Abstract
This study presents a systematic review of the 122 studies on citizen satisfaction in the field of public administration. The research aims to identify the current state of knowledge on citizen satisfaction by drawing on existing empirical results and conceptual arguments, highlighting research gaps, and developing a heuristic framework to guide future research. Based on a literature search of 12 major public administration journals, our findings indicate that citizen satisfaction has gained significant academic attention as a performance measure to monitor and assess public service delivery, particularly at the local level. Despite substantial scrutiny in diverse research contexts, quantitative studies still predominate, mainly using secondary survey data in their research. Furthermore, we observed an absence of an agreed-upon definition for citizen satisfaction and an over-emphasis on the expectancy-disconfirmation model to explain the satisfaction process, highlighting the need for scholars to move beyond the performance-expectation dyad. While reviewing a set of environmental, organizational, and individual-level antecedents and outcomes, we noticed few scholars have considered the effects of moderating variables on citizen satisfaction. As such, our paper concludes by identifying a few underexplored research themes that could facilitate knowledge-building regarding citizen satisfaction.
Introduction
Public administration scholars and practitioners have long debated the role of the public in public management and policy (e.g., Frederickson, 1991; Goodsell, 1981; Schachter, 1997; Thomas, 2013). In turn, a broad array of research themes has emerged from the citizen-centered perspectives, including citizen participation in decision-making processes (Irvin & Stansbury, 2004; Bingham et al., 2005), citizen coproduction for effective production and service delivery (Brudney & England, 1983; Nabatchi et al., 2017), and citizen satisfaction in performance management (DeHoog et al., 1990; Kelly & Swindell, 2002; Stipak, 1979; Van Ryzin et al., 2004). More recently, inter alia, citizen satisfaction with public services has gained significant attention as a means of evaluating organizational performance (e.g., Hodgkinson et al., 2017; Morgeson & Petrescu, 2011; Van Ryzin, 2015), expressing service users’ concerns or complaining in response to service failures (e.g., Van de Walle, 2018), advancing government accountability (e.g., Hong, 2017; Oh et al., 2022), and further garnering citizens’ trust in government (e.g., Morgeson et al., 2021; Park & Blenkinsopp, 2011; Taylor, 2015).
Its popularity emanates from business-like reforms in the public sector: for instance, New Public Management (NPM) and Reinventing Government that espouse the principles of efficiency and transparency. With an increasing emphasis on these public values, governments have begun to incorporate citizens’ opinions into their decision-making through citizen surveys, formalizing the idea of citizen satisfaction (Morgeson et al., 2021; Swindell & Kelly, 2000). Interestingly, it has been widely argued that the idea of citizen satisfaction originates from the study of customer satisfaction in the fields of business, marketing, and psychology (e.g., Oliver, 1980) to assess clients’ satisfaction in private consumption (Carvalho & Brito, 2012; Jacobsen et al., 2015). While customer satisfaction is a well-established field, with numerous focused reviews and meta-analyses conducted to ascertain its antecedents and consequences (Blut et al., 2015; de Oliveira Santini et al., 2020), the study of citizen satisfaction still lacks a comprehensive discussion about the publication trends by retrospectively looking at the origins of existing literature and their applications in a wider variety of contexts, with consideration of future theoretical and empirical developments. In other words, this calls for a synthesized approach to addressing existing gaps in this emerging field of literature on citizen satisfaction, particularly what topics scholars have investigated, what antecedents and consequences of citizen satisfaction have been found, and what the future research agenda should entail. In doing so, we expect to advance our understanding of the citizen satisfaction concept and its implications for public administration.
In furtherance of such expectation, this study takes advantage of a comprehensive overview of how public administration scholars have studied citizen satisfaction to bridge the gap in the literature by addressing the (1) research context, (2) research methodologies, (3) conceptual frameworks, (4) antecedents, and (5) outcomes. The following are the guiding research questions for this study:
Where has citizen satisfaction been applied in previous research? How is citizen satisfaction measured in the existing literature? What theoretical approaches do authors employ to study citizen satisfaction? What are the antecedents that influence citizen satisfaction? What are the outcomes of citizen satisfaction?
Specifically, the value of this paper is twofold. This article contributes methodologically by being one of the first few studies to employ a systematic approach to assess the current state of scholarly research on citizen satisfaction. A systematic overview can not only establish more universal and evidence-based knowledge on the topic, but can also guide future research agenda on citizen satisfaction. By cross-examining the findings of previous studies, we can probe the external validity of such results across various research contexts. Additionally, given an absence of systematic review approaches, we observed that several replication-oriented studies have been based on Van Ryzin's (2013) experiment surveys (e.g., Filtenborg et al., 2017; Grimmelikhuijsen & Porumbescu, 2017). While these studies provide opportunities for further knowledge development on the topic, they can sometimes impede theory building. Although there is a recent article published in Public Administration Review that provides a meta-analysis on the expectancy-disconfirmation model (EDM) and citizen satisfaction with public services, its narrow focus on the EDM and its meta-analysis methodology have inevitably constrained a thorough comprehension of citizen satisfaction irrespective of theory, methods, or findings (Zhang et al., 2022).
1
In view of the methodological limitations, this paper will adopt a systematic review design to engage existing literature on the subject. In our systematic review, we adhere to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram for the search strategy not only to document our research methodology but also to enhance the transparency of our review, thereby promoting cross-validation by other scholars.
Second, our literature review highlights a preference among scholars to quantitatively examine citizen satisfaction without clarifying the definition of citizen satisfaction and referencing existing theoretical frameworks. We noticed some inconsistencies in scholarly interpretations of citizen satisfaction that a meta-analysis may be likely to leave out. Some scholars regard citizen satisfaction as encompassing both objective and subjective components due to the close link between satisfaction evaluations and objective measures of service quality (Beeri et al., 2019; Charbonneau & Van Ryzin, 2012; Shingler et al., 2008). Other scholars consider citizen satisfaction as a subjective measure since it is susceptible to external influences, such as information availability, memory-driven or specific (typical) issue-driven priming, and context effects (e.g., Hjortskov, 2017; James, 2009; Olsen, 2015). For example, by providing additional information or asking a specific question before a satisfaction question, respondents are primed to ground their judgments with respect to the specific information or question (Barrows et al., 2016). As such, doubts may arise in the interpretation of citizen satisfaction findings, diminishing their practical implications for public managers. In response, our paper closely examines the predominant thoughts surrounding citizen satisfaction, identifying interesting parallels to the antecedent’s research as well as the outcomes research, not to mention discussing divergent factors that link between antecedents and citizen satisfaction. Following this, our focus is on extrapolating widely cited environmental, organizational, and individual variables: they (and their interactions) can either be an inhibiting or facilitating factor for citizen satisfaction, which can be reflected in the consequences linked to public values, such as trust in government and accountability. We also highlight several areas on which future research should focus more.
This article is structured as follows: the next section describes the methodology employed for the review, the third section presents the findings, and the final section concludes by identifying possible new research directions.
