after the outbreak of COVID-19) to present valuable empirical information on poverty governance in rural Chinese society.</strong></p><p>The approach to the research is framed by Thomas Smith’s policy implementation model and the theory of street-level bureaucracy. The study systematically analyses the behavioural choices and strategic responses of grassroots policy implementers under conditions of competing pressures and limited resources. The study presents four key scenarios of Targeted Poverty Alleviation projects in Village G: infrastructure construction; the relocation programme; industrial poverty alleviation; and coping with higher-level inspections. These scenarios analyse the strategic and tactical behaviour of grassroots cadres in the process of policy implementation. The study finds that grassroots cadres in Village G face a squeeze due to pressure from above and resistance from below while carrying out their administrative duties in relation to Targeted Poverty Alleviation. In the context of political pressures and internal conflicts within an intra-bureaucratic hierarchical organisation, grassroots cadres complete the task of poverty alleviation by expanding upwards - striving to expand their discretionary powers - and unblocking downward - flexibly employing those same discretionary powers to their advantage. They leverage informal systems such as personal networks and clan power to obtain resources and support, while managing conflicts and frictions in policy implementation through strategic alliances and formalistic coping. When political pressure clashes with local knowledge and market conditions, grassroots cadres must fulfil the tasks of their superiors while taking into account local realities and villager needs. Street-level bureaucrats adopt flexible strategies in the implementation of policies, to ensure policy implementation becomes more “localised”. These flexible strategies include reinterpreting policy content, adjusting the manner of implementation, and only selectively implementing policies under specific circumstances.</p><p>This study enriches the theory of street-level bureaucracy by adapting it to the case of Targeted Poverty Alleviation in rural China. This thesis challenges the dominant view that the discretion of street-level bureaucrats can be effectively limited by strengthening their management. While bureaucratic controls may seem to increase administrative pressure, they may not reduce the discretion of street-level bureaucrats. The case study of Village G shows that even in the face of increasing policies, regulations, e-technology, and evaluation and monitoring, the discretionary power of street-level bureaucrats is not completely compressed, but rather exercised in a flexible manner. The focus on rural cadre and the challenges they face implementing Targeted Poverty Alleviation policies contributes to our understanding of state-society relations and street-level bureaucracy. It provides insights for pro-poor policy design and implementation in contemporary rural China.</p>

Is there a relation between street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and their perception of the risk of getting blamed? This article answers this question on the basis of a survey ( n = 507) among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Product Safety Authority. We included perceived media attention on their work as a factor that might influence street-level bureaucrats’ perception of blame risk and their enforcement style. Three dimensions of enforcement style were distinguished from earlier research: legal, facilitative and accommodative. We found that when inspectors perceive more blame risk, they employ a slightly less legal style and, instead, employ a more accommodative style. Thus, they act a little less formally and less coercively (i.e. legal) and take greater account of their peers’ opinions (i.e. accommodative). However, perceived media attention did not have a significant influence on enforcement style. Points for practitioners 1. When inspectors perceive more blame risk, they tend to pay more attention to the opinion of peers (other inspectors, supervisors, etc.). 2. Blame risk does not lead to the use of a more formal inspection style. 3. Media attention does not play an important role in enhancing the blame risk perception of inspectors. 4. This media and blame risk is less important than often found in the case of politicians. This may be connected to the fact that the work of inspectors as street-level bureaucrats is less visible to the wider public (and the media).

This study aims to analyze teacher’s performance as a street-level bureaucrat and the role of teachers’ discretionary power in schools. The article presents result of a survey carried out in 2019, in a public school in São Gonçalo/RJ. Its theoretical contribution seeks a dialogue with assumptions of Lipsky’s Street-Level Bureaucracy theory (1980), in order to understand politics in its last phase of execution and the action of the subjects. The results showed an important teacher’s discretionary power as a factor in the reconfiguration of the school’s public policies, especially in relation to its interaction with the other actors involved in the implementation process.

