Gaming the system: Responses to dissatisfaction with public services beyond exit and voice

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Peeters, Rik; Gofen, Anat; Meza, Oliver
• 署名单位: Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas A.C. (CIDE); Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3298
• DOI: 10.1111/padm.12680
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 824-839
• 关键词: citizen satisfaction; health-care; Loyalty; trust; CORRUPTION; expectations; CHOICE; DISCONFIRMATION; management; POLITICS

摘要

Citizens' responses to dissatisfaction with public services are often portrayed as following one of four distinct patterns, each consistent with current provision structures: exit, voice, loyalty or neglect (EVLN). Citizens may also initiate efforts to access public services through more subversive supply mechanisms. This study focuses on 'gaming' as an additional, understudied response pattern, within which individuals aim at improving the personal outcome of public service delivery by exploiting, manipulating or working around current rules and arrangements. Survey analysis of citizens' responses to dissatisfaction in Mexico indicates that gaming is indeed a distinct response, which is positively related to the unavailability of exit and, to some extent, to low trust in government. As a response pattern that encompasses behaviours inconsistent with current policy arrangements, gaming emphasizes the need to distinguish service improvement as a public good as opposed to a private good and further unfolds 'grey areas' in citizen-government relationships.