Bert George
Biographic Data
| ID | 4017803 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bert George |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bert |
| FAMILY NAME | George |
| SIGNATURE | GEORGE B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7175-7885 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 29 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Performance rankings reduce cognitive processing of underlying performance information
Performance information is often presented in a ranked format. Rankings aggregate a multitude of performance dimensions into an overall score. Simultaneously, rankings may constrain cognitive processing of performance information because they distract users’ attention away from the information underlying the ranking calculation. We test this adverse effect using university performance rankings in an eye-tracking experiment based on 1,071 decision…
Understanding collaboration as response to red tape among Street-level bureaucrats
Red tape is a significant challenge to street-level bureaucrats’ (SLBs) working experience and performance. While extensive research has examined its negative consequences, less attention has been given to how SLBs adapt to bureaucratic constraints. Using Conservation of Resources Theory, we hypothesize that collaboration is an initial coping strategy to navigate red tape. However, as red tape intensifies, collaboration becomes unsustainable, fol…
Untangling the Relationship Between Red Tape and Job Satisfaction
Although red tape remains a significant policy concern and despite meta‐analytical research showing that it impacts employee and performance outcomes, research elucidating why and under which conditions it does so remains scarce. Using social cognitive theory, we first hypothesize that the relationship between red tape and job satisfaction is mediated by self‐efficacy. Second, we argue that red tape is particularly harmful for job satisfaction in…
No two-party game
Administrative burdens limit access to government services and threaten social equity due to their disproportionate impact on disadvantaged groups. Third sector organizations can reduce administrative burdens and help individuals to overcome them. Both theoretically and empirically we know little about the different ways in which third-sector organizations do so. Through a longitudinal case study of the Dutch volunteer organization ‘Debt Aid Budd…
Understanding politicians' attitudes to reusing built heritage
Strategic planning and performance perceptions of managers and citizens
Although strategic planning is ubiquitous within public organizations and despite meta-analytical research showing that it impacts performance, important questions about why it does so remain unanswered. This article addresses this gap by identifying the mediators underlying the strategic planning – public service performance relationship. Multi-informant survey data from managers and citizens in 101 Flemish municipalities are analysed using PLS-…
Do network management and trust matter for network outcomes? A meta-analysis and research agenda
Collaborative and network governance assume that network management and trust matter for network outcomes. We test this assumption by conducting a meta-analysis of public administration studies investigating the correlation between network management and network outcomes (50 effect sizes), and trust and network outcomes (28 effect sizes). While both matter for achieving network outcomes across countries, trust matters most. Trust is particularly …
A review of open strategy
Strategy research has recently highlighted the need for ‘opening up’ strategy processes to enhance transparency and inclusiveness. Ideas of openness have long been embedded in public management, especially since the governance revolution. However, public management research on strategy processes has mostly neglected how strategy processes are ‘opened up’, rather examining the impact of strategy content and process characteristics on outcomes. By …
Understanding goal formation in strategic public management
Organizational goals lie at the heart of strategic public management. While research has centred on the performance impact of organizational goals and goal clarity, the field remains unclear on where organizational goals come from and how they form over time. We argue that research has suffered from the lack of a multi-level, process-focused theoretical framework through which goal formation can be understood and studied. Drawing on a problematiz…
User acceptance of strategic planning
Strategic planning is core to public administration at all governmental levels. Evidence suggests that when conducted well strategic planning impacts several performance outcomes. Yet, public administration and strategy scholars have argued that strategic planning is not only a technical procedure. Its success is contingent upon the people involved in strategic planning. This study investigates strategic planning using user acceptance theory. It …
Writing impactful reviews to rejuvenate public administration
Literature reviews have become widespread in public administration, especially in the past decade. These reviews typically adopt widely‐accepted approaches with many drawing upon systematized approaches to review in fields like medicine and psychology. Public administration, however, is a professional, design‐oriented discipline, focused on enhancing theory to solve real‐life policy, administrative, and managerial challenges. Recognizing the uniq…
Do inclusive city branding and political othering affect migrants' identification? Experimental evidence
