(Un)principled principals, (un)principled agents: The differential effects of managerial civil service reforms on corruption in developing and OECD countries

Meyer‐Sahling, Jan‐Hinrik; Schuster, Christian; Mikkelsen, Kim Sass

Abstract

Do management practices have similar anti-corruption eects in OECD and developing countries? Despite prominent cautions against 'New Zealand' reforms which enhance managerial discretion in developing countries, scholars have not assessed this question statistically. Our paper addresses this gap through a conjoint experiment with 6,500 public servants in three developing and one OECD country. Our experiment assesses Weberian relative to managerial approaches to recruitment, job stability and pay. We argue that, in developing countries with institutionalized corruption and weak rule-of-law yet not OECD countries without such features 'unprincipled' principals use managerial discretion over hiring, ring and pay to favor 'unprincipled' bureaucratic agents who engage in corruption. Our results support this argument: managerial practices are associated with greater bureaucratic corruption in our surveyed developing countries, yet have little eect in our OECD country. The same management practices can, hence, have systematically dierent eects in developing and OECD countries.

Citation

Meyer‐Sahling, J., Schuster, C., & Mikkelsen, . K. S. (2020). (Un)principled principals, (un)principled agents: The differential effects of managerial civil service reforms on corruption in developing and OECD countries. Governance, 33(4), 829-848. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12461

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 12, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Aug 26, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020-10
• Deposit Date: Nov 5, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 27, 2022
• Journal: Governance
• Print ISSN: 0952-1895
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-0491
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 829-848
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12461
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3058643
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gove.12461
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Meyer-Sahling, J., Schuster, C., & Mikkelsen, . K. S. (2020). (Un)Principled Principals, (Un)Principled Agents: The Differential Effects of Managerial Civil Service Reforms on Corruption in Developing and OECD Countries. Governance, https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12461, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12461. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
• Contract Date: Nov 5, 2019