Coping During Public Service Delivery: A Conceptualization and Systematic Review of the Literature

Frontline workers, such as teachers and social workers, often experience stress when delivering public services to clients, for instance because of high workloads. They adapt by coping, using such practices as breaking or bending rules for clients, or rationing services. Although coping is recognized as an important response to the problems of frontline work, the public administration field lacks a comprehensive view of coping. The first contribution of this article is therefore theoretical: conceptualizing coping during public service delivery and developing a coherent classification of coping. This is done via a systematic review of the literature from 1981 to 2014. The second contribution is empirical: via…

• UO
  University of Georgia
• UO
  University of Washington
• UO
  University of Kansas
• LS
  London School of Economics and Political Science
• EC
  European Commission

  Award: 329519
• EU
  Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
• UU
  Universiteit Utrecht
• UD
  Université de Lausanne