Explaining willingness of public professionals to implement public policies: Content, context and personality characteristics

Currently, there is an intense debate on pressures facing public professionals. This debate often focuses on the (un)willingness of professionals - such as teachers and physicians - to implement new policies. In explaining this willingness, scholars often looked at the policy content, using qualitative case-studies. This has not led to a satisfactory explanatory framework. The aim of this research is twofold: (1) building a more all-encompassing, three-factor model (policy content, organizational context and personality characteristics of implementers) for explaining the willingness to implement policies; (2) quantitatively testing this model in a survey of 1.317 Dutch health professionals implementing a new reimbursement policy. The results show that policy content is the most important factor explaining this willingness. However, the organizational context and the personality characteristics of implementers are also influential, and have to be taken into account to properly study the attitudes of professionals towards public policies. The results of this research help in understanding why professionals embrace or resist implementing particular policies.