Sector-Switching, Bureaucratic Reputation, and Citizen Evaluation of Performance: Evidence From a Large-Scale Experiment in India

• Author: Taha Hameduddin,Roberto Vivona
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997221147231
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997221147231

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(3) 457 –484

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997221147231

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Article

Sector-Switching,

Bureaucratic Reputation,

and Citizen Evaluation of

Performance: Evidence

From a Large-Scale

Experiment in India

Taha Hameduddin1 and Roberto Vivona2

Abstract

Amid crises of trust in government, the legitimacy of public organizations

has never been more important. In this context, access to performance

information ensures democratic control and thus legitimacy. However,

performance evaluation is hindered by transaction costs in accessing and

cognitive biases in interpreting performance. We examine two antecedents

of citizen evaluations of performance: sector and bureaucratic reputation.

Utilizing two experiments on a representative sample of Indian citizens,

we situate our paper amid the increasing privatization of public services,

and reputation management strategies used to influence performance

evaluations. We discuss our findings and their implications for public

management theory and practice.

Keywords

citizen evaluation of performance, privatization, reputation, performance

management, India

1University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA

2Nord University, Bodø, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Taha Hameduddin, Martin School of Public Policy and Administration, University of Kentucky,

120 Patterson Dr, Lexington, KY 40506-0027, USA.

Email: ta.ha@uky.edu

1147231AAS0010.1177/00953997221147231Administration & SocietyHameduddin and Vivona

research-article2022

458 Administration & Society 55(3)

Government performance is a bedrock concern for public management schol-

ars and policymakers alike, and is the driving motivation behind public man-

agement reforms aimed at improving public services. A longstanding research

tradition within public administration has demonstrated the multidimensional

and contested nature of performance (L. B. Andersen et al., 2016; Andrews

et al. 2010), as well as the role individual judgments play in performance

assessments (James, 2011). This is important inasmuch as access to perfor-

mance information ensures democratic control of government, and informs

political knowledge and subsequent (political) behavior, such as voting and

tax compliance. However, performance information is fraught with chal-

lenges, including the large transaction costs involved in obtaining and under-

standing large “rivers of data” (Moynihan & Pandey, 2010), the use of

heuristics to judge performance (Hvidman & Andersen, 2016), as well as

reliance on other sources of reliable information in the absence of clear per-

formance data.

Perceptions of governmental performance are important since they shed

light on larger issues of institutional trust and legitimacy of government. This

is especially the case when public organizations are exposed to hostile and

negative external environments (Garrett et al., 2006; Goodsell, 2003), which

in turn can affect public employee behavior and attitudes (Hameduddin,

2021; Hameduddin & Lee, 2021; Lee et al., 2023). In the context of declines

in trust in government across time (Van de Walle et al., 2008), perceptions of

weak performance (compared to organizational peers in the private sector)

may fuel demands for increased accountability for perceived public service

failures (Sievert et al., 2020). These perceptions may then weaken the ability

of governments to recruit and retain talented employees, further hurting the

performance and reputation of agencies (Marvel, 2016).

In this paper, we address two specific antecedents of citizen evaluations

of performance: sector and bureaucratic reputation. Although past work

has demonstrated how individuals may have unconscious and implicit cog-

nitive biases toward public sector organizational performance (Hvidman

& Andersen, 2016), we broaden this by examining how sector switching

by public entities may influence citizen evaluations of performance.

Secondly, we devote attention to how the performance and moral reputa-

tions of government organizations may affect citizen evaluations of per-

formance. This is important inasmuch as bureaucratic reputation is linked

to organizational power and performance (Carpenter & Krause, 2012) and

can be managed and influenced using different reputation management

strategies (Maor et al., 2012).

To address our research questions, we utilize two large-scale survey

experiments in India, and embed them in the distinct policy context of two