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Nurses are under strain. Telepressure, the urge to respond to work-related messages after working hours, exacerbates this. Nurses are contacted daily after working hours to fill in or shift schedules. As a result, nurses are constantly connected to their work and their team. This makes it difficult for them to psychologically detach. Previous studies on telepressure conclude with the recommendation to establish clear norms and agreements at the team level for sending and receiving work-related messages outside working hours. However, this has not been systematically studied. This study examines if team-level agreements indeed have an impact on the level of telepressure and psychological detachment among nurses. A survey (n=142) and qualitative focus groups indicate that team-level agreements are negatively associated with telepressure and consequently, positively associated with psychological detachment. It is therefore crucial for nursing teams to convert unwritten rules and expectations into clear and explicit team-level agreements concerning work-related messages after the workday has ended.

Werkgerelateerde teledruk, de preoccupatie met, en drang om (zo snel mogelijk) te reageren op werkgerelateerde digitale berichten, kan negatieve effecten hebben op het welzijn en de prestaties van werknemers. Over werkgerelateerde teledruk bij verpleegkundigen is weinig bekend, terwijl het in het licht van de huidige personeelsproblemen van belang is om duurzame inzetbaarheid van werknemers in de zorgsector te realiseren. In dit onderzoek beantwoord ik daarom de vraag: Hoe ervaren verpleegkundigen het gebruik van online communicatiemiddelen voor het communiceren over roosterproblemen, welke factoren hebben effect op teledruk volgens verpleegkundigen en welke maatregelen treffen verpleegkundigen om teledruk te verlagen? Om een antwoord te geven op deze onderzoeksvraag heb ik semigestructureerde interviews gehouden met verpleegkundigen en leidinggevenden van verpleegkundigen in een breed scala aan zorgorganisaties. Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat twee derde van de geïnterviewde verpleegkundigen teledruk ervaart. Daarnaast beschrijf ik een aantal factoren die teledruk volgens de respondenten verhoogt en presenteer ik maatregelen die de respondenten treffen om teledruk te verlagen. Deze factoren en maatregelen vormen mogelijk een opzet voor vervolgonderzoek naar manieren om teledruk bij werknemers te verlagen. Op basis van het onderzoek beveel ik leidinggevenden van (zorg)organisaties aan om verwachtingen rondom online communicatie duidelijk te communiceren en een gezond werkklimaat te creëren. Ook raad ik werkgevers aan werknemers die op basis van de genoemde factoren extra gevoelig zijn voor teledruk in bescherming te nemen. Aan werknemers beveel ik ten slotte aan de genoteerde maatregelen te gebruiken als inspiratie.

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This article systematically reviews 93 theoretical and empirical articles and books on the topic of teacher leadership. The included studies are analyzed on the basis of the following themes: (1) definitions of teacher leadership, (2) antecedents of teacher leadership, (3) outcomes of teacher leadership, and (4) methodological quality of studies on teacher leadership. Based on our analysis we develop a conceptual framework unifying the current knowledge about teacher leadership, its definitions, and its antecedents and outcomes at different levels of analysis. We highlight the current methodological limitations of the included studies and point out avenues for further development of the field of teacher leadership. In particular, we call for more (1) conceptual clarity, (2) cross-country research designs, (3) research designs eliminating endogeneity problems, and (4) attention for the potential ‘dark sides’ of teacher leadership.

Public managers’ decisions are affected by cognitive biases. For instance , employees’ previous year's performance ratings influence new ratings irrespective of actual performance. Nevertheless , experimental knowledge of public managers’ cognitive biases is limited, and debiasing techniques have rarely been studied. Using a survey experiment on 1 ,221 public managers and employees in the United Kingdom, this research (1) replicates two experiments on anchoring to establish empirical generalization across institutional contexts and (2) tests a consider‐the‐opposite debiasing technique. The results indicate that anchoring bias replicates in a different institutional context , although effect sizes differ. Furthermore , a low‐cost , low‐intensity consider‐the‐opposite technique mitigates anchoring bias in this survey experiment. An exploratory subgroup analysis indicates that the effect of the intervention depends on context. The next step is to test this strategy in real‐world settings.

Background: Electronic health (eHealth) tools are increasingly being applied in health care. They are expected to improve access to health care, quality of health care, and health outcomes. Although the advantages of using these tools in health care are well described, it is unknown to what extent eHealth tools are effective when used by vulnerable population groups, such as the elderly, people with low socioeconomic status, single parents, minorities, or immigrants. Objective: This study aimed to examine whether the design and implementation characteristics of eHealth tools contribute to better use of these tools among vulnerable groups. Methods: In this systematic review, we assessed the design and implementation characteristics of eHealth tools that are used by vulnerable groups. In the meta-analysis, we used the adherence rate as an effect size measure. The adherence rate is defined as the number of people who are repetitive users (ie, use the eHealth tool more than once). We also performed a meta-regression analysis to examine how different design and implementation characteristics influenced the adherence rate. Results: Currently, eHealth tools are continuously used by vulnerable groups but to a small extent. eHealth tools that use multimodal content (such as videos) and have the possibility for direct communication with providers show improved adherence among vulnerable groups. Conclusions: eHealth tools that use multimodal content and provide the possibility for direct communication with providers have a higher adherence among vulnerable groups. However, most of the eHealth tools are not embedded within the health care system. They are usually focused on specific problems, such as diabetes or obesity. Hence, they do not provide comprehensive services for patients. This limits the use of eHealth tools as a replacement for existing health care services.