Methodology
Literature Search
To identify potential studies for review, we employed a two-pronged approach to examine public administration journals published between 1990 and 2022. First, we conducted an electronic search on three online databases: ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus, and Google Scholar using citizen satisfaction and customer satisfaction as the two key search terms. Since our primary objective is to assess the level of academic knowledge about citizens’ satisfaction with public service (quality), we included customer satisfaction considering that the theoretical development of citizen satisfaction originates from customer satisfaction (Hjortskov, 2017; Ma, 2017; Petrovsky et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2022). Moreover, spurred by business-like public reforms under the NPM, citizens have been treated as clients of government agencies or service users, and citizens themselves have been stimulated to think and behave as public service customers, in the sense that their reactions and evaluations of the services provided are mainly aligned with their own individualistic demands and needs (Van de Walle, 2018). Taken together, we view that customer satisfaction is interchangeable with citizen satisfaction (Ariely, 2013). However, it should be noted that as our underlying analytical focus rests on the field of public administration, we excluded public policy and business administration journal articles. The initial search in November 2022 generated more than 6,000 article titles.
Second, as an additional search strategy to limit ourselves to the widely cited publications and minimize the risk of selection bias, we searched for relevant journal articles dedicated to citizen satisfaction from a guide of academic journal rankings released by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS). We thus narrowed our focus to articles published in the 12 top public administration journal outlets, including the American Review of Public Administration (ARPA), Administration and Society (A&S), Governance (GOV), International Public Management Journal (IPMJ), International Review of Administrative Sciences (IRAS), Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), Public Administration (PA), Public Administration Review (PAR), Public Management Review (PMR), Public Performance Management Review (PPMR), Local Government Studies (LGS), and International Journal of Public Administration (IJPA). These journals cover a broad range of topics within the field of public administration and have established a reputation as well-respected and influential journals that publish high-quality research in the field. By identifying 120 potential pieces of literature for the systematic review and subsequently examining each of them closely, we can generate sufficient insight into citizen satisfaction. Furthermore, it is notable that these studies have, to some extent, accounted for the findings in other literature. Therefore, our literature search strategies will not undermine the comprehensiveness of our review. We have taken significant measures to minimize bias and inaccuracies in our data collection and analysis process by developing a research protocol to establish inclusion and exclusion criteria. This protocol was further supplemented by cross-validation checks by other researchers.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for review, studies had to fulfill all the following inclusion criteria:
Field—Studies must examine citizen satisfaction or customer satisfaction in the field of public administration. Topic—Studies must include terms such as “citizen satisfaction,” “customer satisfaction,” or “client satisfaction” in their title, abstract, or keywords to ensure the relevancy to our study. Year of publication—Studies must have been published between 1990 and 2022. Language—Studies must be in English. Publication—Studies published in the 12 top journal publications were included ARPA, A&S, GOV, IPMJ, IRAS, JPART, PA, PAR, PMR, PPMR, LGS, and IJPA.
Study Selection
Initially, we screened 6,514 studies, but eventually narrowed them down to 122 eligible studies. The screening process follows the PRISMA (see Figure 1). First, we screened the titles, abstracts, and keywords of the studies to check if they met all of our inclusion requirements, including the field of study, the year of publication, and the topic discussed. We also removed any duplicate journal articles generated by our search strategies. Next, we scrutinized the full abstract and text to remove studies that did not directly examine citizen satisfaction in their research design. Lastly, we recorded author(s), publication year, title, journal, methodology, definition, antecedents, and outcomes of citizen satisfaction in NVivo 12 to facilitate our inductive analysis of the study's findings. We created broad categories to group individual variables of interest, such as antecedents, moderators, and outcomes, to guide our examination of the previous works by scholars.
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram.
Findings
Publication Outlets and Trends
For the systematic review, we primarily looked at studies published in the top 12 journals in the field of public administration (see Figure 2). Of the 122 articles, 19 studies belong to the International Journal of Public Administration (IJPA); 17 studies by the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART); 14 studies by Public Administration (PA) and Public Management Review (PMR), respectively; 13 studies by Public Administration Review (PAR); 12 studies by the International Review of Administrative Sciences (IRAS); nine by Public Performance and Management Review (PPMR) and American Review of Public Administration (ARPA), respectively; five by Local Government Studies (LGS); four studies by International Public Management Journal (IPMJ) and Governance (GOV), respectively; and two studies by Administrative and Society (A&S).
Number of citizen satisfaction studies published by the top 12 journals.
In recent years, the amount of citizen satisfaction literature has been rapidly rising. Within a decade, this number has accounted for 60% of our sample literature albeit with short-term fluctuations (see Figure 3). In the first phase from 1990 through 2009, a total of 25 studies were published in the 12 public administration journals reviewed, with yearly numbers ranging from 0 to 6. From 2010 through 2022, the number of publications rose dramatically to 97 and ranged from 2 to 13 per year, with peaks in 2017 (13 studies), 2011 (11 studies), and 2022 (11 studies). The cumulative trend demonstrates a significant increase in scholarly attention to the importance of citizen satisfaction.
Number of studies published from 1995 to 2022.
To identify the most influential articles in the discourse of citizen satisfaction, Table 1 is presented to display the 10 highest-cited studies spanning the years 1990 to 2022. The results reveal that Welch et al.'s (2004) article, titled “Linking citation satisfaction with e-government and trust in government,” published in JPART, has garnered the most attention among scholars, amassing over 1,600 citations. Following is Bouckaert and Van de Walle's (2003) study on “Comparing measures of citizen trust and user satisfaction as indicators of ‘good governance,’” published in IRAS, with more than 740 citations. Examining publications from 2010 onwards, a period witnessing a surge in citizen satisfaction studies, Park and Blenkinsopp's (2011) study on “The roles of transparency and trust in the relationship between corruption and citizen satisfaction” stands out as the most cited, accumulating over 430 citations. Among these, James, Kelly, and Van Ryzin have contributed two articles each within the 1990–2022 period, while James alone contributed three out of the contributing three of the top 10 studies within the 2010–2022 timeframe. Notably, four of the top 10 most cited studies from 1990 delve into the relationship between citizen satisfaction and trust in government.
Top 10 Most Cited Articles.
Note: a Number of citations (as of September 30, 2023).
Research Contexts
Table 2 presents a breakdown of research foci, revealing that approximately 59.0% of the studies concentrated on Western contexts, encompassing North America and Europe. Within this subset, 32.8% centered on the United States, while 7.4% were devoted to the United Kingdom. While this distribution reflects the geographic concentration of research efforts, it is important to note the limited representation of non-Western contexts in the reviewed literature. Furthermore, only 9.8% of the reviewed literature explored cross-country empirical investigations of citizen satisfaction, which may raise concerns about the generalizability of findings beyond Western contexts and suggest the need for further research to enhance the external validity of findings across diverse contexts.
Research Context.
Note: aMultiple classifications per study were possible.