Ideally, people with a migration background identify with the country and city they live in. Such identification is under threat from political discourse on migrants (i.e. othering). To stimulate migrants' identification, city governments brand their city as an inclusive place to live. We assess the effect of inclusive city branding and political othering on migrants' identification with their country and city. A survey experiment with a unique s…
Coping with administrative tasks
Administrative tasks often are an unavoidable aspect of the daily work of street‐level bureaucrats (SLBs). These burdensome tasks are job demands that can cause stress and put a strain on SLBs' working experience and performance. So far, few studies have searched for job resources that can help SLBs cope with this aspect of their daily work. This study analyzes how performing administrative tasks results in job stress. Participation in organizati…
Valuation tools and politicians’ willingness to sell public real estate
Public managers often employ valuation tools to support policymakers. These tools are expected to rationalize decision-making. Using a vignette-based, randomized survey experiment with Flemish politicians, the authors study the effect of the type of valuation tool, valuation outcome, and asset salience on politicians’ willingness to sell public real estate assets. The purpose is to test whether valuation tools indeed spark rational reactions from…
Public values assessment as a practice
Policymakers and public managers need to identify, reflect and decide on public values for given policy issues. This process is defined as public values assessment (PVA). We conduct a systematic literature review (n = 114 studies) on PVA, and employ a Strategy-as-Practice lens to analyse how the activity of PVA takes place in practice. Based on our integration of evidence, we propose a theoretical framework called PVA-as-Practice (PVAP). We concl…
Determinants of non-profit commercialism. Resource deficits, institutional pressures or organizational contingencies
Resource competition is assumed to encourage commercial behaviour by publically funded non-profit organizations (NPOs). However, this widespread assumption falls short as empirical findings remain equivocal. In this study, we theorize that non-profit commercialism can indeed emerge from resource deficits but also from institutional pressures and organizational contingencies. Using logistic regression analyses on two-wave survey data of Flemish NP…
The Effect of the EU ‐Brand on Citizens’ Trust in Policies
Karens et al. (2016) conducted an experiment to measure the effect of the European Union (EU) brand on citizens’ trust in policies. Experiments conducted with economics students in Belgium, Poland, and The Netherlands showed a consistently positive and significant effect of applying the EU brand, on trust in the policies. This study presents seven replications conducted several years after Karens et al.'s experiments. The replications show no sig…
Developing schools as learning organisations—“Why” and “how”
A generation ago, schools would have been expected to equip students with the skills needed for the rest of their lives. In today's world, they need to prepare students for life and work in a rapidly changing environment, for jobs and for using technologies, some of which have not yet been created (Benevot, 2017; Schleicher, 2018b). Cognitive abilities such as literacy and problem-solving are still crucial, but teachers must also support students…
The school as a learning organisation
A growing body of scholars, educators and policy makers has argued for reconceptualising schools as “learning organisations” in the last 25 years as. However, a lack of clarity on the concept has hindered its advance in theory and practice. This study responds to this problem by developing a schools as learning organisations scale that expands and clarifies the concept on several points. Drawing on survey data ( n school staff = 1,703) from Wales…
Behavioral public strategy
How can we stimulate policymakers to make strategic decisions that enhance public service performance? Traditional strategy theories have not enabled us to answer this question. These theories focus on strategy processes or content in public organizations and networks and directly link these to public service performance. This article defines and elaborates on a conceptual framework that uses theory from behavioral science to unravel how policyma…
Successful Strategic Plan Implementation in Public Organizations
Strategic planning (SP) remains the dominant approach to strategy formulation at all levels of government, and it is an enduring topic of public administration research and practice. Simultaneously, little is known about the conditions under which strategic plans are successfully implemented in government. This Viewpoint essay provides evidence‐based recommendations from SP initiatives in Flemish municipalities using multi‐informant and multisour…
Red Tape, Organizational Performance, and Employee Outcomes
Although there is consensus among scholars that red tape has negative consequences, there is a lack of synthesis on these negative effects. We conduct a meta‐analysis and meta‐regression of public administration evidence and ask: What is the impact of red tape on organizational performance and employee outcomes, and which conditions moderate this impact? Our meta‐analysis finds that red tape has a significant, negative, and small‐to‐medium impact…
Revisiting Public Management as a Design Science
Institutions or Contingencies? A Cross‐Country Analysis of Management Tool Use by Public Sector Executives
Management tools are often argued to ameliorate public service performance. Indeed, evidence has emerged to support positive outcomes related to the use of management tools in a variety of public sector settings. Despite these positive outcomes, there is wide variation in the extent to which public organizations use management tools. Drawing on normative isomorphism and contingency theory, this article investigates the determinants of both organi…
