Chenhui Zuo

Severe digital service failures with crisis‐like characteristics often arise from routine technical problems and coordination failures. When such failures escalate into events that threaten public trust in government, rebuilding trust becomes especially challenging. Unlike isolated external shocks, such failures signal potential systemic competence deficiencies, making restoration efforts more complex. However, empirical evidence on how government responses contribute to trust recovery through underlying psychological mechanisms remains limited. Drawing on uncertainty management theory, this study develops and empirically tests a dual‐pathway model for trust recovery. Results from a vignette experiment with 270 Chinese citizens reveal that government responses combining timeliness and transparency are particularly effective in restoring public trust. Specifically, such combined responses restore affect‐based trust by reducing anger and strengthen cognition‐based trust by reducing risk perceptions. By illuminating how the combination of response dimensions functions through distinct psychological pathways, these findings advance understanding of how governments can rebuild public trust following digital service failures with crisis‐like characteristics. This study also provides guidance for policymakers in designing response strategies that address both emotional and cognitive concerns, thereby sustaining public trust amid digital transformation.

Although extensive research has examined the relationship between public service motivation and job-related outcomes among civil servants, limited attention has been paid to its career-related consequences. Drawing on the model of proactive motivation, this study investigates how and when public service motivation fosters civil servants’ subjective career success. Through a two-wave questionnaire survey of 270 civil servants from China, the findings reveal that public service motivation has a positive effect on civil servants’ subjective career success via the mediating role of career crafting. Moreover, visionary leadership and future work self-salience can strengthen this mediated relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

With the development of digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI), numerous studies have focused on the applications and impacts of digital technology in the public sector. However, few studies have explored how frontline public service employees, the core subject of public organizations, can improve their proactive service performance. Based on the model of proactive motivation, this paper investigates the influence of digital leadership on employees’ proactive service performance from a micro perspective, as well as the internal mechanisms and boundary conditions underlying this process. Through an analysis of three-wave questionnaire survey data from 234 employees, this study finds that digital leadership has a positive impact on public employees’ proactive service performance through the serial mediation effects of AI service awareness and AI crafting. Furthermore, as an important boundary condition, employees’ public service motivation strengthens the serial indirect effect of digital leadership on proactive service performance. This paper not only extends the literature on digital leadership by adopting a micro-level perspective within the context of public sector digital transformation but also identifies the individual and contextual antecedents of proactive service performance by examining the interactive effect of public service motivation and leadership. Furthermore, this paper offers valuable implications for the practice of digital transformation in public organizations.

Based on social learning theory, this study examined the curvilinear relationship between benevolent leadership and subordinates’ interpersonal citizenship behavior and the moderating role of extraversion. We used a questionnaire survey to collect data in China at two points in time, resulting in 310 usable civil servants’ responses to test our hypotheses. Results showed an inverted U-shaped relationship between benevolent leadership and civil servants’ interpersonal citizenship behavior. Moreover, extraversion moderated the curvilinear relationship, such that the inverted U-shaped relationship was significant only for civil servants with low extraversion. For civil servants with high extraversion, benevolent leadership was positively related to their interpersonal citizenship behavior. These findings broaden benevolent leadership research by verifying its potential negative effects on subordinates’ ICB, which revealed that a moderate level of benevolent leadership should be emphasized and developed in the public sector.

As proactivity becomes vital for organizational success, retaining proactive employees becomes increasingly important, making the relationship between a proactive personality and turnover intention a key research topic. While existing studies have largely depicted turnover as a consequence of dissatisfaction and have identified negative indirect relationships, this study seeks to challenge that perspective by proposing that, in today’s boundaryless career environment, people also engage in voluntary turnover for career advancement. Using a self-regulation career management model, we propose that proactive employees set ambitious career goals influenced by career aspirations, leading them to seek external opportunities and thus exhibit higher turnover intention. However, when organizations implement career management practices, this relationship weakens as proactive employees perceive opportunities to achieve their goals within their current organizations. We tested these hypotheses with a sample of 342 respondents using the SPSS macro PROCESS. The findings support our propositions, revealing a positive indirect effect through career aspirations, which diminishes when perceived organizational career management is strong.

Drawing upon the conservation of resource theory, we offer a framework for understanding the mechanism underlying the effect of public employees’ overqualification on their cognitive and behavioral outcomes, through both positive and negative paths. We propose that perceived overqualification elicits two subjective cognitions, namely, perceived control and psychological entitlement, which further lead to public employees’ behaviors through approach (organizational citizenship behavior) and avoidance (workplace deviance behavior) tendencies. A total of 421 public employees participated in the three-stage time-lag investigation. The findings indicated that public employees’ perceived overqualification is positively related to perceived control, and perceived control is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior. Perceived control completely mediates the relationship between perceived overqualification and organizational citizenship behavior. Perceived overqualification is positively related to psychological entitlement, and psychological entitlement is positively related to workplace deviance behavior. Psychological entitlement completely mediates the relationship between perceived overqualification and workplace deviance behavior. This study constructed a double-edged sword model of perceived overqualification based on the public sector, discussing the influence of public employees’ perceived overqualification on their workplace behaviors from the perspective of resource assessment and self-evaluation, and providing theoretical guidance for the practice of human resource management within the public sector.