Merit Principle Research Articles

Addressing the Relationship Between Emotion Management and Social Capital: An Analysis of Federal Employees

Emotion management describes the ability of an employee to regulate the outward manifestation of emotions during personal interactions. Prior studies examining emotions in organizations have often emphasized the production of emotional labor during service delivery transactions with clients. Such a focus has overlooked the emotion management that takes place between employees. Using ordinary least- squares (OLS) regression, this study analyzes the 2016 Merit Principles Survey of federal employees to examine the relationship between emotion management and the development of social capital. Findings from the study show a positive relationship between emotion management and social capital. These findings provide evidence that employees capable of properly regulating their emotional states during interactions with their colleagues perceive themselves as having more social capital. The findings, however, also indicate that the positive relationship between emotion management and social capital does not hold for employees of color to the same extent that it does for white employees. This could mean that emotion management by employees of color is less likely to lead to increases in social capital as it is for their white counterparts. These findings have important implications for our understanding of emotion management and its impact on how employees navigate their organizations.

The practices of performance management and low performers in the US Federal Government

PurposeAddressing low performers has been an important issue for government. The purpose of this paper is to examine what practices of performance management are effective in reducing the proportion of low performers in the US federal government.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted the binary logit regression analysis and multinomial regression analysis.FindingsAnalyzing the Merit Principle Survey 2016, the authors found that the dismissal of low performing employees and the formal performance improvement plan (PIP) is the most effective in reducing the proportion of low performers. To the contrary, the within-grade-increase did not have a significant influence on the proportion of low performers. Moreover, using the performance appraisal for the purpose of reassigning employees to the position that better match employees’ talent increased the number of low performers in work units.Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations are as follows. First, the performance measure for this study was the percentage of employees rated as unsuccessful. Second, the pseudo-R2 indicated that the proposed model explained only the small, albeit significant, portion of the total variance in employee performance. Lastly, this study used a cross-sectional research design that may impede the validity of inference of causalities.Practical implicationsAccording to a recent news article (Rein, 2018), Trump signed an executive order that limits the stable benefits associated with government employment such as, limiting pay associated with union work and negotiating more stringent union contracts. These measures are largely aimed at eliminating low performing employees rather than attempting to improve their performances through carefully designed training programs. Although removing low performers may be an option, the results indicate that providing assistance in order to develop employee knowledge and skills through the PIP have a comparable impact on reducing low performers.Originality/valueThese findings imply that the use of performance evaluation for developmental or sanctioning purpose is more effective than reassignment or incentive purpose.

О некоторых факторах эффективности государственного управления

The article emphasizes that modern governments, working in unique socio-economic, historical and cultural conditions, must take into account global trends, as well as the growth of citizens’ expectations associated with the rapid development of information technologies and other factors. In such circumstances, special attention is paid to the effectiveness of public administration. The article discusses some of the significant factors impacting the effectiveness of public administration, such as the professionalization of the state apparatus, the legibility of the institutional framework, the optimization of information flows and corporate culture. In accordance with this, on the basis of work experience in the public administration system and analysis of civil service reforms in the countries of the region, the main challenges and possible solutions are shown. In the professionalization of the state apparatus, the importance of the merit principles in the selection and promotion stages of personnel through the empowerment of human resource (HR) management services, the integrity of tools and approaches at all stages of selection process, and the responsibility of the selection board are noted. The author focuses on the need to ensure a balance of powers, responsibility and resources, delimitation of powers between political and administrative civil servants, optimization of information flows. Particular importance is paid to corporate culture, which is one of the main factors affecting the efficiency of the state apparatus. It is noted that central values of corporate culture and leadership in state bodies of the countries of our region, along with generally accepted in the modern leadership theory, should be respect for the dignity, work and time of employees.

Physical Masculinity and the “Philosopher Hero” in the 1790s Political Novel

ABSTRACT1790s reformist fiction in Great Britain makes evident the approaching nineteenth-century turn in ideals of masculinity from physically defined aristocratic chivalry toward intellectually defined middle-class self-discipline. Reformist novelists endorse this transition by casting an intellectually engaged middle- or laboring-class male protagonist against an aristocratic antagonist who clings to the outdated manly contest of dueling. This essay complicates this clean divide between intellectual and physical masculinities by identifying a character type, the “philosopher hero,” in the fiction of Thomas Holcroft, chiefly Anna St. Ives (1792). I argue that the philosopher hero redefines physical heroism for the modern era, divorcing it from its aristocratic and chivalric history and adapting it to reflect principles of merit and self-sacrifice that any man can embody. Casting attention forward, I analyze two conservative responses to Holcroft's philosopher hero: George Walker's satire of this new character type in The Vagabond (1799) and Robert Bisset's positive appropriation of it in Douglas (1800). These responses show evidence for the durability and political portability of the philosopher hero, whose virtues seem to presage representations of heroism that appear in later-nineteenth-century texts.

