Connecting Governance and the Front Lines: How Work Pressure and Autonomy Matter for Coping in Different Performance Regimes

How frontline employees cope with perceived work pressure may be of direct influence on policy outcomes. This study contributes to the street-level bureaucracy literature in several ways. First, we study both passive client-oriented and active system-oriented coping. Second, we analyse how these coping behaviours relate to work pressure and work autonomy. Finally, this article analyses whether these relationships are conditioned by the performance regime. Using a unique set-up of hospital employees (n = 979) working in external and internal performance regimes, we find a higher level of system-oriented active coping than client-oriented passive coping. Moreover, we find that autonomy matters for system-oriented coping and work pressure for client-oriented coping, and that these relationships are context-dependent.