Upon delving into temporal trends across two distinct periods (1990–2009 and 2010–2022), it becomes apparent that the diversity of research contexts has evolved. In the earlier period (1990–2009), studies predominantly focused on North America, constituting 64%, with Europe and Asia contributing 12% each. However, in the subsequent period (2010–2022), the proportion of studies centered on North America declined significantly to 28.8%, while Europe and Asia experienced increases to 25.8% and 21.7%, respectively. Moreover, there is a notable rise in citizen satisfaction studies conducted in Africa and Oceania during 2010–2022, accounting for 6.2% and 3.1%, respectively. This shift indicates a broader internationalization of research efforts and emphasizes the increasing significance of exploring citizen satisfaction on a global scale.
Given the broad scope of our review, spanning various government services, we narrowed our focus by identifying and distinguishing specific service areas and government layers where citizen satisfaction has been applied (see Table 2). Interestingly, within the service area, a large portion of citizen satisfaction literature (29.5%) addressed public services broadly without clarifying specific service domains and boundaries. For instance, survey respondents were commonly asked “How satisfied are you with the public services?” (e.g., Herian et al., 2012; James, 2011b; Morgeson, 2013; Noda, 2021; Shingler et al., 2008; Song et al., 2020; Van Ryzin, 2006). Additionally, 27.0% of studies covered multiple service areas. Conversely, researchers in the remaining studies tended to explore citizen satisfaction in areas regularly encountered in citizens’ daily lives, such as education (10.7%), public works (8.2%), and health (7.4%). Such findings imply the adaptability of citizen satisfaction as a tool for capturing and measuring citizens’ perceptions of service quality. This adaptability facilitates comparisons across services, agencies, and countries. Consequently, it is unsurprising that scholars often view citizen satisfaction as a versatile performance indicator, capable of serving as a comprehensive assessment of government services.
Furthermore, Table 2 shows that 72.4% of studies in our review were conducted at the local government level, followed by 14.6% at the national (central) government, and lastly, 8.1% at the state level. James and Moseley (2014) argued that citizens attribute public service outcomes to local governments due to their proximity to the people. This proximity facilitates a better understanding of residents’ needs among local employees and enhances the effectiveness of resource allocation. Consequently, while methodologies for collecting and evaluating citizen satisfaction vary across localities (e.g., surveys) (Swindell & Kelly, 2000), the practice of “listening to citizens through surveys” prevails as a prevalent method for assessing public service quality or local government performance, particularly at the local level, compared to other tiers of government (Kim & Kim, 2022, p. 205).
Research Methods and Measurement of Citizen Satisfaction
In terms of research design, as shown in Table 3, an overwhelming proportion of the studies (approximately 86.9%) employ a quantitative approach for data collection and analysis. Specifically, existing literature predominantly utilizes quantitative tools such as surveys (68.1%), survey experiments (8.0%), and (secondary) administrative data (7.3%). While a quantitative approach allows for empirical testing of associations among variables, these methodologies may inadvertently overlook the underlying rationale behind an individual's behavior and perceptions. Consequently, the extant literature often describes observations without offering empirical evidence obtained from the involved parties, potentially reflecting scholars’ perceptions more than respondents’ opinions, thus not accurately capturing participants’ perspectives.
Research Design, Data Collection Method, Type of Data Collected, and Measures.
Note: aMultiple classifications per study were possible.
Furthermore, a discernible reliance on secondary data over primary data is evident in the literature. Approximately 50.8% of studies utilize data sourced from governmental or external entities, in contrast to 44.3% that collect their own data. Notably, several scholars obtained datasets from specific sources such as the American Customer Satisfaction Index (e.g., Morgeson, 2013; Morgeson & Petrescu, 2011; Morgeson et al., 2021), the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) (e.g., Kelly & Swindell, 2002; Wang, 2001), the Survey of Satisfaction with New York City Services (e.g., see Van Ryzin et al., 2004; Van Ryzin & Immerwahr, 2004; Van Ryzin & Charbonneau, 2010) and the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study (e.g., see Song & Meier, 2018; Song et al., 2020). The reliance on a singular data source in numerous studies raises concerns about common-source biases, potentially compromising the reliability and validity of the measures.
In our review, an approximately equal proportion of studies employed both single and multiple-item approaches. Among 122 articles, 43.4% of the studies utilized single-item indicators, while an equivalent percentage (43.4%) employed multiple-item indicators. Single-item indicators entail querying respondents on overall government performance or public service (e.g., James & Moseley, 2014), whereas multi-item constructs involve multiple questions or choice-items capturing diverse dimensions of service performance. This approach not only delineates individual attributes but also prompts respondents to assess the relative importance of each attribute or make trade-offs, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the topic. Some studies in this review advocate for the latter approach due to its high internal consistency and retest reliability (Van Ryzin et al., 2004). For example, Brinkerhoff et al. (2018) devised an index variable based on citizen perceptions of public management in health, education, and water services, while Kisida and Wolf (2015) constructed a scale based on parent ratings of school safety, location, facilities, and teacher interaction. Nonetheless, the volatility of citizens’ judgment of external influences poses a significant challenge for practitioners and scholars in measuring citizen satisfaction, especially in revealing cognitive judgments of public services rather than affective judgments (Andersen & Hjortskov, 2016). His challenge has prompted calls for continued inquiry into the improved operationalization of citizen satisfaction to provide more realistic results generated from reliable and valid measurement instruments.
Conceptual Developments: Definitions Used and Theoretical Frameworks
In our scrutiny of 122 journal articles on citizen satisfaction, it was observed that a substantial majority of studies (approximately 68.0%) did not furnish a specific definition for citizen satisfaction (see Table 4). Conversely, the disconfirmation-oriented definition of citizen satisfaction was prominently featured, constituting 16.4% of all reviewed articles. This conceptualization is drawn from the EDM, positing that individuals evaluate service performance in relation to their reference point, wherein the disparity between perceived performance and ex ante expectation induces a disconfirmation effect (James, 2009, 2011a; Van Ryzin, 2006, 2007). Notably, the disconfirmation effect positively influences satisfaction when perceived performance surpasses expectations, while falling below expectations results in dissatisfaction. Hence, in accordance with the EDM, the prevailing conceptualization defines citizen satisfaction as a process wherein citizens compare the actual performance of a service (or provider) with their prior expectations about the benefits or outcomes of the service offered (e.g., Andersen & Hjortskov, 2016; Engdaw, 2020; Filtenborg et al., 2017; Jacobsen et al., 2015; Kampen et al., 2006; Mok, 2020; Petrovsky et al., 2017; Van Ryzin, 2006; Zhang et al., 2022). This thereby highlights the significance of the EDM as a primary theoretical underpinning informing public administration scholars about citizen satisfaction, constituting 43.2% of our sample.
Definitions Used and Theoretical Framework.
