Behavioral Public HR: Experimental Evidence on Cognitive Biases and Debiasing Interventions

We draw on behavioral science to investigate a set of decisions that may have an impact on public human resource management, thus affecting public service provision. Our survey-in-the-field-experiment with the nursing personnel of a local health authority showed that respondents’ decisions in the area of health care operations management were affected by social pressures (bandwagoning), the presence of a decoy option, and the framing of alternatives. Anchoring and halo effects severely biased the assessment of subordinates’ performance. Decisions in the domain of health policies were influenced by denominator neglect and zero-risk bias. Debiasing interventions eliminated the bandwagoning and framing effects. Being midway between abstract and un-testable grand theories and data-driven testable hypotheses, our findings advance behavioral human resource (HR) as a fruitful middle range theory in public personnel administration. Normative implications for scholars and practitioners about the power of the architecture of choices are discussed.