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Civil servants' work is being affected by an increasing variety of government reforms. As such, the role of civil servants is a major topic of research. Nevertheless, no validated measurement scales exist for how civil servants themselves perceive their own role in a complex and constantly changing environment. We develop and validate measurement scales for civil servants' role perceptions. Using data from two surveys (N = 161 and N = 1080), we develop scales for bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, and networking role perceptions. We found that each role perception consists of two idiosyncratic elements. We tested our scales for reliability and validity and found that all three role perceptions related to role ambiguity, commitment, and engagement. Moreover, the entrepreneurial and networking role perceptions correlated with Public Service Motivation (PSM), while the bureaucratic and entrepreneurial role perceptions correlated with performance. We discuss opportunities to systematically study the effects and antecedents of civil servants' role perceptions as they have practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School boards have a central position in educational governance. They have to guarantee quality, monitor results and intervene if needed. In this article we report the results of a systematic literature review meant to identify what school boards do to contribute to educational quality. After five steps of literature selection and refinement, our initial database of 4939 was reduced to 16 empirical articles. This shows that there is actually very little empirical research on the relation between boards and educational quality. Looking more closely at the 16 remaining studies, we notice differences in the reach, quality and applied methods. Moreover, the differences between boards are considerable when looking at board composition and the scope of their autonomy. Altogether, these differences make it difficult to come up with general findings on how boards can contribute to educational quality. Nevertheless, we also found promising large-scale studies that offer a better understanding of the complex nature of the effects that boards may have on educational quality. Furthermore, in almost all of the studies, educational quality is operationalised as students' test results, indicating a narrow perspective on educational quality.

Public sector creativity is the origin of innovation and crucial to public sector organizations' ability to serve the public's interest. Factors affecting public servants' creativity, however, remained unexplored. This longitudinal qualitative digital diary study (N = 142) explores these factors. Our findings indicate that public servants' creativity appears affected by four salient factors: public servants' realistic evaluations of ideas, bureaucratic dimensions, out-of-balance work demands and (lack of) social contact. The underlying mechanics indicate that the public sector context demotivates public servants to be creative. These findings indicate avenues for practitioners to carefully consider when aiming to improve creativity within their organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Blame or Karma? The attribution of Blame in the Childcare Benefits Affair: The childcare benefits affair refers to a period between 2005 and 2019 in which an estimated 30,000 families were deliberately put into serious financial and personal harm by the tax administration because of often unjustified suspicions of fraudulent behaviour. Inquiries into the political and administrative causes and consequences led to a restructuring of the tax administration and the resignation of the cabinet at the beginning of 2021. By reconstructing the affair, we analyse what role politics and politicians played and how they attempted to avoid blame for the affair. Several strategies were used to avoid blame, including tasking a committee to write a report, restructuring the tax administration and promising swift compensation to the victims. The only party that seems to have avoided blame is parliament, despite multiple indications that members of parliament played an important role in the emergence of the affair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]