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The use of performance management (PM) tools is a defining characteristic of public sector management. However, while research on PM is extensive, comparatively little focuses on how the practice shapes the attitudes and behavior of employees. The purpose of this paper is to address this question and develop a conditional process model that links PM to turnover intention. The model predicts that the PM-turnover relationship is mediated by job satisfaction and moderated by job-goal alignment.

The authors use a unique data set drawn from the Russian public sector to test the model empirically. Conditional process modeling is used to test for moderated mediation. The effects are further explored using bootstrapped bias-corrected confidence intervals.

The analysis suggests that PM has an indirect effect on turnover intention via job satisfaction in the average case. However, the indirect effect is stronger for employees who perceive that their work contributes directly to organizational goals. In contrast, for employees whose work lacks organizational goal alignment, PM has no significant effect.

Despite being an instrument to manage organizational (including human) resources, few studies have linked PM to employee-level outcomes. By doing so, this study implies promising research paths that can help generate a more complete picture of how PM shapes organizational processes in the public sector.

Using the concept red tape, the purpose of this paper is to understand how job context, and especially hierarchical position, shapes the effects of transformational leadership on employee rule perception.

A survey of South Korean central government employees across a range of organizations and hierarchical positions is used to capture perception of rule dysfunction and leadership. Hierarchical linear modeling is used to test the hypotheses generated from a review of relevant literature.

The analysis suggests that perceived transformational leadership behaviors are associated with weakened perception of rule dysfunction. However, this relationship is relevant only for employees at higher echelons of the organization, which in turn suggests that the rule perception of frontline employees is determined by other factors.

The principle limitation of this study is its use of cross-sectional data, which precludes the demonstration of causal influence between the dependent and independent variables.

This study makes several contributions to the literature. Most importantly, while it has been found that characteristics at the organization level influence the effects of transformational leadership, the present study extends this theory to individual job context by incorporating hierarchical level into the analysis.

The informal dimension of organizational experience can shape performance-relevant employee behavior, including voluntary turnover. The authors develop a multi-stage model of turnover intention relevant to public organizations based on the quality of informal intra-organizational employee ties. Specifically, the authors argue that organizational social capital reduces turnover intention both directly and indirectly via its influence on person-organization fit, organizational cynicism and job satisfaction.

The authors use data from a survey of 946 Korean public sector employees and partial least squares structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. A number of checks are performed to evaluate the integrity of the data and probe the robustness of the results.

The authors find that there is a significant link between organizational social capital and turnover intention, but that this relationship is fully mediated by the specified intervening processes. Social capital is associated with increased P-O fit, increased job satisfaction and reduced cynicism. In turn, P-O fit reduces turnover intention both directly and indirectly via increased job satisfaction and reduced cynicism.

While a number of studies demonstrate the value of organizational social capital, the current study works through the theoretical mechanisms by which social capital is transformed into valued organizational outputs. Some of these are specifically relevant to public organizations. The authors describe the model's practical relevance and suggest research questions that can build upon our findings. The authors also note the study's limitations.

Theoretical innovation has been central to the study of red tape in (public sector) organizations. However, fundamental red tape concepts have failed to capture fully the lived experience of dysfunctional rules. This study addresses this issue.

The study provides a critical review of existing red tape theory, highlighting its strengths but, more importantly, its limitations for analyzing red tape from an experiential perspective. To develop an experiential approach, the author draws on philosopher Martin Heidegger’s analysis of (dysfunctional) equipment, leveraging his insights to provide a cognitive account of established red tape concepts including functional efficacy, compliance burden, goal displacement and the bureaucratic personality.

The analysis suggests that, from an experiential perspective, impersonal organizational goals are unlikely to serve as the criteria by which evaluations of rule quality are made. Rather, a limited horizon of practical objectives, grounded in the individual work context, provides a more realistic standard. The practical implications of this insight for research in several areas are discussed.

By drawing on a literature largely overlooked by public administration scholars, this study contributes to the theory of red tape and organizational rules by providing a novel perspective that is not entirely discontinuous with existing work.

Due to the scope of procurement in the public sector, public procurement policy has the potential to shape the behavior of market actors and promote the growth of businesses with socially relevant characteristics. This chapter looks at the public procurement process in South Korea as well as the implementation of the country’s e-procurement system. Public procurement is vulnerable to corruption in various ways, and Korea’s KONEPS e-procurement system has reduced corruption in the procurement process by increasing transparency, the persistence of data, and the probability of detecting irregularities. Second, this chapter explores how Korea has increasingly incorporated sustainable procurement principles into procurement policy, attempting to foster innovative and environmentally friendly companies, as well as those led by individuals belonging to socially disadvantaged groups. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some of the historical and organizational factors underlying Korea’s successes in public procurement in order to better understand the extent to which currently developing countries can draw upon the Korean case to improve their own procurement policies.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Purpose – This chapter explores the use of music and celebrity endorsements in political campaigns of the United States. It focuses on two aspects: (1) the legality of a political campaign’s use of music at rallies and in advertisements without authorization from the owner of the musical work and (2) a review of the literature on the potential effect of the use of music in political campaigns on voter behavior.

Design/methodology/approach – A brief history of the use of music in political campaigns precedes an examination of the expansion of copyright law protection for music and the legal claims musicians may raise against the unauthorized use of music by political campaigns. The chapter then reviews the potential effect of political campaigns’ use of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior.

Findings – A musician’s primary legal protection falls under copyright law, but the courts disagree on whether the unauthorized use of music at political rallies and in political campaign advertisements results in copyright infringement. Social research suggests music and celebrity endorsements affect voter behavior with a likely greater effect on first-time voters.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter introduces the complicated application of copyright law to the unauthorized use of musical works by political campaigns. Additionally, it notes the limited research on the effect of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior even as political campaigns increasingly target niche demographics with specific music selections to motivate voters to vote.

This chapter presents empirical evidence on the effects of attributional retraining (AR), a motivation-enhancing treatment that can offset maladaptive explanatory mind-sets arising from adverse learning experiences. The evidence shows that AR is effective for assisting college students to adapt to competitive and challenging achievement settings.

This chapter describes the characteristics of AR protocols and details three primary advances in studying AR efficacy in terms of achievement performance, psychosocial outcomes, and processes that mediate AR-performance linkages. The psychological mechanisms that underpin AR effects on motivation and performance are outlined from the perspective of Weiner’s (1974, 1986, 2012) attribution theory.

Laboratory and field studies show that AR treatments are potent interventions that have short-term and long-lasting psychosocial, motivation, and performance benefits in achievement settings. Students who participate in AR programs are better off than their no-AR counterparts not just in their cognitive and affective prospects, but they also outperform their no-AR peers in class tests, course grades, and grade-point-averages, and are more persistent in terms of course credits and graduation rates.

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on treatment interventions in achievement settings by documenting key advances in the development of AR protocols and by identifying the next steps critical to moving the literature forward. Further progress in understanding AR efficacy will rest on examining the analysis of complex attributional thinking, the mediation of AR treatment effects, and the boundary conditions that moderate AR treatment efficacy.