Does Strategic Planning Improve Organizational Performance? A Meta‐Analysis
Strategic planning is a widely adopted management approach in contemporary organizations. Underlying its popularity is the assumption that it is a successful practice in public and private organizations that has positive consequences for organizational performance. Nonetheless, strategic planning has been criticized for being overly rational and for inhibiting strategic thinking. This article undertakes a meta‐analysis of 87 correlations from 31 …
Equal Access to the Top? Representative Bureaucracy and Politicians’ Recruitment Preferences for Top Administrative Staff
While a voluminous literature on representative bureaucracy and minority discrimination suggests that characteristics other than qualifications influence hiring decisions, little is known about whether this also pertains to the top positions in political-administrative organizations. To shed light on this question, we ask how candidate ethnicity, gender, and age affect the recruitment preferences among politicians regarding the candidates for top…
Successful Strategic Plan Implementation in Public Organizations
Strategic planning (SP) remains the dominant approach to strategy formulation at all levels of government, and it is an enduring topic of public administration research and practice. Simultaneously, little is known about the conditions under which strategic plans are successfully implemented in government. This Viewpoint essay provides evidence‐based recommendations from SP initiatives in Flemish municipalities using multi‐informant and multisour…
How a demanding employment relationship relates to affective commitment in public organizations
It has recently been recognized in the public administration literature that multiple reforms coexist in public organizations, ranging from the Weberian bureaucracy to New Public Management and, more recently, new public governance. This study develops a typology of the employment relationship with features of these macro‐level changes and tests their impact on the civil servant's affective commitment by including the individual‐level social exch…
No two-party game
Administrative burdens limit access to government services and threaten social equity due to their disproportionate impact on disadvantaged groups. Third sector organizations can reduce administrative burdens and help individuals to overcome them. Both theoretically and empirically we know little about the different ways in which third-sector organizations do so. Through a longitudinal case study of the Dutch volunteer organization ‘Debt Aid Budd…
Strategic-Decision Quality in Public Organizations
This study draws on information processing theory to investigate predictors of strategic-decision quality in public organizations. Information processing theory argues that (a) rational planning practices contribute to strategic-decision quality by injecting information into decision making and (b) decision makers contribute to strategic-decision quality by exchanging information during decision making. These assumptions are tested upon 55 Flemis…
Writing impactful reviews to rejuvenate public administration
Literature reviews have become widespread in public administration, especially in the past decade. These reviews typically adopt widely‐accepted approaches with many drawing upon systematized approaches to review in fields like medicine and psychology. Public administration, however, is a professional, design‐oriented discipline, focused on enhancing theory to solve real‐life policy, administrative, and managerial challenges. Recognizing the uniq…
The Effect of the EU ‐Brand on Citizens’ Trust in Policies
Karens et al. (2016) conducted an experiment to measure the effect of the European Union (EU) brand on citizens’ trust in policies. Experiments conducted with economics students in Belgium, Poland, and The Netherlands showed a consistently positive and significant effect of applying the EU brand, on trust in the policies. This study presents seven replications conducted several years after Karens et al.'s experiments. The replications show no sig…
Behavioral public strategy
How can we stimulate policymakers to make strategic decisions that enhance public service performance? Traditional strategy theories have not enabled us to answer this question. These theories focus on strategy processes or content in public organizations and networks and directly link these to public service performance. This article defines and elaborates on a conceptual framework that uses theory from behavioral science to unravel how policyma…
Revisiting Public Management as a Design Science
Understanding politicians' attitudes to reusing built heritage
We Know the Yin—But Where Is the Yang? Toward a Balanced Approach on Common Source Bias in Public Administration Scholarship
Surveys have long been a dominant instrument for data collection in public administration. However, it has become widely accepted in the last decade that the usage of a self-reported instrument to measure both the independent and dependent variables results in common source bias (CSB). In turn, CSB is argued to inflate correlations between variables, resulting in biased findings. Subsequently, a narrow blinkered approach on the usage of surveys a…
How a demanding employment relationship relates to affective commitment in public organizations
It has recently been recognized in the public administration literature that multiple reforms coexist in public organizations, ranging from the Weberian bureaucracy to New Public Management and, more recently, new public governance. This study develops a typology of the employment relationship with features of these macro‐level changes and tests their impact on the civil servant's affective commitment by including the individual‐level social exch…
