Kommunesammenlægningernes betydning for kommunalpolitikernes motivation

This paper examines the impact of the major Danish municipal amalgamations of 2007 on the motivational bases for politicians in local government. The focus is narrowed down to Public Service Motivation (PSM), a form of altruistic motivation present in the provision of public services. Two subdimensions of PSM, Public Interest and User Orientation, are used. The analysis shows that Public Interest is unaffected by amalgamation degree, while User Orientation is negatively affected. In other words, the councillors, who have experienced the highest degrees of amalgamation, have the lowest degree of User Orientation.

Selvpåført bureaukrati i kommunerne – formålstjenlig forvaltning eller et unødvendigt onde?

Bureaukrati og regler har været udsat for kritik i årevis. Med begrebet om ”selvpåført bureaukrati” er der sat fokus på de regler, som kommunerne selv vedtager, og det spiller samtidig videre på de negative billeder, som typisk forbindes med bureaukrati. Artiklen undersøger, hvad der driver fremvæksten af interne regler i to kommuner, og hvordan ledere og ansatte opfatter de lokale regler. Fremvæksten af interne regler er påvirket af lokale forhold som politisk opmærksomhed og sikring af ligebehandling af såvel borgere som ansatte, men nationale forhold som regulering også ser ud til at have betydning. I modsætning til de gængse fordomme over for regler opfatter ledere og medarbejdere, at de fleste regler leverer et positivt bidrag til kvaliteten i servicen

Selvpåført bureaukrati i kommunerne – formålstjenlig forvaltning eller et unødvendigt onde?

Bureaukrati og regler har været udsat for kritik i årevis. Med begrebet om ”selvpåført bureaukrati” er der sat fokus på de regler, som kommunerne selv vedtager, og det spiller samtidig videre på de negative billeder, som typisk forbindes med bureaukrati. Artiklen undersøger, hvad der driver fremvæksten af interne regler i to kommuner, og hvordan ledere og ansatte opfatter de lokale regler. Fremvæksten af interne regler er påvirket af lokale forhold som politisk opmærksomhed og sikring af ligebehandling af såvel borgere som ansatte, men nationale forhold som regulering også ser ud til at have betydning. I modsætning til de gængse fordomme over for regler opfatter ledere og medarbejdere, at de fleste regler leverer et positivt bidrag til kvaliteten i servicen

The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

Command systems are widely used to monitor and control public service provision, but little is known about the effects on individual workers' motivation and behavior. Using insights from motivation crowding theory, we measure how Danish nursery assistants and social and health care workers (n=981) perceive documentation requirements, and we analyze how this perception relates to intrinsic motivation and worker absence (as reported in official registers). We find that individuals who perceive documentation requirements to be controlling have lower intrinsic motivation and higher absence reported as being due to sickness. This implies that public managers should try to avoid that documentation requirements and other command systems are seen as controlling

Incidence of COVID-19 hospitalisation in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus:A nationwide cohort study from Denmark

Background: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have an increased risk of infections due to impaired immune functions, disease activity, and treatment. This study investigated the impact of having SLE on the incidence of hospitalisation with COVID-19 infection. Methods: This was a nationwide cohort study from Denmark between 1 March 2020 to 2 February 2021, based on the linkage of several nationwide registers. The adjusted incidence of COVID-19 hospitalisation was estimated for patients with SLE compared with the general population in Cox-regression models. Among SLE patients, the hazard ratio (HR) for hospitalisation was analysed as nested case-control study. Results: Sixteen of the 2533 SLE patients were hospitalised with COVID-19 infection. The age-sex adjusted rate per 1000 person years was 6.16 (95% CI 3.76–10.08) in SLE patients, and the corresponding hazard ratio was 2.54 (95% CI 1.55–4.16) compared with the matched general population group after adjustment for comorbidities. Among SLE patients, hydroxychloroquine treatment was associated with a HR for hospitalisation of 0.61 (95% CI 0.19–1.88), and 1.06 (95% CI 0.3–3.72) for glucocorticoid treatment. Conclusion: Patients with SLE were at increased risk of hospitalisation with COVID-19

Long-term detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies after infection and risk of re-infection

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate long-term sensitivity for detection of total antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 METHODS: From week 41, 2020, through week 26, 2021, all Danish blood donations were tested for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies with the Wantai assay. The results were linked with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results from the Danish Microbiological Database (MiBa). RESULTS: During the study period, 105,646 non-vaccinated Danish blood donors were tested for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, and 3,806 (3.6%) had a positive PCR test before the blood donation. Among the donors with a positive PCR test, 94.2% subsequently also had a positive antibody test. The time between the positive PCR test and the antibody test was up to 15 months and there was no evidence of a decline in proportion with detectable antibodies over time. A negative serological result test was associated with a higher incidence of re-infection (Incidence Rate Ratio = 0.102 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.039–0.262)). CONCLUSION: Among healthy blood donors, 94.2% developed SARS-CoV-2 antibodies after infection, and a lack of detectable antibodies was associated with re-infection

Investigating the Structure and Meaning of Public Service Motivation across Populations: Developing an International Instrument and Addressing Issues of Measurement Invariance

The growth in international research on public service motivation (PSM) raises a number of important questions about the degree to which the theory and research developed in one country can contribute to our understanding of PSM in other counties. To help address this issue, this study revisits the conceptual and operational definitions of PSM to address weaknesses previously noted in the literature. Although some important steps have been taken to both improve and internationalize the PSM scale, this work has been done incrementally. In contrast, this study takes a more systematic and comprehensive approach by combining the efforts of international PSM scholars to develop and then test a revised measurement instrument for PSM in 12 countries. Although the resulting four dimensional 16-item measure of PSM reported here provides a better theoretical and empirical foundation for the measurement of PSM, our results suggest that the exact meaning and scaling of PSM dimensions are likely to differ across cultures and languages. These results raise serious concerns regarding the ability to develop a single universal scale of PSM, or making direct comparisons of PSM across countrie