Aside from the disconfirmation approach, about 10.7% of the existing studies lean towards an overall judgment/evaluation definition. These studies suggest that citizen satisfaction is a summary evaluation of a service (or provider) (Bouckaert & Van de Walle, 2003; Im & Lee, 2012; James, 2009; Lundin et al., 2015; Mishra & Geleta, 2020; Overman, 2017). Furthermore, about 4.1% of the literature offers multiple definitions, often combining disconfirmation and overall judgment approaches (Beeri et al., 2019; Hjortskov, 2017; Jilke, 2018; Jilke & Baekgaard, 2020; Song & Meier, 2018). For instance, Beeri et al. (2019) compared citizen satisfaction to “a person's feelings toward a variety of factors affecting a given situation, particularly the fulfillment of one's needs, expectations, and requirements” (p. 243). Intriguingly, Gofen (2012) interprets citizen satisfaction differently, considering it as “citizens’ perceptions of their quality of life,” deviating from earlier definitions grounded in citizens’ experiences or the services provided by public agencies (p. 1088).
Despite the absence of a universally agreed-upon definition for citizen satisfaction, our analysis of the definitions used indicates a consensus among scholars, at least among those providing definitions in their studies, regarding the relatively abstract constitutive definition of citizen satisfaction. In other words, citizen satisfaction is construed as an evaluation based on one's experience with a public organization or public service. However, the operational definition remains a contentious issue, particularly concerning the content (areas) of evaluation and the heuristic processes guiding satisfaction evaluations. Consequently, numerous theories—such as the performance paradigm, blame-deflection theory, and motivated theory—have been employed to conceptualize citizen satisfaction alongside the EDM (see Table 4; Hodgkinson et al., 2017; Jacobsen et al., 2015; Jilke, 2018; Jilke & Baekgaard, 2020; Kelly & Swindell, 2002; Morgeson et al., 2021; Overman, 2017; Song et al., 2021).
Moreover, through an inductive search using NVivo 12, we identified the prevalent terms in the reviewed articles (see Figure 4), revealing 12 key terms, including “citizen,” “satisfaction,” “public,” “service,” “quality,” “evaluative,” “government,” “measure,” “objective,” “subjective,” “attitude,” and “assessment.” From these terms, several essential dimensions of citizen satisfaction emerged. First, citizen satisfaction involves citizen-centered judgment or evaluation. Second, this assessment occurs within the realm of public service or government. Third, citizen satisfaction is measured with the aim of gauging the service quality received by citizens. Last, there appears to be a divergence of opinions on whether citizen satisfaction measures should be considered objective or subjective measures in existing literature. Consequently, our inductive approach to conceptualizing citizen satisfaction yielded results similar to our deductive approach.
Word cloud of citizen satisfaction.
Antecedents of Citizen Satisfaction
While numerous studies have delved into the exploration of antecedents, few have attempted to classify them into common categories, thus limiting the advancement of knowledge on the subject. To bridge the gap, we employed a hybrid analytical approach of inductive-deductive coding to group the antecedents and systematize their relationships with citizen satisfaction to cross-validate their consistency. In our review, we not only accounted for statistically significant factors and their directional effects, but also considered insignificant variables in a specific study. Recognizing that these variables may wield importance in diverse settings, we aimed to provide a holistic perspective. Our work resulted in the identification of approximately 573 antecedents across 102 studies. Subsequently, we categorized these antecedents into three overarching groups: environmental, organizational, and individual-level factors, as presented in Table 5.
Antecedents of Citizen Satisfaction.
First, environmental factors shed light on how the external conditions of a government, such as community socioeconomic status, population, and geographic locations, may affect citizen satisfaction with public services. Next, the organizational category investigates the effects of management practices, structural and procedural characteristics of the organization, organizational resources, various service delivery methods, and leadership on citizen satisfaction. Finally, individual-level variables predominately explore individual characteristics, including perceptions, expectations, experiences, attitudes toward government, and demographics, and their influence on satisfaction levels. This systematic classification not only advances our understanding of the multifaceted nature of antecedents but also provides a structured foundation for future research in the field.
Environmental Antecedents
Our investigation into environmental antecedents examines how contextual circumstances surrounding a public agency or government can impact citizen satisfaction. We posit that the exploration of the so-called external variables implies that citizen satisfaction is locally constructed, representing the complex interactions of the physical, social, economic, and political forces beyond the purview of an individual or government.
A noteworthy observation is the comparatively limited exploration of environmental antecedents in existing literature. Constituting only 10.5% of the 573 identified antecedents, scholars have primarily focused on community characteristics, comprising about 90.0% of the environmental antecedents (refer to Table 5 and Appendix 1). Generally, the empirical results indicate a mixed and inconsistent effect of community characteristics on citizen satisfaction, suggesting that the impacts of environmental factors may be highly context-specific (Amirkhanyan et al., 2014; Bergh et al., 2022; Brown, 2007; Drew & Dollery, 2016; Van Ryzin, 2004). For instance, concerning the population size, Drew and Dollery's (2016) study found an insignificant impact in the context of Australia, whereas Bergh et al. (2022) observed that a larger population increases the level of citizen satisfaction in the Sweden setting.
Another environmental-level variable explored pertains to country-level characteristics. Ariely (2013) compares national characteristics across countries, finding that electoral fairness and democratic index are likely to increase citizens’ satisfaction with the democratic operation in their countries. Overman (2017) considers income tax and corporate tax levels at the country level as a proxy for the type of welfare state in his comparative study, with statistically significant findings. In its wake, one might argue that environmental factors either play a peripheral role as stimulating variables in models, or they have a potentially determinantal effect on citizen satisfaction beyond the control of government or institutions. Given the relative paucity of evidence, inconclusive empirical findings warrant further investigation in the public administration literature.
Organizational Antecedents
Organizational-level variables constitute about 31.9% of the antecedents under examination, with a particular emphasis on performance indicators and service quality, collectively accounting for 31.7% of the organizational-level antecedents (refer to Table 5 and Appendix 2). Notably, a substantial portion of the literature exploring the determinants of citizen satisfaction delves into whether citizen satisfaction is linked to administrative measures of service quality and archival performance indicators. Swindell and Kelly's (2000) exploration of the linkages between various objective performance indicators and subjective citizen satisfaction questions suggests a significant correlation, with 85% of paired correlations showing the predicted direction. Objective performance indicators for local government services, such as police services, road maintenance, fire service, and water services, are frequently employed to assess their impact on citizen satisfaction, yielding predominantly positive impacts despite some mixed results (Im & Lee, 2012; Kelly & Swindell, 2002; Vásquez & Trudeau, 2011; Vásquez et al., 2011). In the education setting, objective performance indicators like student academic performance or school performance consistently emerge as strong predictors of citizen satisfaction (e.g., Charbonneau & Van Ryzin, 2012, 2015; Song et al., 2021; Song & Meier, 2018).