The purpose of this thesis is to interpret the use of discretion to deliver public service in public interest. The research question to guide this purpose is, what do street-level bureaucrats use discretion for to implement disability service standards in Australia? Lipsky (1976) proposed that given their discretionary power, people on the front-line representing government (termed ‘street-level bureaucrats’) through daily people processing action on the front-line significantly affect policy outcomes. To implement social policy, a qualitative based method has been used to emphasize both intended and unintended consequences to front-line discretion. As a case, the street-level bureaucrats in disability employment services participated in semi-structured interviews and assisted this thesis design and provide the grounds to interpreting what it means to implement social policy in public interest today. By asking the question what is discretion used for, it is with the intention to uncover the meaning of public benefit, deep-rooted in service delivery. It is argued a street-level bureaucrat determines the meaning for citizen-consumer experience from standards in the legislation, and in so doing this, will highlight the ambiguity experienced in service delivery between state-agent or citizen-agent understanding surrounding ‘public interest’ and ‘public service’. The foundation on which the nature, amount and quality of benefits and sanctions, to assist people with a disability into sustainable employment, still rests with new street-level bureaucrats rather than the state initiative. Outcomes of service delivery rest on, in part, the use of discretion by street-level bureaucrats. This thesis disagrees with the state-agent ideal whereby particular outcomes that are unintended or unanticipated by those responsible for setting policy objectives (government) can be explained by the discretion of street-level bureaucrats.

Aim/Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the potential of integrating Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in tertiary education. It examined current practices among teachers and learners regarding GenAI, as well as their perceptions of its benefits and challenges. Background: Higher education worldwide is seeing the increasing use of GenAI. However, its usage patterns and teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of its adoption are yet to be studied. The feasibility and viability of this emerging tool can be assessed by examining early usage patterns as predictors of formal adoption, as supported by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Task-Technology Fit (TTF) frameworks. This study aims to fill that gap by examining both teachers’ and students’ practices and perceptions regarding various aspects of AI and its adoption in education. Methodology: A mixed-method approach was employed. Data were collected from 44 teachers and 186 students at Jashore University of Science and Technology through workshops and structured questionnaires based on the TAM and TTF frameworks. Quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS and MS Excel, while qualitative data were thematically analyzed. Contribution: This study contributes empirical evidence on the adoption of GenAI in a South Asian tertiary education context, enriching the body of knowledge on technology acceptance, digital pedagogy, and GenAI in education policy. By revealing the pictures of relevant variables of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education (GenAIEd) in a unique context, such as Bangladesh, the findings have implications for similar situations. They can inform others about possible challenges and the usefulness of GenAIEd. Findings: Teachers and students are both moderately familiar with GenAI. The teachers primarily use it to prepare courses and materials, while students sporadically engage with GenAI, mainly for academic problem-solving, and they emphasize its role in personalized, learner-centered learning. GenAI familiarity is found to be a strong predictor of usage frequency. However, teachers express concerns about the reliability of GenAI, ethical implications, and the potential for deskilling. While the benefits and usefulness dominate, possible challenges and threats are marginally associated with the future adoption and use of GenAI. This finding is unique because, despite the overpowering ‘ease of use’ of the TAM model, ‘benefits or usefulness’ of the TTF model, challenges, and threats have been found as catalysts for GenAI adoption. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners are to utilize GenAI to support, rather than replace, their teaching expertise. They should also encourage students to strike a balance between GenAI-assisted learning, critical thinking, and independent work. Furthermore, the institutions should introduce guidelines to ensure the ethical use of GenAI and academic integrity. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should explore the longitudinal effects of GenAI adoption on learning outcomes and skill development. They can also conduct comparative studies across different universities and disciplines. Investigating the role of GenAI in inclusive education and support for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds also demands research focus. Impact on Society: The findings highlight how GenAI can transform higher education in Bangladesh and similar contexts. It shows the importance of addressing the risks of overreliance and the unethical use of GenAI for effective learning. A balanced adoption could strengthen human–technology collaboration in education. On the other hand, it has revealed the aspects of GenAI, preferred by educators, that AI developers should consider. Future Research: Further studies should examine hybrid learning models that integrate GenAI with human expertise. Cross-cultural perspectives on GenAI in education remain another area of study. Furthermore, studies should be carried out to develop frameworks for maintaining academic authenticity while GenAI is being used in education.

