Hester Paanakker

from an objective point of view, forms a vital reality to respondents, with major impact on frontline public service delivery. Value divergence constitutes a reality that frontline workers and executive managers alike align their attitudes and behaviors to, and as such, it is a reality to be taken into account by managers of all levels. From these concluding findings on implementation problems, we derive two more propositions: Proposition 5: The graver the value divergence with respect to the higher echelons of management, the more street-level managers and workers feel alienated from policy, and the less their willingness to implement policy(changes) and its underlying values. Proposition 6: The stronger the perception of value divergence throughout the public domain (even if independent of actual divergence), the stronger the perception of implementation problems on the frontline in terms of their frequency and severity, and collective frontline inability to adequately deliver the public service. Contrary to the expectations we expressed in earlier work that value divergence is likely to result in distinct moral dilemmas among street-level professionals (Paanakker, 2019), our case study did not support the one-to-one relationship between value divergence and frontline moral dilemmas. This is explained by the mechanisms used by individuals who are in a situation where intrinsic values are threatened. They are able to cope by not recognizing the situation as a moral dilemma, especially if they have the feeling that (1) they did not cause the bad situation, and (2) they cannot change the situation (De Graaf, 2016; De Graaf & Paanakker, 2015). With respect to value divergence, our analysis distinguished the two specific coping strategies of indifference through cognitive distancing, and of bureaucratic flexibility. The former is a form of what is described in the literature as “cognitive coping”, but rather than “emotional detachment from clients” (Tummers et al., 2015, p. 1102), it represents employees’ emotional detachment from managers. Street-level professionals turn a blind eye to the value divergence with their superiors at organizational and policy level. Hence, they actively ignore organizational–professional as well as policy–professional role conflicts (Vink et al., 2015). In terms of coping literature, this strategy can be classified as cognitive coping that takes place beyond, rather than within, client–worker interactions and includes “cognitive restructuring, cynicism towards work, and work alienation” (Tummers et al., 2015, p. 1102). As a result of indifference strategies, and exacerbated by the experience of change fatigue (see also Van 156 Chapter 6