Subjectively perceived performance indicators play a pivotal role in shaping citizen satisfaction, as evidenced by studies such as Petrovsky et al. (2023) and Serra (1995). Beyond the objective measures commonly examined, these studies emphasize the significance of the subjective evaluation of public employee or organizational performance as perceived by citizens. This emphasis arises from the understanding that citizens’ perceptions of job performance by public employees or the overall performance of public organizations carry more weight than ostensibly more objective indicators (Petrovsky et al., 2023; Van Ryzin, 2007). This aligns with the broader model of expectation-disconfirmation at the individual level, where subjectively perceived performance indicators hold a prominent position in influencing citizen satisfaction. As long as citizens perceive that public officials or organizations meet their expectations, they are more likely to express satisfaction with the services or the organization, emphasizing the crucial interplay between subjective evaluations and overall satisfaction in the realm of citizen-government interactions. In a similar fashion, quality public service is understood as the degree by which citizens’ perception of how services best meet or exceeds their anticipation, leading to the significant indicator of citizen satisfaction with services (Engdaw, 2020).
In addition to performance indicators, our examination uncovers that performance management systems or internal management practices, emphasizing a focus on performance management, consistently yield positive effects on citizen satisfaction, constituting 4.9% of organizational antecedents (e.g., Amirkhanyan et al., 2014; Beeri et al., 2019; Ma, 2017; Mishra & Momin, 2020). Performance management systems directed toward enhancing the utilization of organizational resources and refining administrative and managerial processes to align more effectively with organizational objectives and goals are anticipated to manifest favorable outcomes reflected in heightened citizen satisfaction and positive attitudes toward the government (Beeri et al., 2019). Given that, organizational performance is identified as a stimulating variable, contributing to improved citizen satisfaction.
We have identified additional organizational-level antecedents, encompassing various dimensions, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing citizen satisfaction. These include organizational resources (15.3%), processes that involve activities shaping power relationships, communication, administrative procedures, communication, and change and innovation (12.0%), service delivery method (12.0%), values and ethics (10.4%), e-government (4.3%), service characteristics (3.3%), leadership (3.3%), and structural characteristics (2.7%). This categorization allows for a nuanced exploration of the diverse organizational elements contributing to the overall framework of citizen satisfaction.
While structural components, characterized by their stability and observability within the organization, do not consistently contribute to a positive impact on citizen satisfaction (Amirkhanyan et al., 2014; Walker et al., 2011), dynamic processes, which are less physically observable but play a crucial role in organizational management and service delivery to citizens, have shown positive effects. These positive process-related factors include a reduction in administrative costs (Barnes & Petry, 2021; Tran & Dollery, 2021), fairness in decision-making processes (Herian et al., 2012), communication effectiveness (Ho & Cho, 2017), efficiency (Shingler et al., 2008), decreased red tape (Tummers et al., 2016), and innovation (Vigoda-Gadot et al., 2008).
Within the realm of structures and processes, public employees’ values, ethics, and motives play a pivotal role in shaping organizational outcomes, ultimately leading to heightened citizen satisfaction. Our review reveals that values such as morality, responsiveness, ethics, neutrality, and competitor orientation are positively associated with citizen satisfaction (Ariely, 2013; Nie & Wang, 2022; Walker et al., 2011; Wong et al., 2011), while organizational politics and corruption exhibit a negative correlation with citizen satisfaction (Park & Blenkinsopp, 2011; Vigoda-Gadot, 2007).
Interestingly, organizational resources, including human and financial resources, do not exhibit consistent effects on citizen satisfaction. Similarly, as the discourse surrounding the contracting-citizen satisfaction relationship has been contentious due to the potential benefits and drawbacks of contracting, our review also highlights that alternative service delivery methods, such as contracting out, privatization, government consolidation, and intermunicipal consolidation, do not consistently a directional influence on citizen satisfaction (Amirkhanyan et al., 2014; Hodgkinson et al., 2017; Holum & Jakobsen, 2016; Ma, 2017). Consequently, scholars should be cautious in associating conventional modes of service delivery with less superiority compared to new service delivery practices.
Studies on e-government and public leadership appear to provide more consistent evidence of the positive impact on citizen satisfaction (e.g., Gollagari et al., 2023; Greasley & John, 2010; Mishra, 2021, 2022; Mishra & Geleta, 2020; Yap et al., 2021). While examining e-government, scholars analyze the specific dimensions of e-government such as its reliability in executing public services, its responsiveness to citizens’ queries, and its inclusivity in encouraging citizens’ participation (Ma & Zheng, 2019; Mishra & Geleta, 2020; Yap et al., 2021). Likewise, scholars have examined various forms of leadership, including ethical leadership, transformational leadership, and political leadership positions (Gollagari et al., 2023; Greasley & John, 2010; Mishra, 2021).
In summary, from the systematic review of previous results, we identified organizational performance indicators, performance management systems/practices, processes, values/ethics, service characteristics, e-government, and leadership as essential stimulating variables, whereas service delivery methods and organizational resources, and structure need to be further probed because of their mixed results.
Individual Antecedents
Among the three levels of antecedents, individual-level factors have garnered significant attention from scholars, accounting for about 57.6% of all antecedents (refer to Table 5 and Appendix 3). Expectation is most frequently examined as a primary factor by scholars (18.2%) (Abdelkarim, 2023; Filtenborg et al., 2017; Grimmelikhuijsen & Porumbescu, 2017; James, 2009; Van Ryzin, 2004, 2006, 2007; Zhang et al., 2022). This is unsurprising, given that many previous studies have investigated citizen satisfaction relying on EDM, which compares an individual's ex ante expectation and perceived performance (James, 2009, 2011a; Van Ryzin, 2004, 2007). In line with the EDM, existing literature validates the positive influence of perceived performance and the positive disconfirmation effect on citizens’ satisfaction level (Abdelkarim, 2023; Andersen & Hjortskov, 2016; James, 2009; Noda, 2021; Poister & Thomas, 2011; Van Ryzin, 2006; Van Ryzin & Charbonneau, 2010; Van Ryzin & Immerwahr, 2004). Although studies hypothesize a definitive effect of expectation on citizen satisfaction, empirical results have found a positive estimate between expectation and citizen satisfaction (Abdelkarim, 2023; Filtenborg et al., 2017; James, 2009; Morgeson & Petrescu, 2011; Van Ryzin, 2004; Van Ryzin et al., 2004). Hence, along with perceived performance and disconfirmation effect, they can be considered as stimulating variables to citizen satisfaction.
Apart from expectation, we found many other individual factors in previous studies—demographics characteristics (45.5%), importance of services (10.9%), attitudes toward government (6.7%), media usage (4.2%), partisanship (3.9%), exposure to information (3.0%), participation (2.7%), frequency of service use (2.7%), and the prime/framing effect (2.1%). Demographic characteristics constitute the largest segment among individual-level antecedents, primarily because numerous empirical studies testing determinants of citizen satisfaction at the individual level incorporate various demographic control variables, such as age and sex (e.g., Ariely, 2013; Holum, 2018), education and income (e.g., Amirkhanyan et al., 2014; Ariely, 2013; Baekgaard & Serritzlew, 2020; Ferraioli & Ballart, 2023), race/ethnicity or nationality (e.g., Ferraioli & Ballart, 2023; Ho & Cho, 2017; Ma, 2017), family and household characteristics (e.g., Ho & Cho, 2017; Ma, 2017; Petrovsky et al., 2023), housing information (e.g., Ho & Cho, 2017; Kosecik & Sagbas, 2004; Vásquez & Trudeau, 2011), and so on. However, their effects are inconsistent, implying that citizen satisfaction is not solely determined by the demographic or socio-economic status of individuals but by the interplay of various factors.