The Weakness of Strong (and Weak) Ties: Obtaining a Government Job

ABSTRACTBetween merit principles and social contacts, how they facilitate individuals to obtain a government job in the United States remains unsettled. Based on a survey administered via Amazon Mturk, this study finds that merit-based selection constitutes the most significant means to obtain public jobs, particularly so in state and local governments despite of sizeable respondents claiming other venues. The use of social contacts, including both strong and weak ties, shows little advantage on obtaining public employment but proves significant in private organizations. Controlling individuals’ previous job obtaining experience, the study contends that variations on job obtaining methods can be reasonably attributable to institutional distinctiveness that features different rules, procedures and regulations. Merit principles are kept alive in governments, though challenges persist, particularly so in federal government. The study ends up with a discussion of research findings and their implications in HR practices.

Against unfairness: Young children’s judgments about merit, equity, and equality

This study examined young children’s judgments of resource distributions that either adhered to or diverged from principles of equality, equity, or merit in straightforward, peer-based scenarios. The sample comprised 192 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse 3- to 8-year-olds. Between 3 and 8 years of age, children evaluated inequitable and anti-meritorious allocations more negatively but did not evaluate equitable and meritorious allocations more positively. Rather, between 3 and 8 years, children increasingly supported equality. Highlighting an important but often overlooked developmental distinction, these results suggest that young children are increasingly against unfairness, but do not always endorse the most complex forms of distributive fairness.

Positive in Public Service: Government Personnel, Constrained Incentives, and Positive Work Attitudes

ABSTRACT:Surveys of government personnel have shown that they are much more likely than their counterparts in business firms to say that it is hard to fire a poor performer, to raise the pay of a good performer, and to base promotion on performance. Yet the same surveys find that most government respondents indicate high levels of motivation, meaningful work, and other positive responses. This study analyzes “positives” who perceive sharp constraints on pay raises, promotions, and discipline, yet they still express positive perceptions of organizational performance and of their work. Using data from NASP-Citizen, the results show that “positives” are more prevalent in the public sector. We also analyze the 2010 Merit Principles Survey to develop a measure of positives and positiveness. The results show that they relate very strongly to public service motivation, to jobs with motivating factors (variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback), and to positive perceptions of career executives in the organization. We discuss implications for civil service reform initiatives and for theory and research about people in government service.

Merit, Diversity, and Performance: Does Diversity Management Moderate the Effect of Merit Principles on Governmental Performance?

The compatibility of merit principles and diversity management is particularly intriguing in theory and practice. Although theoretical arguments for merit-based practices and diversity management are well established, the effect of their dynamics on governmental performance remains an empirical issue. This article examines the effect of merit principles, workforce diversity, and diversity management on government performance, and inquires about whether diversity management efforts moderate the effect of merit-based practices. Analyzing a combined data set on federal agencies, this study finds that merit-based practices and diversity management have independent positive impact on organizational performance, but there is no significant relationship between workforce diversity and performance. Furthermore, the effect of merit-based practices on organizational performance is moderated by gender diversity and diversity management. Specifically, if an agency has a more diverse workforce in terms of gender or more effective diversity management efforts, the positive effect of merit-based practices on organizational performance is strengthened.

La reversión por la administración de las contratas: perspectiva desde el derecho del trabajo

El presente trabajo analiza la actual dinámica de los procesos de reversión o remunicipalización de servicios públicos, si bien desde la perspectiva laboral de la cuestión y respecto de la principal de las posibles consecuencias que pueden producirse en este ámbito: la subrogación empresarial, por la que se incorporan a las Administraciones Públicas personal procedente de empresas privadas. Se estudian los principales supuestos que dan lugar a la subrogación como consecuencia de que la reversión pueda ser calificada como sucesión de empresas; y se señalan cuáles son los principales problemas jurídicos que se plantean, especialmente desde el punto de vista del respeto a los principios constitucionales de igualdad, mérito y capacidad; así como la evolución normativa más reciente por la que se pretende limitar los efectos de la incorporación de este personal a las Administraciones Públicas.

Women in Australian Politics: Maintaining the Rage against the Political Machine

Women in Australian Politics: Maintaining the Rage against the Political Machine

Exploring the associations between youths' explanations of poverty at the societal level and judgements of distributive justice.