ABSTRACTThis study investigates street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and its underlying dimensions by developing and validating a multidimensional measurement scale. Developing a measurement scale for enforcement style is relevant because the number of underlying dimensions is contested and studies developing measurement scales are scarce. This complicates cross-sector and cross-national comparisons. Using a survey among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, street-level enforcement style is found to comprising three dimensions: (1) legal, (2) facilitation, and (3) accommodation. This study contributes to more validated measurement instruments by presenting a 13-item measure that can be used to study street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style.

A number of factors are critical to the implementation of measures identified through Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) processes. This paper addresses the challenge of implementation from a street level perspective and studies the role of planners and their use of discretion in the SEA implementation process: in which way might planners hinder or facilitate the implementation of SEA? Which coping mechanisms and discretions are deliberately or unconsciously developed and used by the planners? The paper reviews the literature on street level bureaucracy (SLB) in order to identify both factors influencing the implementation behaviour of street level bureaucrats and their coping mechanism when confronted with these factors. Based upon the SLB theory, a case study explores the SLB behaviour involved in the implementation of the SEA of the Copenhagen spatial plan. The analysis shows a surprisingly high level of implementation of measures put forward in the SEA report, and underlines the role of planners at the front line of implementation, functioning as ‘innovators’ during the SEA process and the following implementation of measures. The paper documents the importance of examining planners’ role in SEA and their potential as levers for SEA implementation.

Public policies are reflected in the public domain more by how laws are implemented on the ground than by what their legislative content is. The departures from legislative intent are often scripted by the non-legislative actors at the cutting edge level in public organizations and people outside of the reference frame are often at their wits’ end as to why such departures take place at all. This essay takes up two Indian laws—one provincial and the other federal—and relying upon Michael Lipsky’s theory of street level bureaucracy, seeks to explore why two critical provisions thereof remained mostly unimplemented right since their legislation. Why do the street level bureaucrats mostly intend to depart from the avowed intent? Do they really stand to gain in such a scenario of non-implementation? If so, how? These questions are discussed in an expanded way in regard to the Bengal Excise Act, 1909 and the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

PurposeThis paper compares the impact of leadership behaviours on the discretionary power, and well-being, and affective commitment of police officers from Italy and the United Kingdom (UK). In contrast to Italy, UK is an example of a core-New Public Management (NPM) country that has implemented reforms, in turn, changing the management and administration of public organizations. Consequently, it is expected that there will be significant differences in the behaviour of police officers. In particular, the paper examines the antecedents and outcomes of police officers' well-being.Design/methodology/approachThe study involves collecting and analysing survey data using Structural Equation Modelling from 220 Italian and 238 UK police officers.FindingsThere was a significant path from Leadership to Discretionary Power to Employee Well-being to Affective Commitment – at least for the Italian sample. The UK sample does not have a significant link between leadership and discretionary power. Discretionary power was similarly low for both groups as was affective commitment. Authentic leadership and discretionary power explained approximately a third of their well-being, particularly discretionary power. Together, directly and indirectly (mediated by well-being), they explained at least a third of police officers' commitment to their organization. Well-being appears to be the key to ensuring effective police officers.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this paper includes the use of cross-sectional data (Podsakoff et al., 2003). However, a common latent factor (CLF) was included, and several items that were explained by common method variance were controlled, as per George and Pandey's recommendations (2017). Additionally, a Harmon's single factor test was applied to the data.Practical implicationsThe UK police officers have significantly lower commitment compared with the Italian police officers (non-commitment), and both Italian and UK police officers have less discretionary power and well-being compared with police from the United States of America (USA) police officers and other street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). The findings suggest that the present police leadership behaviours erode rather than supports police officers' discretionary power and well-being, leading to a low organizational commitment. Leadership training will better prepare managers to ensure the well-being of police officers working under conditions of work intensification.Originality/valueThe UK police officers have significantly lower commitment compared with the Italian police officers (non-commitment), and both Italian and UK police officers have less discretionary power and well-being compared with US police officers and other SLBs. The findings show that the police leadership erodes rather than supports police officers' discretionary power and well-being, leading to low organizational commitment. Leadership models that enhance employee well-being rather than efficiency targets must be a priority if police are to be prepared to cope effectively with emergencies and pandemics.

