Noortje De Boer
Biographic Data
| ID | 4128708 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Noortje De Boer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Noortje |
| FAMILY NAME | De Boer |
| SIGNATURE | DE BOER N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9963-6820 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Breaking down administrative burdens
This study investigates whether reducing administrative burdens can increase interest in active labor market programs among job-seeking women. Employing a user-centered approach, the research is divided into two phases. In Phase 1, we conduct interviews with women and a focus group with service providers to identify relevant barriers for take-up. The qualitative data shows that learning costs were the most prominent barrier. Learning costs could …
Discrimination Against People With Disabilities in Hiring and Strategies to Reduce It
People with disabilities receive fewer callbacks when applying for jobs compared to people without disabilities. To minimize the adverse effects of having a disability in the job application process, some people with disabilities use mitigation strategies during the disclosure of a disability. We test the impact of two often‐used and recommended mitigation strategies in resumes: (1) claiming, that is, emphasizing positive attributes, and (2) down…
The threat of appearing lazy, inefficient, and slow? Stereotype threat in the public sector
Public employees are stereotyped as lazy, inefficient, and slow. When made aware of such stereotypes, they may experience stereotype threat that impairs their task-performance. Across two pre-registered, large-scale between-subjects experiments (n1 = 1,543; n2 = 1,147), we found that performance in terms of task correctness, processing time, and effort was unaffected by information of negative public employee stereotypes. Our results do not indic…
Working 9 to 5? A cross-national analysis of public sector worker stereotypes
We present an inductive, citizen-driven appraoch to identify stereotypes of public sector worekrs across the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and South Korea (Study 1: n=918; Study 2: n=3,042). Contrary to common negative portrayals, we idetify two positive stereotypes across countries — having job security and serving society; and one neutral/negative stereotype — going home on time. Notably, Americans and Canadians have a more favorable v…
Positive public sector stereotypes and their impact on public service delivery
There are both negative and positive stereotypes about public sector workers. Most studies focus on negative stereotypes, like the idea that public servants are lazy. We, however, do the opposite. We focus on a positive stereotype: public sector workers are seen as caring and helpful. We test the effects of positive stereotypes on the quality of public service delivery. Using a pre-registered audit experiment in elderly care in the Netherlands an…
Automation and discretion
A dominant assumption in the street-level bureaucracy literature is that bureaucrats’ discretion is curtailed by automated systems. Drawing on survey and factual data (n = 549) from Dutch inspectors, we test the effect of automation on enforcement style and whether this can be explained by discretion-as-perceived. Our results show that automation (1) increases bureaucrats’ legal and accommodation style; (2) discretion-as-perceived does not mediat…
Leading frontline enforcers
This article analyzes the relation between leadership style of managers and the enforcement style of street-level bureaucrats. We also studied the influence of organizational culture. The analysis is based on a survey among 549 inspectors of the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) in The Netherlands. Studying transactional leadership and servant leadership the findings show that contrary to the general assumptions in leadership lite…
Street‐level bureaucrats' emotional intelligence and its relation with their performance
This article analyses whether the emotional intelligence (EI) of street‐level bureaucrats, in this case inspectors, predicts their individual performance. It explores whether EI predicts the aggression that inspectors face and whether this explains the relation between EI and performance. Our survey among 547 inspectors, measuring their (self) perceptions, shows that inspectors' ability to appraise others' emotions and use their emotions intellig…
Blaming the bureaucrat
Is there a relation between street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and their perception of the risk of getting blamed? This article answers this question on the basis of a survey ( n = 507) among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Product Safety Authority. We included perceived media attention on their work as a factor that might influence street-level bureaucrats’ perception of blame risk and their enforcement style. Three dimensions of…
Compassion, Bureaucrat Bashing, and Public Administration
How citizens behave toward public sector workers is crucial for the well‐being and performance of workers. Scholars have mainly focused on understanding negative citizen behaviors, such as aggression. We study a positive behavior, namely compassionate behavior. We study real compassionate behavior in the form of writing positive encouragement messages that are distributed to social workers in the field. We test if showing difficulties faced by pu…
Compassion towards clients
This paper studies frontline workers’ experienced compassion towards clients. The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, it develops a measurement scale for compassion towards clients. Second, it investigates how compassion affects frontline workers and theorizes that compassion may lead to burnout, partly because frontline workers believe that by working overtime to help clients (i.e., coping) adequate services can be provided. Using Structur…
The (un)intended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style
This paper studies the intended and unintended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style. More specifically, it answers to what extent street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style affects citizens’ obedience (i.e. intended effect) during face-to-face encounters and willingness to publicly shame bureaucrats (i.e. unintended effect). Building on insights from street-level enforcement and the social interactionist theory of coercive acti…
How Do Citizens Assess Street‐Level Bureaucrats’ Warmth and Competence? A Typology and Test
