Lars Tummers
I work as a Professor of Public Management and Behavior at Utrecht University. For the full academic year 2013-2014, I worked as a Visiting Scholar at Berkeley. I study leadership. Furthermore, I study behavioral public administration (policy alienation, coping, experiments). I received various grants and awards, such as a Marie Curie Grant, a NWO VENI and the Erasmus University Research Prize for excellence in research. For more info, you can email me or visit www.larstummers.com.
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Papers by Lars Tummers
For this Virtual Issue, we analyzed the articles of JPART from its inception (1991) to the current day (2015). We find that around 10% of the articles in JPART made a substantial use of psychology. The trend also seems to indicate a recent increase of this type of articles. We highlight eight of these articles in particular. These eight articles are excellent examples of the potential added value of psychological insights to key public administration questions. We hope that this Virtual Issue inspires scholars and practitioners to deepen the dialogue between public administration and psychology.
Approach – Literature review.
Findings – By taking new methodological and theoretical routes, scholars can contribute to the analysis and potential solutions concerning workplace aggression in the public sector. First, the authors advise researchers to move beyond cross-sectional surveys. Instead, diary studies, longitudinal studies and experimental methods (such as randomized control trials) should be increasingly used. Furthermore, scholars can focus more on theory development and testing. Future studies are advised to connect workplace aggression to theoretical models (such as the Job Demands-Resources model), to theories (for instance social learning theory) and to public administration concepts (such as public service motivation and trust in citizens).
Originality/value – This is one of the few articles within the public management literature which provides new methodological and theoretical directions for future research on workplace aggression.
For this Virtual Issue, we analyzed the articles of JPART from its inception (1991) to the current day (2015). We find that around 10% of the articles in JPART made a substantial use of psychology. The trend also seems to indicate a recent increase of this type of articles. We highlight eight of these articles in particular. These eight articles are excellent examples of the potential added value of psychological insights to key public administration questions. We hope that this Virtual Issue inspires scholars and practitioners to deepen the dialogue between public administration and psychology.
Approach – Literature review.
Findings – By taking new methodological and theoretical routes, scholars can contribute to the analysis and potential solutions concerning workplace aggression in the public sector. First, the authors advise researchers to move beyond cross-sectional surveys. Instead, diary studies, longitudinal studies and experimental methods (such as randomized control trials) should be increasingly used. Furthermore, scholars can focus more on theory development and testing. Future studies are advised to connect workplace aggression to theoretical models (such as the Job Demands-Resources model), to theories (for instance social learning theory) and to public administration concepts (such as public service motivation and trust in citizens).
Originality/value – This is one of the few articles within the public management literature which provides new methodological and theoretical directions for future research on workplace aggression.
‘Why do pubic sector professionals resist change? Tummers offers a compelling account of the alienation of professionals following new public management reforms. This timely and methodologically innovative book shows public managers how to implement organisational change, and provides scholars with a set of new measurement scales. Policy Alienation and the Power of Professionals is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how professional organisations operate, and why professionals resist some changes, while embracing others.’
– Steven Van de Walle, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Contents
Contents: Preface 1. Introduction to Policy Alienation and the Power of Professionals 2. Historical Background of Alienation 3. Public Policies and Alienation 4. Measurement Instrument of Policy Alienation 5. Antecedents of Policy Alienation 6. Policy Alienation and Resistance to Change 7. Policy Alienation, Organizational Context, Personality and Resistance to Change 8. Discussion and Conclusions References Index
Further information
‘Tummers’ book resurfaces alienation as an established and useful concept, but also as a forgotten and ignored reality. Shifts in policies affect the meaning of these policies, and reforms affect power balances. The analyses in this book are crucial to help understand why policies fail and why there is resistance to change. Tummers coins “policy alienation” as an increasingly indispensable concept. Reforms would have been different if Tummers’ analysis on powerlessness and meaninglessness was more taken into account.’
– Geert Bouckaert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and former President of the European Group for Public Administration
‘Lars Tummers has written a must-read book! While systemic changes ushered in by market-oriented reforms have received attention, little is known about the plight of the individual in modern bureaucracies. Tummers presents a masterful and authoritative account of policy alienation that public service professionals experience. The breadth and depth of Tummers’s scholarship is impressive! This book has something of value for everyone from the casual reader to public management scholar.’
– Sanjay K. Pandey, The State University of New Jersey, US
‘Why do pubic sector professionals resist change? Tummers offers a compelling account of the alienation of professionals following new public management reforms. This timely and methodologically innovative book shows public managers how to implement organisational change, and provides scholars with a set of new measurement scales. Policy Alienation and the Power of Professionals is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how professional organisations operate, and why professionals resist some changes, while embracing others.’
– Steven Van de Walle, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Professionals often have problems with governmental policies they have to implement. This ranges from Israeli teachers striking against school reforms, via British civil servants quitting their jobs as they have problems with New Public Management reforms focused on cost cutting, to US healthcare professionals feeling overwhelmed by a constant flow of policy changes, resulting in tensions, conflicts, and burn-outs.
This eloquent book by Lars Tummers develops a framework to understand these important issues with policy implementation, using the innovative concept of ‘policy alienation’. Policies in healthcare, social security, and education are analyzed. The conclusions challenge the common assertions regarding the reasons why professionals resist policies. For instance, the impact of professional influence, often viewed as an end in itself, is nuanced. Lars Tummers reveals that it is far more important for professionals that a policy is meaningful for society and for their clients, than they have an influence in its shaping.
Policy Alienation and the Power of Professionals is essential for public administration scholars, policymakers, change managers and professionals. To improve its academic and practical significance, a ‘policy alienation’ questionnaire is developed to measure the degree of policy alienation felt by implementers. This instrument can be used to first understand and then improve policy performance in various settings.
societal organizations. This attention in practice is mirrored in an increasing number of
scholarly articles. In this introduction to the special issue on public sector innovation,
we discuss how the scholarly perspectives on innovation have changed. Previously, it
was assumed that innovation could be organized within organizations: if your organization
had the necessary resources, innovation could happen. Nowadays, innovation in
the public sector is seen as an open process of collaboration between stakeholders
across various organizations. This change towards open and collaborative approaches
has consequences for studies on innovation, for instance, it becomes important to
analyse how to activate stakeholders to join the innovation process. Next to this,
scholars interested in innovation should connect their research with other literature
streams, such as those focused on network governance, leadership and design thinking.
In such ways, innovation scholars can develop research that is relevant to society.
of public sector innovation diffusion and adoption. We also propose three lines for future research: (1) combine macro-, meso-, and micro-level approaches to develop a more nuanced and context-dependent understanding of diffusion and adoption; (2) clearly distinguish between innovation generation, innovation diffusion, and innovation adoption; and (3) draw more extensively on open innovation and collaborative innovation concepts given the crucial role of end-users in innovation diffusion and adoption.
individual behavior and attitudes by drawing on insights from psychology on the behavior of individuals and groups.
The authors discuss how scholars in public administration currently draw on theories and methods from psychology
and related fields and point to research in public administration that could benefit from further integration. An
analysis of public administration topics through a psychological lens can be useful to confirm, add nuance to, or extend
classical public administration theories. As such, behavioral public administration complements traditional public
administration. Furthermore, it could be a two-way street for psychologists who want to test the external validity of
their theories in a political-administrative setting. Finally, four principles are proposed to narrow the gap between
public administration and psychology.