Coping Strategies and Policy Alienation Under Centralization and Performance Management: Evidence From a Survey of Quebec Homecare Workers

This study interrogates the impacts of two major administrative control mechanisms—centralization and performance management—on the use of coping strategies and policy alienation among street-level bureaucrats. Using multiple imputed datasets from a survey distributed to homecare workers in Quebec, Canada, we build models that account for control mechanisms and resource constraints. Results suggest both that administrative centralization and performance management are strong predictors of the use of coping strategies and policy alienation and that the use of coping strategies also predicts policy alienation. This study contributes to better understanding the effects of control mechanisms on frontline workers.