Political innovations aim to strengthen democracy but few connect well to the institutionalized democratic context. This paper explores how political innovations can be successfully embedded in existing democratic systems. It builds upon both the literature on political innovation and on new democratic arrangements and studies a practice of aleatoric democracyusing the lottery instead of elections to select representativesin the Dutch City of Utrecht. The case study shows how the idealist logic of improving democracy and the realist logic of realizing specific political goals intertwine to get the political innovation accepted by the institutionalized democratic system.

This paper aims to find out what processes contribute to horizontal (between employees) and vertical (between employees and their supervisor) shared perceptions of supervisor support by public frontline supervisors. Informed by a multilevel qualitative study among supervisors and teachers in public secondary schools, we develop theoretical propositions regarding these processes. We propose that employees’ expectations based on experiences with previous supervisors can decrease horizontal shared perceptions. Subsequently, a contingent or consistent approach to supporting employees contribute to the development of horizontal and vertical shared perceptions, depending on the legitimacy attributed by employees to the reason behind this approach. Over time, supervisor support experienced by employees at meaningful work-life events contributes to the emergence of horizontal and vertical shared perceptions. This research shows that instead of merely looking for correlates of shared perceptions, scrutinizing the processes that contribute to horizontal and vertical shared perceptions increases our understanding of this complex phenomenon.

Dit proefschrift werd mede mogelijk gemaakt met financiële steun van de VO-raad.

This article connects human resource management (HRM) research to studies of street-level bureaucracies and public professionals. It investigates the intermediary role of professional behavior in the HRM–individual performance link in the context of public human service organizations. The article hypothesizes that human resources (HR) practices, aimed at enhancing street-level workers’ abilities, motivation, and opportunities, strengthen these workers’ professional behavior; that professional behavior and individual performance are positively related; and that professional behavior mediates the relationship between HR practices and individual performance. The analysis of findings from a survey study of street-level workers in local welfare agencies implementing welfare-to-work policies in the Netherlands shows support for the mediating role of professional behavior in the HRM–individual performance chain. Based on this evidence, the article concludes that the professional behavior of street-level workers in public human service organizations deserves scrutiny of both HRM scholars and HR practitioners who are interested in promoting the performance of public professionals.

Are employees less satisfied with supervisor support when their expectations are disconfirmed? In this study, we examine this question for both predictive expectations (what will happen) and normative expectations (what should happen). Results from two preregistered experiments suggest that expectation-disconfirmation does not affect satisfaction with supervisor support. Instead, we find that expectation-disconfirmation as perceived by participants affects satisfaction with supervisor support. We conclude that even though supervisor support seems to be the most important predictor of satisfaction, perceived disconfirmation of expectations also influences employees’ satisfaction with supervisor support.