A significant number of studies suggest that perceived service importance (e.g., Herian & Tomkins, 2012; Van Ryzin & Immerwahr, 2004, 2007), exposure to information (e.g., Baekgaard & Serritzlew, 2020; Charbonneau & Van Ryzin, 2015; Ferraioli & Ballart, 2023; James & Moseley, 2014), trust in government (e.g., Ariely, 2013; Ferraioli & Ballart, 2023; Mishra & Momin, 2020; Park & Blenkinsopp, 2011), and partisan bias (e.g., Jilke, 2018; Jilke & Baekgaard, 2020; Morgeson et al., 2021) improve citizen satisfaction. However, we found mixed results for the following: for example, media usage (Porumbescu, 2017b; Welch et al., 2004; Wu, 2021), prime/framing (Andersen & Hjortskov, 2016; Hjortskov, 2017; Van De Walle & Van Ryzin, 2011), citizen's participation/exit (e.g., Fledderus, 2015; Kweit & Kweit, 2004; Piotrowski et al., 2019; Van Ryzin, 2004) and frequency of service use (Kelly & Swindell, 2002; Van Ryzin & Charbonneau, 2010). Thus, scholars should devote greater attention to investigating demographic characteristics, media usage, prime/framing, citizen participation/exit, and frequency of service to determine their effects on citizen satisfaction.
Moderators Between Antecedents and Citizen Satisfaction
In our review, 20 empirical studies (16.4%) have developed or uncovered some complex causal pathways by including moderators in their analyses (e.g., Baekgaard & Serritzlew, 2020; Dahlström et al., 2018; Ho & Cho, 2017; Nie & Wang, 2022; Song et al., 2021; Song & Meier, 2018). Table 6 and Appendix 4 detail a total of 28 moderators that possess the potential to either fortify or attenuate the hypothesized relationships between antecedent variables (here, a set of abovementioned antecedents) and citizen satisfaction. Primarily, these moderating factors pertain to organizational conditions (35.7%) and individual conditions (42.9%).
Moderators Between Antecedents and Citizen Satisfaction.
For instance, focusing on outsourcing practices in Sweden's social services, Dahlström et al. (2018) found that bureaucratic personnel quality and the educational level of bureaucrats could strengthen the association between outsourcing practices and citizen satisfaction, mitigating the negative consequences arising from government's outsourcing. Song et al. (2021) noted that granting individual schools autonomy in human resource decisions can amplify the positive feedback from students’ academic performance. Similarly, albeit their insignificant or negative impacts at times, many studies have documented the significance of an organizational capacity in reinforcing the connections between the antecedents of interests and citizen satisfaction, such as a bureaucratic personnel quality (Dahlström et al., 2018), locality's communication effectiveness (Ho & Cho, 2017), autonomy (Song et al., 2021), school performance (Song & Meier, 2018), and municipality's transparency (Park & Blenkinsopp, 2011). Hence, organizational conditions emerge as influential moderators in the relationship between antecedents and citizen satisfaction.
However, individual conditions yield mixed results (Baekgaard & Serritzlew, 2020; Herian et al., 2012; Holum, 2018; James, 2011b; James & Moseley, 2014; Morgeson et al., 2021; Petrovsky et al., 2017; Tummers et al., 2016). For instance, respondents with higher numeracy abilities, enabling them to process provided information more effectively, may express lower satisfaction despite the performance information (Baekgaard & Serritzlew, 2020). Regarding the environmental conditions, which encompass community characteristics, external events, and exogenous change, they appear to be less significant, potentially due to the sparse research on moderators. Given the limited and inconclusive findings regarding the moderating effects of individual and environmental level conditions, there exists a pressing need for a more-extensive inquiry into the moderating effect.
Outcomes of Citizen Satisfaction
To address our last guiding research question, we reviewed studies on the outcomes of citizen satisfaction. While the literature on the antecedents of citizen satisfaction is robust, scholarly attention to the outcomes or consequences of citizen satisfaction has been comparatively limited. In our sample, only 19 articles (15.6%) featured at least one outcome of citizen satisfaction, resulting in the identification of 40 distinct outcome components (refer to Table 7 and Appendix 5). This scarcity of research on the outcomes of citizen satisfaction suggests that scholars often consider citizen satisfaction as the ultimate end objective of government. Notably, there is a recent trend toward increased focus on outcomes of citizen satisfaction, with 13 of the 19 papers being published in 2011 or later.
Outcomes of Citizen Satisfaction.
Among the four primary outcomes identified, trust in government emerges as the most frequently assessed, constituting 42.5% of the outcomes. This reaffirms a normative assumption that elevated levels of citizen satisfaction are likely to enhance public trust in the government, reflecting the belief that the government is more inclined to act in the interest of the people (Porumbescu, 2017b). Welch et al. (2004) elucidated that trust functions as a form of social capital created and maintained through social interactions. By delivering higher-quality goods and services, the government can demonstrate its competencies, thereby engendering trust from citizens. Hence, empirical findings indicate that increased citizen satisfaction leads to greater trust in the government to safeguard public interests (Kampen et al., 2006; Morgeson & Petrescu, 2011; Porumbescu, 2017b; Van Ryzin, 2004; Van Ryzin & Immerwahr, 2004; Van Ryzin et al., 2004; Welch et al., 2004; Zhao & Hu, 2017). Regarding the level of government, 12 outcomes have specifically addressed trust in local government, while five outcomes have explored trust in a higher level of government (state or federal) as an outcome of citizen satisfaction.
Another widely investigated consequence of citizen satisfaction is citizen participation (40%), reflecting the substantial attention given to understanding how citizen satisfaction translates into different forms of civic involvement. Specifically, citizen participation can be delineated as citizen participation in governance (Oh et al., 2022; Vigoda-Gadot, 2007; Wong et al., 2011), co-production in public service delivery (Mok, 2020), voice-oriented actions such as complaints and political efficacy (Dowding & John, 2011; Van Ryzin, 2004; Vigoda-Gadot, 2007; Wong et al., 2011), continuous service use (Yap et al., 2021), and exit strategies such as shifting to other organizations or relocation (Dowding & John, 2011; Van Ryzin, 2004; Van Ryzin & Immerwahr, 2004; Van Ryzin et al., 2004). According to Hirschman's (1970) exit, voice, and loyalty framework, a dissatisfied individual can either opt to exit from the service, an economic action or voice their happiness, a political act (Gofen, 2012). Loyalty is incorporated into the model to serve as a pathway to bridge the exit and voice response, averting an exit response while activating an individual's voice action (Gofen, 2012). Grounded in this theory, scholars have analyzed citizens’ behavioral responses to their satisfaction level, primarily focusing on their exit and voice reactions (Dowding & John, 2011; Van Ryzin, 2004; Van Ryzin & Immerwahr, 2004; Van Ryzin et al., 2004). Across various settings, scholars have observed that more satisfied citizens are less likely to complain or relocate and are more inclined to coproduce and consume the services (Dowding & John, 2011; Mok, 2020; Van Ryzin & Immerwahr, 2004; Van Ryzin et al., 2004; Wong et al., 2011; Yap et al., 2021).