This article presents a systematic literature review of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the public sector. The findings show that although OCB is gaining more attention in the public sector, research often does not take specific public sector characteristics or concepts into account. Based on the available evidence, the authors develop a framework of antecedents, outcomes, mediators, and moderators of OCB. Three areas for future research are recommended: (1) regarding theory: link OCB to public sector concepts such as bureaucratic red tape, public leadership, and public service motivation; (2) regarding research designs: use stronger survey designs, experiments, and case studies and devote more attention to cross-sectoral and cross-country differences; and (3) regarding the consequences of OCB: address the gap in our knowledge of how OCB has an impact on public organizations, including negative impacts

Public managers’ decisions are affected by cognitive biases. For instance, employees’ previous year's performance ratings influence new ratings irrespective of actual performance. Nevertheless, experimental knowledge of public managers’ cognitive biases is limited, and debiasing techniques have rarely been studied. Using a survey experiment on 1,221 public managers and employees in the United Kingdom, this research (1) replicates two experiments on anchoring to establish empirical generalization across institutional contexts and (2) tests a consider-the-opposite debiasing technique. The results indicate that anchoring bias replicates in a different institutional context, although effect sizes differ. Furthermore, a low-cost, low-intensity consider-the-opposite technique mitigates anchoring bias in this survey experiment. An exploratory subgroup analysis indicates that the effect of the intervention depends on context. The next step is to test this strategy in real-world settings.

Despite its argued importance for the quality of public service, compassion is not yet an integrated research topic in public administration. The main purpose of this study was to gain more understanding on what frontline workers’ compassion towards client entails. It did so by first providing conceptual clarity on frontline workers’ compassion towards clients, and, second, by testing the damaging effects of experiencing compassion towards clients on the wellbeing of frontline workers. Using a factor analysis with data collected on social workers through a survey (n = 849), this study showed that compassion is a distinct emotion from emphatic distress, and that compassion has two underlying dimensions: emphatic concern and compassionate motivation. Second, the study points out that the dimensions of compassion have opposite effects on a frontline worker’s wellbeing: while compassionate motivation is negatively related to emotional exhaustion, emphatic concern is positively related to emotional exhaustion and mediated by working overtime to help clients. Altogether, this study showed that compassion is a more complex construct and potentially damaging emotion than is often proposed and hopes to encourage fellow researchers to continue to gain more understanding on compassion and its essential role for the public service and for the effect it can have on the wellbeing of frontline workers.

This experiment had three novel aims: 1). To test the (pre-registered) hypothesis that a 4-minute, locally produced film about inclusiveness reduces intergroup bias and increases cohesion among city residents; 2). To explore whether a local message (i.e., targeted at the respective city) or a universal message (i.e., targeted at people in general) is more effective; 3). To explore whether a dual identity message creates stronger bias reduction. City residents (N = 902) of various ages, educational and professional backgrounds watched the local film, the universal film, or no film. A subsequent survey showed that both films were (equally) effective in reducing in-group favoritism and increasing cohesion, pro-diversity norms, attitudes, and pro-diversity motivation. They were not effective in increasing support for pro-diversity policy or pro-diversity behavior. Perception of a dual identity message predicted stronger bias reduction. We conclude that a short film can cause a small but significant improvement in inclusiveness

Changing behavior is often necessary to tackle societal problems, such as obesity, alcohol abuse, and debt problems. This article has two goals. First, it aims to highlight how governments can try to change the behavior of citizens. Government can use policy instruments to do so, including incentives, bans and mandates, information campaigns, and nudges. However, the government should not be a manipulator that applies policy instruments without societal support. Therefore, the second goal of the article is to provide a conceptual framework that helps analyze whether public policies to stimulate behavior change are effective and supported by key stakeholders. This conceptual framework has five criteria indicating the extent to which there is effective and supported behavior change: the policy is (1) effective and (2) efficient, and there is support for the policy among (3) politicians, (4) implementing organizations, and (5) citizens. The article ends with suggestions to study public policy aimed at behavior change.

Street-level bureaucrats – such as teachers, social workers and police officers – have to implement public policies. However, they are not simple machines implementing rules, but have opportunities to make their own decisions. In other words, they have autonomy, or discretion in their work. This chapter shows how a psychological perspective can be beneficial when investigating discretion. This is firstly illustrated using the concept of policy alienation. Many street-level bureaucrats feel alienated from public policies. When they perceive they do not have enough discretion to implement the policy or feel that a policy is meaningless for society and clients, they experience policy alienation. This attitude can furthermore lead to different types of behaviours. These behaviours can be classified using the notion of coping during public service delivery. Coping can be grouped in three types, namely: moving towards clients (for instance breaking rules for a client), moving away from clients (for instance by not answering emails for clients) and moving against clients (for instance by becoming aggressive to clients). We introduce the concepts of policy alienation and coping during public service delivery and end with future research directions for scholars interested in studying discretion from a psychological perspective.

We investigate the impact of policy consistency on frontline workers’ perceptions of policy meaningfulness and legitimacy. The results from an experiment involving 779 teachers indicate that policy consistency does have a positive effect on legitimacy and to a lesser extent on meaningfulness. However, the extent depends on policy content and the degree of autonomy. Overall, our findings emphasize the potential positive impact of policy consistency. Although this, to some extent, conflicts with the nature of political decision- and policy-making (i.e., democratically elected governments have been mandated to change policy), our study suggests that policy consistency could be a valuable strategy for governments to strengthen successful policy implementation. This adds a new perspective to the continuing debate within policy implementation and street-level bureaucracy research on how to account for the complex, messy and sometimes contradictory implementation of public policies.