This study explores whether adolescents' societal explanations regarding the causes of poverty are associated with distributive justice reasoning. Survey data were collected from 425 6th-12th graders who answered questions concerning the causes of poverty and a vignette depicting a hypothetical class project designed to assess the degree to which the adolescent respondent would distribute resources based on principles of need or merit. Findings indicated that adolescents who explained poverty based on structural or a mix of structural and individual causes were more likely to base decisions about resource distribution on need, whereas those who attributed poverty to individual causes distributed resources based on merit. Participants who were older, female, Caucasian, and from a higher socioeconomic status (SES) background were more likely to indicate need as a basis for distributing resources. Poverty attributions (i.e., societal, and mixed) had a significant interaction with age and SES in predicting distributive justice reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Temporal Logic of Deservingness: Inequality Beliefs in Two Postsocialist Societies

Employing a cultural sociological approach, this article asks how individuals from two postsocialist societies articulate principles of justice by providing narrative accounts of other peoples’ perceived choices and social mobility trajectories after 1989. Using data from an interview study of 67 respondents from former East Germany and the Czech Republic, I present two interrelated findings: First, as respondents negotiate the tension between the principles of merit and need, they show widespread support for the idea that individuals are personally responsible for their fate despite the legacy of egalitarianism commonly associated with postsocialist societies. Second, individuals can effectively challenge the principle of merit by using a certain type of eventful knowledge about economic change after 1989 that is articulated morally but points to the limits of choice. The article distinguishes different notions of deservingness and contributes to the current debate on the links between culture and economics.

The reality confronting the merit principle in the Albanian civil service: a historical comparison going back to the roots

There have been many studies that have investigated the history of the meritocratic competitive testing of public officials, with historians of and researchers in administrative science concluding that China was the first country to apply the principle of merit in selecting public officials through open competition. The novelty of the approach set out in this article is to analyse historic facts through the eye of an employee who has significant experience in the public administration of Albania. There have been attempts to introduce the merit principle in Albania, but these have encountered significant difficulties due to the communist traditions of the country and the problems of its 28-year transition to democracy. In exploring the origin story developing in a faraway eastern country, the questions arise as to why China was the first country in the world to apply the principle of merit in selecting public officials and what lessons this has for Albania today. By combining historical and analytical method, analysing the history of meritocratic competitive testing, this article aims to serve the development of public administration in Albania.

Coping With Conflict: Examining the Influence of PSM on Perceptions of Workplace Stressors

While the presence and degree of workplace stress poses a significant problem for organizations in all sectors, scholarship frequently acknowledges that responses to workplace stress vary significantly across individuals. However, public sector human resource management (HRM) research, relative to generic HRM research, invests comparatively less attention toward understanding individual differences in response to perceived stressors. We employ the relational model of stress developed by Matteson and Ivancevich and Lazarus to examine how one dispositional characteristic commonly examined in public sector HRM research, public service motivation (PSM), influences the stress process. Results obtained using data from the 2010 U.S. Merit Principles Survey reveal that individuals with higher than average PSM experience more pronounced negative emotions when they perceive heightened workplace conflict, which subsequently increases their intent to separate from the organization.

Carrera administrativa: una oportunidad laboral para el optómetra en el sector público

In Colombia, optometrists may work in the public sector. Law 9009 of 2004 states «norms to regulate the public employment, the administrative career, the public management and other dispositions»; and it is implemented in order to have access to the citizen administration with a better personal and professional quality, satisfying then the general interests, the human resources professionalism, the responsibility of the public employee, and an increase in the efficacy levels, in the public function. Public employment, which is part of the public function, must be subjected to selection processes under the principles of merit, free concurrence, and equality in the entry, publicity, transparency, and specialization of the technical entities in charge of the selection processes, guaranty of impartiality in the entities in charge of the processes, reliability and validity of the selection mechanisms. The administrative career, as a technical system of personnel administration, wants to guarantee the efficiency in the public administration, and the stability and equality in opportunities for the access and promotion in the public position. Therefore it gives more opportunities for the health professionals, especially for optometrists.

Meriting a Response: The Paradox of Seductive Artworks

According to what I call the Merit Principle, artworks attempting to elicit unmerited responses, such as horror films inviting fear towards something unfrightening, are aesthetically flawed. This paper shows how the principle generates a novel paradox when applied to an undertheorized class that I call ‘seductive works’: these necessarily invite an unmerited response in order to invite a (merited) repudiation of that response. I consider a number of unsuccessful attempts to preserve the Merit Principle, discuss what is challenging about seductive artworks, and briefly defend a new principle appealing to a general way that constraints under which a work operates condition its aesthetic value. This principle not only resolves the paradox, but explains the competing intuitions giving rise to it.

