P14 Behavioural and Experimental Public Management

Corresponding Chair

Kristina S. Weißmüller (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), k.s.weissmueller@vu.nl 

Review Group Chair

Oliver James (University of Exeter)

Co-Chairs

Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen (Utrecht University)
Gregg G. Van Ryzin (Rutgers University)

This IRSPM 2024 panel invites papers that employ a behavioural perspective on public management, defined broadly as theoretical or empirical contributions that integrate psychological and behavioural science insights into public management research (Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2017). The papers may employ methods including experimentation, observational studies, computational text analysis, qualitative methods, or mixed methods. However, a core theme of the panel is studies that employ experimental methods, including lab, field, or survey experiments (James, Jilke and Van Ryzin 2017). For example, papers may include applications of behavioural science that address questions of importance to progressing theory, informing practice, or replicating prior experimental work. For IRSPM 2024, papers contributing to the conference theme – “Hybrid futures for public governance and management” – are particularly encouraged. Besides this theme, papers that address other behavioral topics relevant for public management scholarship and practice will be considered.

We invite two types of papers:

First, research papers that report on the theory, methods, and findings of research that has already been conducted but we request that they clearly set out their research questions, methods, results and that they draw out implications of findings. We encourage submissions to follow open science practices for instance by pre-registering experiments prior to raising data but this is not a requirement.

Second, design papers that present fully developed (experimental) designs but are still work in progress will also be included. These design papers should include theory and its empirical implications (potentially including hypotheses), a description of details of the experiment(s), a plan for implementation and the assessment of minimal sample size needed for detecting meaningful effects. The inclusion of design papers encourages pre-review and critical feedback on experimental designs before pre-registration and data collection. For guidance, it may be useful to look at information about pre-registration and about experimental designs (see resources below). Not all elements discussed in these sources are required for the experimental design paper, but elements important to the proposed study should be included. The experimental design paper should be of similar length to a conventional IRSPM conference paper.

As a reminder, “conventional” conference papers are also warmly invited, and we anticipate a balance between both kinds of papers rather than a preponderance of only one kind.

We encourage diversity including from all regions of the world and career stages. Each session of the panel will likely be structured as up to four papers in 1.5 hour timeslots. Each presentation will be followed by comments by co-discussants and participants with presenters allocated to slots on the basis of their topic area.

Resources on preregistration, reporting practices and references:

• Centre for Open Science information including about pre-registration https://www.cos.io/initiatives/prereg
• Appendix ‘Recommended Reporting Requirements for Experiments’ in the edited book James, O., Jilke, S. R., & Van Ryzin, G. G. (Eds.). (2017). Experiments in public management research: Challenges and contributions. Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://github.com/sebjilke/guidelines
• Grimmelikhuijsen, S., Jilke, S., Olsen, A. L., & Tummers, L. (2017). Behavioral public administration: Combining insights from public administration and psychology. Public Administration Review, 77(1), 45-56.
• James, O., Jilke, S. R., & Van Ryzin, G. G. (Eds.). (2017). Experiments in public management research: Challenges and contributions. Cambridge University Press.