Citizens encounter many street‐level bureaucrats in their lifetime. How do they assess the traits of the bureaucrats they meet? Understanding citizens’ assessments of bureaucrats is important, because citizens are not passive receivers of policies. This article explores citizens’ classifications of street‐level bureaucrats based on their core task. Using a factorial survey (n = 580), three clusters of bureaucrats are identified: those who are reg…
A street‐level perspective on government transparency and regulatory performance
This study investigates the extent to which inspectors perceive government transparency as impacting regulatory performance. It theorizes that when inspectors perceive an increase in transparency, they find that the perceived relational distance between themselves and their inspectees rises and this, subsequently, increases regulatory performance. The findings from a survey among Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority inspectors (…
Does Disclosure of Performance Information Influence Street‐level Bureaucrats’ Enforcement Style
Governments use different regulatory instruments to ensure that businesses owners or “inspectees” comply with rules and regulations. One tool that is increasingly applied is disclosing inspectees’ performance information to other stakeholders. Disclosing performance information has consequences for street‐level bureaucrats because it increases the visibility of their day‐to‐day work. Using a survey (n = 507) among Dutch inspectors of the Netherla…
Social media and personal attacks
In this era of politically charged social media uses, broadcast campaign advertising is being transformed in the online environment, not only by candidates but also by citizens. Likewise, negative campaigning, specifically ‘attack’ advertising, has been analyzed and discussed widely concerning possible implications for voters. However, a specific focus on analyzing such broadcast advertisements — especially in online environments across nations —…
A street‐level perspective on government transparency and regulatory performance
This study investigates the extent to which inspectors perceive government transparency as impacting regulatory performance. It theorizes that when inspectors perceive an increase in transparency, they find that the perceived relational distance between themselves and their inspectees rises and this, subsequently, increases regulatory performance. The findings from a survey among Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority inspectors (…
Compassion towards clients
This paper studies frontline workers’ experienced compassion towards clients. The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, it develops a measurement scale for compassion towards clients. Second, it investigates how compassion affects frontline workers and theorizes that compassion may lead to burnout, partly because frontline workers believe that by working overtime to help clients (i.e., coping) adequate services can be provided. Using Structur…
Street‐level bureaucrats' emotional intelligence and its relation with their performance
This article analyses whether the emotional intelligence (EI) of street‐level bureaucrats, in this case inspectors, predicts their individual performance. It explores whether EI predicts the aggression that inspectors face and whether this explains the relation between EI and performance. Our survey among 547 inspectors, measuring their (self) perceptions, shows that inspectors' ability to appraise others' emotions and use their emotions intellig…
The (un)intended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style
This paper studies the intended and unintended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style. More specifically, it answers to what extent street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style affects citizens’ obedience (i.e. intended effect) during face-to-face encounters and willingness to publicly shame bureaucrats (i.e. unintended effect). Building on insights from street-level enforcement and the social interactionist theory of coercive acti…
Blaming the bureaucrat
Is there a relation between street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and their perception of the risk of getting blamed? This article answers this question on the basis of a survey ( n = 507) among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Product Safety Authority. We included perceived media attention on their work as a factor that might influence street-level bureaucrats’ perception of blame risk and their enforcement style. Three dimensions of…
Social media and personal attacks
In this era of politically charged social media uses, broadcast campaign advertising is being transformed in the online environment, not only by candidates but also by citizens. Likewise, negative campaigning, specifically ‘attack’ advertising, has been analyzed and discussed widely concerning possible implications for voters. However, a specific focus on analyzing such broadcast advertisements — especially in online environments across nations —…
A street‐level perspective on government transparency and regulatory performance
This study investigates the extent to which inspectors perceive government transparency as impacting regulatory performance. It theorizes that when inspectors perceive an increase in transparency, they find that the perceived relational distance between themselves and their inspectees rises and this, subsequently, increases regulatory performance. The findings from a survey among Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority inspectors (…
Does Disclosure of Performance Information Influence Street‐level Bureaucrats’ Enforcement Style
Governments use different regulatory instruments to ensure that businesses owners or “inspectees” comply with rules and regulations. One tool that is increasingly applied is disclosing inspectees’ performance information to other stakeholders. Disclosing performance information has consequences for street‐level bureaucrats because it increases the visibility of their day‐to‐day work. Using a survey (n = 507) among Dutch inspectors of the Netherla…
How Do Citizens Assess Street‐Level Bureaucrats’ Warmth and Competence? A Typology and Test
Citizens encounter many street‐level bureaucrats in their lifetime. How do they assess the traits of the bureaucrats they meet? Understanding citizens’ assessments of bureaucrats is important, because citizens are not passive receivers of policies. This article explores citizens’ classifications of street‐level bureaucrats based on their core task. Using a factorial survey (n = 580), three clusters of bureaucrats are identified: those who are reg…