Equal or equitable pay? Individual differences in pay fairness perceptions

This study examined how social comparison (i.e., comparing one's pay to similar others' pay) and deserved comparison (i.e., comparing one's pay to one's deserved pay) affect pay fairness perceptions, and the individual differences in the comparison processes. Results based on a field study with a sample of 167 employees showed pay fairness was low when employees received lower pay than a similar other (or what they deserved), increased as their pay exceeded that of a similar other (or deserved pay) to some extent, and then decreased when overpayment was considerable. Second, pay fairness increased as one's actual and similar others' pay levels both increased while pay fairness remained the same as one's actual and the deserved pay levels both increased. In addition, the “threshold” that people start to perceive overpayment as less fair occurred more quickly for those with higher preference for consistency in social comparison and for those with higher preference for the merit principle in deserved comparison. We also conducted experiments, and the results generally replicated the findings in the field study. These findings offer theoretical implications regarding organizational justice, as well as practical implications for designing and executing a compensation system.

Performance Appraisal Problems in the Public Sector: Examining Supervisors’ Perceptions

Employee perceptions of performance appraisal processes have received considerable attention in the public management literature, but the views of supervisors who actually conduct the appraisals have received relatively little consideration. This article addresses that gap in the literature by examining supervisors’ perceptions of individual employee performance appraisal in the U.S. federal service in an attempt to identify structural and operational problems associated with that system as viewed by those responsible for making it work. Data are drawn from a Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), Merit Principles Survey, which contained a section asking supervisors to evaluate nine potential problems associated with performance appraisal. Responses indicated that inflated ratings, flawed standards, and a lack of support were the most problematic aspects of the appraisal process. An agency’s use of performance-based rewards, a supervisor’s belief that his or her own performance is assessed objectively, and supervisor age are consistent predictors of supervisors’ perceptions.

The Dutch Decentralized Unitary State and Its Effects on Civil Service Systems in the Period of the Night Watch, Welfare and Enabling States 1814–2016

Abstract The central question on our article is: to what extent were the nature and content of merit principles for Dutch civil service systems influenced by the (changing) decentralized unitary state, during the periods of the Night Watch, Welfare and Enabling State between 1814 and 2016? In accordance with the decentralized unitary structure as originally devised by the 19th century Dutch statesman Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, personnel management and regulations were (and are) considered the prime responsibility of each (level of) government. Our article shows how neither in past nor present have there been hierarchical relationships in this area, with the exception of centralized wage settlements after the Second World War until the 1990s. In addition, we argue that civil service requirements have altered due to societal and public sector change. Those changes have become visible in a transition from a Night Watch to a Welfare State and more recently an Enabling State. This transition not only influenced what was expected of the role and position of civil servants at different levels of government in the decentralized unitary state. It also had an effect on what has over time been required of civil servants in terms of knowledge, capabilities, attitude, skills and experience. The article explains how the Thorbeckian decentralized unitary state provided a lasting but flexible format to accommodate these civil service system adjustments.

Diversity, Inclusive Governance and Sustainable Development in Nigeria: The Federal Character Principle in Focus

The need for inclusive governance has become more urgent in the face of the ethno-politically propelled violence prevalent in the world especially in Africa. The Federal Character Principle though introduced to redress geopolitical imbalance and bring about national integration, has become the Achilles heel of Nigerian politics. Thus, the thrust of this paper is an in-depth analysis of the Federal Character Principle as an instrument of retooling Nigeria diversity for inclusive governance and sustainable development. Through a documentary search, the paper examined the application of the principle and its effect on key principles that promote effective public service delivery and sustainable development. Our findings show that the principle has gone a long way to reduce various factors of mutual distrust and rivalries among states and geopolitical zones for sharing of the Nigerian commonwealth. However, the implementation of the principle has impinged on the application of the merit principle in public service recruitment and selection which is key to effective service delivery and sustainable development. In its varied application, the principle tries to prop the weak but downplays excellence thereby brewing injustice and inefficiency. Based on the thesis that Nigeria can only continue to seek unity and development upon the continuing basis of ethno-political diversity, the paper makes some recommendations towards a more effective application of the Federal Character Principle. These include applying the principle only at the entry level into the service while climbing up the ladder should depend on solely on merit, recruitment for post requiring specialist training should not be based on Federal Character Principle but strictly on merit among others.