The Role of Psychological Processing and Government-Public Relationship in Managing the Public's Communicative Actions of Problem-Solving

Abstract

This study demonstrates a model of governance communication management, which connects citizens’ communicative actions of problem solving with the quality of government-citizen relationships (i.e., trust, commitment, control mutuality, and satisfaction). Specifically, drawn from a theoretical application of the Situational Theory of Problem Solving (STOPS), this study shows that situational variables (i.e., problem recognition, involvement recognition, constraint recognition, referent criteria, and situational motivation of problem solving) in the government sector predict citizens’ communicative actions of problem solving and micro-boundary spanning behaviors. Specifically, the results explain when and why people facing government crisis or issue select, transmit, and acquire information in order to solve problems, resolve conflicts, and make better decisions depending the quality of government-citizen relationships. The results of this study also indicate that the quality of government-citizen relationships is a key factor for predicting citizens’ micro-boundary spanning concerning citizens’ voluntary and selective word-of-mouth about the government strengths or weaknesses. Overall this article proposes a range of government communication strategies and interventions to cope with public policy issues and government crisis by building and maintaining the quality relationship between government and citizens in the era of public governance.