Compassion towards clients
This paper studies frontline workers’ experienced compassion towards clients. The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, it develops a measurement scale for compassion towards clients. Second, it investigates how compassion affects frontline workers and theorizes that compassion may lead to burnout, partly because frontline workers believe that by working overtime to help clients (i.e., coping) adequate services can be provided. Using Structur…
The (un)intended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style
This paper studies the intended and unintended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style. More specifically, it answers to what extent street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style affects citizens’ obedience (i.e. intended effect) during face-to-face encounters and willingness to publicly shame bureaucrats (i.e. unintended effect). Building on insights from street-level enforcement and the social interactionist theory of coercive acti…
Leading frontline enforcers
This article analyzes the relation between leadership style of managers and the enforcement style of street-level bureaucrats. We also studied the influence of organizational culture. The analysis is based on a survey among 549 inspectors of the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) in The Netherlands. Studying transactional leadership and servant leadership the findings show that contrary to the general assumptions in leadership lite…
Street‐level bureaucrats' emotional intelligence and its relation with their performance
This article analyses whether the emotional intelligence (EI) of street‐level bureaucrats, in this case inspectors, predicts their individual performance. It explores whether EI predicts the aggression that inspectors face and whether this explains the relation between EI and performance. Our survey among 547 inspectors, measuring their (self) perceptions, shows that inspectors' ability to appraise others' emotions and use their emotions intellig…
Blaming the bureaucrat
Is there a relation between street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and their perception of the risk of getting blamed? This article answers this question on the basis of a survey ( n = 507) among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Product Safety Authority. We included perceived media attention on their work as a factor that might influence street-level bureaucrats’ perception of blame risk and their enforcement style. Three dimensions of…
Compassion, Bureaucrat Bashing, and Public Administration
How citizens behave toward public sector workers is crucial for the well‐being and performance of workers. Scholars have mainly focused on understanding negative citizen behaviors, such as aggression. We study a positive behavior, namely compassionate behavior. We study real compassionate behavior in the form of writing positive encouragement messages that are distributed to social workers in the field. We test if showing difficulties faced by pu…
Automation and discretion
A dominant assumption in the street-level bureaucracy literature is that bureaucrats’ discretion is curtailed by automated systems. Drawing on survey and factual data (n = 549) from Dutch inspectors, we test the effect of automation on enforcement style and whether this can be explained by discretion-as-perceived. Our results show that automation (1) increases bureaucrats’ legal and accommodation style; (2) discretion-as-perceived does not mediat…
The threat of appearing lazy, inefficient, and slow? Stereotype threat in the public sector
Public employees are stereotyped as lazy, inefficient, and slow. When made aware of such stereotypes, they may experience stereotype threat that impairs their task-performance. Across two pre-registered, large-scale between-subjects experiments (n1 = 1,543; n2 = 1,147), we found that performance in terms of task correctness, processing time, and effort was unaffected by information of negative public employee stereotypes. Our results do not indic…
Working 9 to 5? A cross-national analysis of public sector worker stereotypes
We present an inductive, citizen-driven appraoch to identify stereotypes of public sector worekrs across the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and South Korea (Study 1: n=918; Study 2: n=3,042). Contrary to common negative portrayals, we idetify two positive stereotypes across countries — having job security and serving society; and one neutral/negative stereotype — going home on time. Notably, Americans and Canadians have a more favorable v…
Positive public sector stereotypes and their impact on public service delivery
There are both negative and positive stereotypes about public sector workers. Most studies focus on negative stereotypes, like the idea that public servants are lazy. We, however, do the opposite. We focus on a positive stereotype: public sector workers are seen as caring and helpful. We test the effects of positive stereotypes on the quality of public service delivery. Using a pre-registered audit experiment in elderly care in the Netherlands an…
Breaking down administrative burdens
This study investigates whether reducing administrative burdens can increase interest in active labor market programs among job-seeking women. Employing a user-centered approach, the research is divided into two phases. In Phase 1, we conduct interviews with women and a focus group with service providers to identify relevant barriers for take-up. The qualitative data shows that learning costs were the most prominent barrier. Learning costs could …
Discrimination Against People With Disabilities in Hiring and Strategies to Reduce It
People with disabilities receive fewer callbacks when applying for jobs compared to people without disabilities. To minimize the adverse effects of having a disability in the job application process, some people with disabilities use mitigation strategies during the disclosure of a disability. We test the impact of two often‐used and recommended mitigation strategies in resumes: (1) claiming, that is, emphasizing positive attributes, and (2) down…
Political science (12 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Business (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (7 works) · Public relations (7 works) · Enforcement (5 works) · Regulation and Compliance Studies (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works)