In addition to trust in government and citizens’ participation, 12.5% of outcome components delve into the impact of citizen satisfaction on the evaluation of services/performance or support for government policy (Herian et al., 2012; Olsen, 2015; Porumbescu, 2017a; Van Ryzin, 2004). While the majority of studies have traditionally treated citizen satisfaction as an end outcome influenced by the high level of service quality or performance levels, a noteworthy perspective merges. Some scholars propose a reciprocal interpretation, asserting that “higher levels of satisfaction with public services facilitates citizens’ ability to perceive how the actions of their government align with the public's best interest” (Porumbescu, 2017a, p. 445). For instance, Herian et al. (2012) identified a robust effect of service satisfaction on the perception of city performance, aligning with the notion that heightened satisfaction leads to more favorable overall assessments of municipal government (Van Ryzin, 2004). These findings advocate for a more nuanced research model that considers citizen satisfaction not merely as an outcome but also as a potential control or independent variable in analyses related to government assessment and evaluation (Herian et al., 2012).
Furthermore, a distinct subset, comprising 5% of the outcomes, explores the effects of citizen satisfaction on future expectations (Hjortskov, 2019) and bureaucratic learning (Lundin et al., 2015). These findings illustrate the existence of a performance management loop between the respective actions of measuring performance, taking corrective action, and achieving an outcome response. When considering citizen satisfaction as part of the performance measurement process, feedback from citizens, whether positive or negative, serves as a mechanism for organizational learning and strategic adjustments, thereby enhancing public services and policies. Alternatively, citizen satisfaction may be regarded as the ultimate outcome, as evident in the majority of reviewed articles. This adaptability underscores the necessity for more dynamic approaches that account for the “full run of cause and effect sequences, arising in the interconnected dynamic feedback loops encountered in the domain of public sector management” (Boland & Fowler, 2000, p. 443). Notably, empirical research consistently affirms the positive consequences associated with heightened citizen satisfaction. As such, future research endeavors should aim to further unveil its broader implications.
Moderator Between Citizen Satisfaction and the Outcomes
In our assessment of the consequences of citizen satisfaction, it emerged that Porumbescu (2017b) was the sole researcher who endeavored to introduce a moderator into the exploration of the link between citizen satisfaction and trust. In this particular study, Porumbescu (2017b) identified citizens’ utilization of online government information sources as the moderating variable, albeit yielding an insignificant effect. The scarcity of studies examining moderators underscores a notable research gap that merits attention in future investigations.
Discussion and Conclusion
This study presents a systematic review of the literature on citizen satisfaction, incorporating both descriptive and thematic analyses. The focus of this study is to take stock of the current state of knowledge on this topic by identifying research gaps and integrating empirical results and conceptual arguments. Our critical review first confirms that the extant research in the public administration field has paid increasing attention to citizen-generated subjective measures over the past few decades, particularly citizen satisfaction with public services. While acknowledging that citizen satisfaction indicators are widely perceived as effective monitoring and assessment measures of public service delivery, especially at the local level, scholars have long discussed the notable advantages 2 of citizen satisfaction. A growing body of literature further deepens our understanding of drivers and barriers to citizen satisfaction as well as the impact of citizen satisfaction indicators across diverse service areas, ranging from mundane city services like public schools and utilities to social services such as healthcare, childcare, and recreational activities the average citizen frequently encounters. However, we found that there is still much to learn about the underlying dynamics of citizen satisfaction. After conducting this focused review, we could better ascertain the level of academic knowledge about citizen satisfaction and identify possible future research directions. The following begins to elucidate the main findings of this study and then discusses what this study can tell us about what counts as evidence in each selected finding more broadly. Notably, we herein propose several potential avenues to add value to the literature on citizen satisfaction.
Despite significant progress in research conducted in diverse contexts, many scholars have overlooked the differences in government structures and local culture while examining citizen satisfaction. Thus, future research could investigate how different governance structures can influence citizen satisfaction and its adoption as a performance indicator. Specifically, identifying both common and unique factors across different policy systems and cultural settings could benefit from international contexts and comparative cross-national case study designs. As such, we can develop a more comprehensive understanding of this important construct and its implications for public policy and governance, moving beyond the conventional Western contexts and examining the generalizability of existing knowledge to other countries and sectors.
In addition, our review found that, to date, quantitative studies have been the predominant research design to collect citizen evaluations, using satisfaction surveys and survey experiments as data collection tools. Scholars have tended to use both single and multiitem constructs to operationalize citizen satisfaction in the empirical models, either by directly probing citizens’ level of satisfaction with a particular public service or an organization (a service provider) or by capturing the multiple dimensions of service quality. Given this, while quantitative studies allow us to statistically test the hypothesized relationships among various variables, they are mostly based on cross-sectional survey studies in which common-method bias is high and even distinction between causes and effects can be very arbitrary. In addition, it is not easy to ignore possible alternative explanations (e.g., reverse causality) for the findings. For example, it is plausible that citizens’ satisfaction levels determine their future expectations of service delivery or providers or that citizens’ trust in government (e.g., the degree of loyalty) and engagement (participation) in public affairs may influence the level of satisfaction. To address these limitations, methods of inquiry in future studies must be broadened and sharpened via utilizing more rigorous experimental methods or incorporating qualitative research design, such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and content analysis, to complement quantitative research. In this way, a mixed-methods design could provide more comprehensive insights into the observations made. Longitudinal investigations with a large sample over several years could also provide more robust evidence and help establish more convincing arguments for causal relationships. Indeed, by employing a wide range of research methods, scholars can gain a more nuanced understanding of citizen satisfaction and its underlying causes and effects.