Strategic-Decision Quality in Public Organizations
This study draws on information processing theory to investigate predictors of strategic-decision quality in public organizations. Information processing theory argues that (a) rational planning practices contribute to strategic-decision quality by injecting information into decision making and (b) decision makers contribute to strategic-decision quality by exchanging information during decision making. These assumptions are tested upon 55 Flemis…
Equal Access to the Top? Representative Bureaucracy and Politicians’ Recruitment Preferences for Top Administrative Staff
While a voluminous literature on representative bureaucracy and minority discrimination suggests that characteristics other than qualifications influence hiring decisions, little is known about whether this also pertains to the top positions in political-administrative organizations. To shed light on this question, we ask how candidate ethnicity, gender, and age affect the recruitment preferences among politicians regarding the candidates for top…
Institutions or Contingencies? A Cross‐Country Analysis of Management Tool Use by Public Sector Executives
Management tools are often argued to ameliorate public service performance. Indeed, evidence has emerged to support positive outcomes related to the use of management tools in a variety of public sector settings. Despite these positive outcomes, there is wide variation in the extent to which public organizations use management tools. Drawing on normative isomorphism and contingency theory, this article investigates the determinants of both organi…
Does Strategic Planning Improve Organizational Performance? A Meta‐Analysis
Strategic planning is a widely adopted management approach in contemporary organizations. Underlying its popularity is the assumption that it is a successful practice in public and private organizations that has positive consequences for organizational performance. Nonetheless, strategic planning has been criticized for being overly rational and for inhibiting strategic thinking. This article undertakes a meta‐analysis of 87 correlations from 31 …
Developing schools as learning organisations—“Why” and “how”
A generation ago, schools would have been expected to equip students with the skills needed for the rest of their lives. In today's world, they need to prepare students for life and work in a rapidly changing environment, for jobs and for using technologies, some of which have not yet been created (Benevot, 2017; Schleicher, 2018b). Cognitive abilities such as literacy and problem-solving are still crucial, but teachers must also support students…
The school as a learning organisation
A growing body of scholars, educators and policy makers has argued for reconceptualising schools as “learning organisations” in the last 25 years as. However, a lack of clarity on the concept has hindered its advance in theory and practice. This study responds to this problem by developing a schools as learning organisations scale that expands and clarifies the concept on several points. Drawing on survey data ( n school staff = 1,703) from Wales…
Behavioral public strategy
How can we stimulate policymakers to make strategic decisions that enhance public service performance? Traditional strategy theories have not enabled us to answer this question. These theories focus on strategy processes or content in public organizations and networks and directly link these to public service performance. This article defines and elaborates on a conceptual framework that uses theory from behavioral science to unravel how policyma…
Successful Strategic Plan Implementation in Public Organizations
Strategic planning (SP) remains the dominant approach to strategy formulation at all levels of government, and it is an enduring topic of public administration research and practice. Simultaneously, little is known about the conditions under which strategic plans are successfully implemented in government. This Viewpoint essay provides evidence‐based recommendations from SP initiatives in Flemish municipalities using multi‐informant and multisour…
Red Tape, Organizational Performance, and Employee Outcomes
Although there is consensus among scholars that red tape has negative consequences, there is a lack of synthesis on these negative effects. We conduct a meta‐analysis and meta‐regression of public administration evidence and ask: What is the impact of red tape on organizational performance and employee outcomes, and which conditions moderate this impact? Our meta‐analysis finds that red tape has a significant, negative, and small‐to‐medium impact…
Revisiting Public Management as a Design Science
Determinants of non-profit commercialism. Resource deficits, institutional pressures or organizational contingencies
Resource competition is assumed to encourage commercial behaviour by publically funded non-profit organizations (NPOs). However, this widespread assumption falls short as empirical findings remain equivocal. In this study, we theorize that non-profit commercialism can indeed emerge from resource deficits but also from institutional pressures and organizational contingencies. Using logistic regression analyses on two-wave survey data of Flemish NP…
The Effect of the EU ‐Brand on Citizens’ Trust in Policies
Karens et al. (2016) conducted an experiment to measure the effect of the European Union (EU) brand on citizens’ trust in policies. Experiments conducted with economics students in Belgium, Poland, and The Netherlands showed a consistently positive and significant effect of applying the EU brand, on trust in the policies. This study presents seven replications conducted several years after Karens et al.'s experiments. The replications show no sig…
Valuation tools and politicians’ willingness to sell public real estate