This paper studies the intended and unintended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style. More specifically, it answers to what extent street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style affects citizens’ obedience (i.e. intended effect) during face-to-face encounters and willingness to publicly shame bureaucrats (i.e. unintended effect). Building on insights from street-level enforcement and the social interactionist theory of coercive actions, a trade-off is theorized between the effect of enforcement style on citizens’ on-the-spot obedience and on public shaming. Results of an experiment ( n = 318) and replication ( n = 311) in The Netherlands reveal that (1) neither the legal nor facilitation dimension has an effect on on-the-spot obedience; (2) the legal dimension does not affect public shaming but (3) the facilitation decreases it. These findings are robust across both the experiment and replication.

This article first summarizes the foundational works in Street Level Bureaucracy Theory (SLBT) written in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Lipsky and his colleagues. Key characteristics are highlighted related to the work situation, characteristics that offer a sense for the bases of organizational and policymaking power posited by early street-level bureaucracy theorists. The article then describes the developments, extensions, and elaborations of SLBT that have occurred over the past thirty years. Finally, several current issues and trends in research on SLBT that appear most challenging and profitable to pursue in future research are discussed. Future research needs to focus more directly on how discretion is nested within rule-based systems. Street-level bureaucrats are the ‘ultimate policymakers’ in two senses: they are the final or last policymakers and they have the greatest influence.

With the rapid advancement of digital technologies, such as the IoT, grassroots governance has entered a new stage of intelligence and digitization. Street-level bureaucrats, as frontline civil servants, play a vital role in public service delivery and community governance. In the digital age, their objective duties and subjective experiences are increasingly influenced by pressures from digital technologies, particularly digital media. Against this backdrop, examining the relationship between the professional identity of street-level bureaucrats and job burnout holds significant practical value for enhancing their work efficiency. Drawing on street-level bureaucracy theory and professional identity theory, this study surveyed 173 auxiliary police officers in Chengdu through questionnaires and in-depth interviews to explore how professional identity relates to job burnout in the digital era. The findings reveal a negative correlation between professional identity and job burnout among street-level bureaucrats in the context of digitalization — namely, a decline in professional identity is associated with higher levels of job burnout. In efforts to strengthen the street-level bureaucrat workforce, tools, such as digital media, can be employed to enhance workers’ sense of self-worth and professional cognition, ignite their passion for the profession, reduce occurrences of job burnout, and ultimately improve work efficiency. The study further proposed that using tools such as the Internet of Things and digital media to strengthen the professional value cognition of street bureaucrats can help improve their sense of professional belonging and enthusiasm, alleviate professional burnout, and thus better achieve public service goals in the intelligent governance system.

Today, various types of artificial intelligence (AI) are emerging as potential information and communication technologies (ICTs) to be integrated into the workplace. Recent work focuses on the potential impacts of AI on public service delivery (Battaglini et al., 2022; Meijer & Wessels, 2019) and bureaucratic decision-making (Bullock, 2019; Young et al., 2019). Yet little is understood regarding public employees-generative AI interactions and how these interactions affect work outcomes. Street-level bureaucrats make decisions with considerable discretion, while they interact with the public (Lipsky, 1980). While AI can be utilized as a tool by street-level bureaucrats, it also may eliminate human roles and stand in as an “artificial bureaucrat” (Bullock & Kim, 2020). The integration of generative AI may shape employees’ role identities, which in turn affect their psychosocial outcomes. We develop a theoretical framework that investigates how human-generative- AI interactions affect street-level bureaucrats’ work outcomes. The framework focuses on two main components: (1) the extent to which generative AI takes part at work; and (2) how human-generative AI interactions shape street-level bureaucrats role identity and their psychosocial outcomes. We integrate literature about workplace identity and job demands-resources theory to provide a set of propositions that can be applied in public organizations.