Exploring rule‐following identity at the frontline: The roles of general self‐efficacy, gender, and attitude toward clients
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Author | Shelena Keulemans |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12721 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Exploring rule-following identity at the frontline:
The roles of general self-efficacy, gender, and
attitude toward clients
Shelena Keulemans
Institute for Management Research, Radboud
University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Correspondence
Shelena Keulemans, Department of Public
Administration, Institute for Management
Research, Postbus 9108, Nijmegen 6500 HK,
The Netherlands.
Email: shelena.keulemans@ru.nl
Funding information
The Netherlands Organization for Scientific
Research [Vidi Grant], Grant Number:
452-11-011
Abstract
The way in which street-level bureaucrats relate to rules
has intrigued scholars for decades. This article revisits the
classic idea that street-level bureaucrats' rule-following
identity reflects their personal insecurity and penchant for
control. Building on this perspective of emotional needs, we
investigate how general self-efficacy, gender, and attitude
toward clients affect this identity. We expect general self-
efficacy to suppress a strong rule-following identity by stim-
ulating street-level bureaucrats' internal sense of control.
We furthermore expect that this relation is stronger for
women bureaucrats and bureaucrats who hold a positive
attitude to clients. Contrary to expectations, survey data
(n= 1407) show that this identity strengthens as general
self-efficacy beliefs increase. Gender and attitude to clients
do not affect this relationship. These findings suggest that
rule-following identity reflects street-level bureaucrats' con-
fidence in their abilities to work complex rule sets to fulfill
task requirements, rather than desire for control or to
reduce insecurity.
Received: 6 July 2019 Revised: 12 December 2020 Accepted: 29 December 2020
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12721
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which
permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no
modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2021 The Author. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
694 Public Admin. 2021;99:694–710.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm
1|INTRODUCTION
In Weberian bureaucracies, rules existed to guarantee their efficiency and predictability, and substantiate bureau-
crats' decisions with rationality, universalism, and impersonality (Merton, 1940). Discretion and frontline work condi-
tions make street-level bureaucrats' rule-following identity—their understanding of themselves vis-à-vis these rules
(Oberfield, 2014, p. 12)—a complex phenomenon (e.g., Evans, 2013; Portillo, 2012; Zacka, 2017).
This complexity has multiple sources. Street-level bureaucrats are often confronted with cases too complex to
fully delineate in rules (Zacka, 2017). Consequently, bureaucracies expect them to use their discretion to ensure the
organization's responsiveness to those instances that the rules did not foresee (e.g., Evans, 2013). This expectation
can be at odds with strict rule-adherence (Merton, 1940). Moreover, it creates a rule-paradox in which rules perme-
ate and delineate every aspect of street-level bureaucrats' job yet their discretion grants them considerable freedom
of action (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003). These circumstances cause the frontline rule set to form an imperfect
guide to action that gives street-level bureaucrats latitude in the extent to which they see rules as a guide to their
decisions (e.g., Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Oberfield, 2014).
Latitude to determine their stance to rules implies that street-level bureaucrats' rule-following identity is, to a
substantial extent, intrinsically motivated (cf. Oberfield, 2014, 2019; Tyler & Blader, 2005). Classic and contemporary
works have argued that rules can constitute a source of control for street-level bureaucrats (Downs, 1967;
Portillo, 2012; Thompson, 1961/2013); the resource strain, high workloads, and conflicting demands that character-
ize the frontline imbue street-level bureaucrats' work practices with uncertainty (Dubois, 2010; Raaphorst, 2017).
Uncertainty can instill “(a fear of) losing control over situations or not knowing how to proceed to get control over
situations”(Raaphorst, 2017, p. 36). To gain a sense of control over their work, street-level bureaucrats can resort to
rules (Portillo, 2012). Falling back on rules then constitutes a claim of authority (Portillo, 2012).
Classic works have suggested that whether bureaucrats resort to rules to feel in control is not so much contin-
gent on situational variables, but rather consequential to their emotional needs (Downs, 1967; Hummel, 1977/2015;
Thompson, 1961/2013). Bureaucracies prescribed strong rule-following identities to bureaucrats to eliminate their
emotional considerations from administration (Dubois, 2010). Yet, frontline reality reveals “a strong undercurrent of
emotional engagement”that makes it difficult for street-level bureaucrats to separate their emotional considerations
from their work (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003, p. 41). These emotional considerations can shape how street-
level bureaucrats relate to rules (Dubois, 2010). If they use rules as a coping strategy for their emotions, it can lead
bureaucrats to adopt a rule-following identity that is so strong that it obstructs effective performance (Downs, 1967;
Thompson, 1961/2013). In these cases, self-interest guides street-level bureaucrats' rule-identity (Downs, 1967).
This article adopts this emotional needs perspective to add to the understanding of street-level bureaucrats'
rule-following identity. Drawing from this perspective, it theorizes that this identity is a function of street-level
bureaucrats' quest for control and personal insecurity (Thompson, 1961/2013). Following this point of departure, we
explore the association between general self-efficacy and rule-following identity. Building on the works of
Bandura (1977, 1982, 1994), we expect that a stronger rule-following identity serves to compensate for lower gen-
eral self-efficacy as bureaucrats with lower self-efficacy are more dependent on external sources of control, like
rules, to deal with frontline sources of personal insecurity.
We complement this view by borrowing from gender development and gender socialization studies
(e.g., Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Tannenbaum & Leaper, 2003) and an other-centered perspective on this identity
(cf. VanBerg, 2006). Studies of gender development and gender socialization suggest that women's sense of control
is more strongly grounded in external sources than men's, leading us to suppose a stronger association between gen-
eral self-efficacy and rule-following identity for women street-level bureaucrats. Street-level bureaucracy scholarship
suggests that bureaucrats' client-regarding preferences affect this association (cf. Maynard-Moody &
Musheno, 2003) in such a way that we expect this association to be stronger for bureaucrats who hold a positive
attitude to clients.
KEULEMANS 695
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