Another notable finding is the lack of academic consensus regarding the conceptualization of citizen satisfaction. Many studies have failed to provide a clear operational definition of citizen satisfaction, leading to multiple interpretations (e.g., vague boundaries and conceptual confusion of overall service quality vs. its multidimensionality), with the term satisfaction often serving as the basis for the citizen satisfaction definition. One could argue that the fragmented conceptualization and measurement of citizen satisfaction are largely due to the lack of coherent theoretical references. As mentioned earlier, many scholars seem to prefer using the EDM over the institutional and cognitive-psychological frameworks as their theoretical leverage to support arguments and construct testable hypotheses. However, scholars’ reliance on the EDM may restrict the scope of research, as it asserts that only three main antecedents—actual performance of a service provider, prior expectation, and disconfirmation effects—affect satisfaction judgment. These effects can be positive or negative, depending on whether the performance (service quality) exceeds or falls short of expectations (Oliver, 1980; Van Ryzin, 2006). While existing theories provide a foundation for scholars to develop explanations for citizen satisfaction, it is worth noting that individual expectations can be closely linked to other latent variables such as environmental, institutional, or political factors, as well as cognitive and emotional factors. Therefore, to enhance explanatory power and account for these hidden contexts, theoretical approaches for citizen satisfaction should move beyond the performance-expectation dyad and encompass the interplay of various antecedents. Future studies could benefit from additional theoretical lenses, such as social exchange theory, blame attribution, organizational justice theory (or fairness theory), new institutionalism, agency theory, or policy adoption/diffusion context. For example, researchers are encouraged to revisit some scenarios in which citizens face public service failures and then expect recoveries (e.g., see Döring, 2022; Thomassen et al., 2017) or explore the spread of organizational practices from a local government to neighboring governments or examine intercity (local-local) competition over satisfaction parameter usage. A greater understanding of the dynamics of the external and internal environment will improve the validity of citizen satisfaction as a performance indicator, thereby encouraging its greater adoption by practitioners.
More interestingly, most of the prior studies of citizen satisfaction have focused on factors (conditions) driving or impeding citizen satisfaction (here, antecedents) or moderators for linkages between the antecedents and citizen satisfaction. Far less attention has been paid to the outcomes of citizen satisfaction as well as moderators influencing the relationship between citizen satisfaction and the outcomes. With this challenge in mind, we sought to synthesize all the evidence from our review into a holistic framework that accounts for the complex interdependence of different factors, thereby facilitating the identification of potential causal links. Figure 5 depicts a unifying heuristic framework for citizen satisfaction based on only statistically significant antecedents, moderators, and outcomes identified in our review. By organizing it into a coherent framework, we confirmed that the consequences of citizen satisfaction have gained considerably less scrutiny compared to the antecedents of citizen satisfaction. Besides, we observed that antecedents—at the environmental, organizational, and individual levels—and outcomes of citizen satisfaction are frequently examined in isolation, disregarding potential interactions between them. What is more, there is a dearth of scholarly research that sheds light on the moderating or mediating roles of citizen satisfaction. To our knowledge, there are only a few empirical studies that offer some clues on how citizen satisfaction itself can operate as a mediator (e.g., Beeri et al., 2019; Morgeson & Petrescu, 2011; Wang & Niu, 2020). 3 To address this gap, we suggest that future research should discover underexplored themes or dimensions, such as environmental antecedents compared to other antecedent groups, moderating factors, and citizen satisfaction outcomes. While we acknowledge our framework may not capture all relevant variables, we believe it provides a broad foundation for future conceptual frameworks, empirical models, theoretical approaches, and research questions.
Heuristic framework.
The last but not the least, while citizen satisfaction is derived from customer (client) satisfaction, few studies in our review have endeavored to differentiate between these two concepts. Van de Walle (2018) noted that the focus of public service reforms has been changed from how to deliver public services to what services are to be delivered, “with a wider aim of aligning supply of services with consumer demands” (p. 228). Thus, in the public service market, citizens become not mere customers but true consumers of public services (Clarke et al., 2007; Van de Walle, 2018). Related to this, according to Im and Lee (2012), citizen satisfaction is supplemented with moralistic values, unlike customer satisfaction, and these values are enduring to external influences since they are generated from generations of value normalization processes. Gofen (2012) extends such a viewpoint to link citizen satisfaction to the perceptions of quality of life. In light of these studies, one can argue that citizen satisfaction and customer satisfaction are not synonymous, as they reflect different public services that affect the nature of stakeholder interactions. Therefore, it is essential to establish a clearer understanding of the intricacies between citizens and customers before conducting any analysis.
Several limitations in our systematic review are worth mentioning. First, despite our best efforts to systematically cover all relevant journal articles in our literature search, there could still be potential selection bias in our search strategies and exclusion criteria that did not allow us to cover all publications. To streamline the review process, we relied on the Academic Journal Guide 2021 list to identify 12 highly reputable academic journals in the field of public administration and excluded books or conference papers from the review to maintain focus. Focusing on a subset of the top 12 public administration journals may restrict the breadth of our analysis, particularly given the interdisciplinary nature of research on citizen satisfaction. While we acknowledge that this selection may also have inadvertently led to a focus on English-language articles and studies primarily centered on Western contexts, we made efforts to mitigate this bias by including journals with a broader geographic scope, such as the IRAS. Moving forward, we recognize the importance of considering a wider range of sources to ensure a more comprehensive view of the literature. Therefore, one of the logical next steps is to revisit the line of inquiry in this study by discovering and exploiting more additional relevant studies by zooming out from foundational papers and books and even those in other disciplines. Next, related to this, now that we have overlooked some studies dedicated to citizen satisfaction beyond the field of public administration, our terminology may not have comprehensively covered all variants of the term “citizen satisfaction” during our data extraction process. In an effort to extend the scope of the search and make a stronger linkage to research in the private sector, several other future research opportunities become evidence from our study. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the public administration field, there is a need to cover a broader set of satisfaction research that takes place in adjoining fields and topics such as, but not limited to, service management, public-private comparison, marketing, electoral studies, e-government, sustainability, urban planning, quality of life, leadership, ethics, employee-citizen satisfaction comparison, communication, and emergency (crisis) management, where many novel insights are being developed. Furthermore, we admit that caution is required in attempting to generalize the aggregation of empirical results based on the power of samples that was observed from previous studies, especially in the quantitative manner.
Nevertheless, we believe that this study became one of the first comprehensive systematic overviews of the citizen satisfaction literature in the field of public administration. It thus serves as a valuable starting point for guiding public administration scholars in their future research on citizen satisfaction. As a citizen-centric performance measure, citizen satisfaction has garnered immense interest worldwide as a means of evaluating the quality of public service and informing public administrators on how to improve citizen satisfaction. To better understand the underlying dynamics of citizen satisfaction in practice, it is crucial not to overlook the investigation of the moderating or mediating roles of citizen satisfaction. Unveiling the “black-box” of citizen satisfaction could lead to a more profound comprehension of its complexities and contribute to the development of more effective policies and practices.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-arp-10.1177_02750740241237477 - Supplemental material for Citizen Satisfaction Research in Public Administration: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-arp-10.1177_02750740241237477 for Citizen Satisfaction Research in Public Administration: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda by Soojin Kim, Eunju Rho and Yu Xuan Joycelyn Teo in The American Review of Public Administration
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
This work was based on the Final Year Project (FYP) of Yu Xuan Joycelyn Teo during the 2022–2023 academic year at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE), Tier 1 Grant RG 117/20.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Notes
Author Biographies
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
