oa Onderzoeksnotitie: beroepstrots en regeldruk in de publieke sector

Professional pride and regulatory pressure in the public sector

An important point of attention of the Dutch government is to reduce the regulatory pressure on public sector employees and to enhance their professionalism. The assumption is that the enhancement of professional pride and the reduction of regulatory pressure will lead to more motivated and better performing employees and thus to better public service delivery. The hypothesized antecedents and consequences of professional pride and regulatory pressure were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results show that professional pride is positively related to organizational performance. Contrary, regulatory pressure is negatively related to organizational performance. In this study, the degree of professional pride appears to be in general much higher than the degree of regulatory pressure experienced by public sector employees. However, this study also shows that there are important sectoral differences with respect to the professional pride and regulatory pressure experienced. Therefore, a sectoral approach seems to be important.