Public managers often employ valuation tools to support policymakers. These tools are expected to rationalize decision-making. Using a vignette-based, randomized survey experiment with Flemish politicians, the authors study the effect of the type of valuation tool, valuation outcome, and asset salience on politicians’ willingness to sell public real estate assets. The purpose is to test whether valuation tools indeed spark rational reactions from…
Public values assessment as a practice
Policymakers and public managers need to identify, reflect and decide on public values for given policy issues. This process is defined as public values assessment (PVA). We conduct a systematic literature review (n = 114 studies) on PVA, and employ a Strategy-as-Practice lens to analyse how the activity of PVA takes place in practice. Based on our integration of evidence, we propose a theoretical framework called PVA-as-Practice (PVAP). We concl…
Writing impactful reviews to rejuvenate public administration
Literature reviews have become widespread in public administration, especially in the past decade. These reviews typically adopt widely‐accepted approaches with many drawing upon systematized approaches to review in fields like medicine and psychology. Public administration, however, is a professional, design‐oriented discipline, focused on enhancing theory to solve real‐life policy, administrative, and managerial challenges. Recognizing the uniq…
Do inclusive city branding and political othering affect migrants' identification? Experimental evidence
Ideally, people with a migration background identify with the country and city they live in. Such identification is under threat from political discourse on migrants (i.e. othering). To stimulate migrants' identification, city governments brand their city as an inclusive place to live. We assess the effect of inclusive city branding and political othering on migrants' identification with their country and city. A survey experiment with a unique s…
Coping with administrative tasks
Administrative tasks often are an unavoidable aspect of the daily work of street‐level bureaucrats (SLBs). These burdensome tasks are job demands that can cause stress and put a strain on SLBs' working experience and performance. So far, few studies have searched for job resources that can help SLBs cope with this aspect of their daily work. This study analyzes how performing administrative tasks results in job stress. Participation in organizati…
Strategic planning and performance perceptions of managers and citizens
Although strategic planning is ubiquitous within public organizations and despite meta-analytical research showing that it impacts performance, important questions about why it does so remain unanswered. This article addresses this gap by identifying the mediators underlying the strategic planning – public service performance relationship. Multi-informant survey data from managers and citizens in 101 Flemish municipalities are analysed using PLS-…
Do network management and trust matter for network outcomes? A meta-analysis and research agenda
Collaborative and network governance assume that network management and trust matter for network outcomes. We test this assumption by conducting a meta-analysis of public administration studies investigating the correlation between network management and network outcomes (50 effect sizes), and trust and network outcomes (28 effect sizes). While both matter for achieving network outcomes across countries, trust matters most. Trust is particularly …
A review of open strategy
Strategy research has recently highlighted the need for ‘opening up’ strategy processes to enhance transparency and inclusiveness. Ideas of openness have long been embedded in public management, especially since the governance revolution. However, public management research on strategy processes has mostly neglected how strategy processes are ‘opened up’, rather examining the impact of strategy content and process characteristics on outcomes. By …
Understanding goal formation in strategic public management
Organizational goals lie at the heart of strategic public management. While research has centred on the performance impact of organizational goals and goal clarity, the field remains unclear on where organizational goals come from and how they form over time. We argue that research has suffered from the lack of a multi-level, process-focused theoretical framework through which goal formation can be understood and studied. Drawing on a problematiz…
User acceptance of strategic planning
Strategic planning is core to public administration at all governmental levels. Evidence suggests that when conducted well strategic planning impacts several performance outcomes. Yet, public administration and strategy scholars have argued that strategic planning is not only a technical procedure. Its success is contingent upon the people involved in strategic planning. This study investigates strategic planning using user acceptance theory. It …
Understanding collaboration as response to red tape among Street-level bureaucrats
Red tape is a significant challenge to street-level bureaucrats’ (SLBs) working experience and performance. While extensive research has examined its negative consequences, less attention has been given to how SLBs adapt to bureaucratic constraints. Using Conservation of Resources Theory, we hypothesize that collaboration is an initial coping strategy to navigate red tape. However, as red tape intensifies, collaboration becomes unsustainable, fol…
Business (21 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (20 works) · Political science (19 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Economics (12 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Public relations (9 works) · Marketing (8 works) · Marketing (6 works)