From Poker Games to Kitchen Tables: How Social Dynamics Affect Frontline Decision Making

Abstract

Existing research on bureaucratic encounters typically studies how bureaucrats’ and clients’ characteristics influence frontline decision making. How social interactions between street-level bureaucrats and between officials and citizens could directly affect case-related decisions largely remains an underexplored field of study, despite the fact that new forms of governance introduce social dynamics in the form of trust and collaboration as tools to increase legitimacy. Relying on in-depth qualitative data of the Belgian labor inspectorate and the Dutch tax authorities, this study scrutinizes how decisions about cases could be affected by their immediate social context.

Gender, situational visibility, and discretionary decision-making of regulatory street-level bureaucrats under pandemic emergency: an experimental study in China

“…The visibility of street-level bureaucrats' behaviour towards other stakeholders is the main factor influencing bureaucrats' exercised discretion (Bovens 2007;Raaphorst and Loyens 2020;Lu, Xu, and Wang 2019). As Gofen (2014) claims, situational visibility is ensured by work settings and the environment.…”

Dealing With Questions of Responsiveness in a Low-Discretion Context: Offers of Assistance in Standardized Public Service Encounters

“…In recent years, studies have demonstrated that street-level bureaucrats are being granted increased discretion to achieve citizen trust. Indeed, authors such as Raaphorst and Loyens (2018) and Rutz et al (2017) have shown how these officials, who have substantial room to maneuver to make responsive decisions, instead are dealing with questions of consistency and equality in citizen encounters. Hence, our results add to the line of research on social dynamics affecting frontline decisions by assessing the mirror image of the question of consistency through showing how officials, with little room for situation-orientedness and flexibility, handle questions of responsiveness.…”

“…How standardization with the help of ICT is experienced and managed by public officials varies greatly. Thus, there is a need to continue the examination of other contextual factors than the technical solutions (Buffat, 2015; Schuppan, 2015), not least through considering the situation-dependent interaction between street-level bureaucrats and citizen (Raaphorst & Loyens, 2018; Schuppan, 2015). This study aims to fill that gap by further exploring the importance of the immediate social context for how questions of responsiveness are practically managed in the rule-saturated context of SSIA Customer Center service encounters.…”

When the workplace is the home: labour inspectors’ discretionary power in the field of domestic work – an institutional analysis

“…In pursuing this goal, they adapt the rules to specific cases, and interpret laws according to the circumstances in which they operate. In this sense, they exercise a substantial degree of discretion by adopting margins of autonomy when applying directives dealing with various dilemmas (Raaphorst and Loyens 2018).…”