All Outputs (22)

Unethical leadership, moral compensation, and ethical followership: Evidence from a survey experiment with Chilean public servants (2024)
Journal Article

Numerous studies associate ethical leadership with ethical behavior in the public sector. By contrast, the effects of unethical leadership in the public sector have largely not been explored. Yet, unethical leadership need not beget unethical followe... Read More about Unethical leadership, moral compensation, and ethical followership: Evidence from a survey experiment with Chilean public servants.

Does citizen participation make public servants more satisfied with their jobs? It depends on whether they are Spectators or Participants (2023)
Journal Article

Is citizen participation in policymaking and implementation desirable? Numerous studies have explored its effects on policy outcomes and citizen attitudes. We, instead, examine its effects on public servants. Citizen participation changes public sect... Read More about Does citizen participation make public servants more satisfied with their jobs? It depends on whether they are Spectators or Participants.

The Global Survey of Public Servants: Evidence from 1,300,000 Public Servants in 1,300 Government Institutions in 23 Countries (2023)
Journal Article

Understanding how public administrations around the world function and differ is crucial for strengthening their effectiveness. Most comparative measures of bureaucracy rely on surveys of experts, households, or firms, rather than directly questionin... Read More about The Global Survey of Public Servants: Evidence from 1,300,000 Public Servants in 1,300 Government Institutions in 23 Countries.

Varieties of connections, varieties of corruption: Evidence from bureaucrats in five countries (2022)
Journal Article

Why do some bureaucrats engage in corruption for personal gain, yet others for political gain? We show that these forms of corruption frequently do not coincide and offer an explanation: bureaucrats hired based on political and personal connections h... Read More about Varieties of connections, varieties of corruption: Evidence from bureaucrats in five countries.

Learning effects of anti-corruption reform in public organisations: explanations from social psychological theory (2022)
Journal Article

Existing studies based on institutional or rationalist approaches have limitations in explaining changes in individual ethical behaviour and thus propose social psychological models that can offer alternative explanations. We conduct surveys of over... Read More about Learning effects of anti-corruption reform in public organisations: explanations from social psychological theory.

(Extreme) political polarization and party patronage (2022)
Journal Article

The contemporary literature on political parties has identified their gradual but consistent shift away from civil society and towards the state. As parties are becoming ever increasingly dependent on state resources and exclusively interested in gov... Read More about (Extreme) political polarization and party patronage.

Activating the "Big Man": Social Status, Patronage Networks and Pro-Social Behavior in African Bureaucracies (2022)
Journal Article

Public service delivery by African states is often characterized as particularist, favoring ethnic, personal or political networks of those inside the state over universalist, pro-social services to citizens. One explanation for particularist service... Read More about Activating the "Big Man": Social Status, Patronage Networks and Pro-Social Behavior in African Bureaucracies.

Do Bureaucrats Contribute to the Resource Curse? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in New Oil States (2022)
Journal Article

The resource curse literature argues that oil production reshapes the fiscal contract between citizens and the state: politicians become less responsive to citizen taxpayers and more likely to use public revenues for their own benefit. This paper exa... Read More about Do Bureaucrats Contribute to the Resource Curse? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in New Oil States.

Bureaucratic Professionalization is a Contagious Process Inside Government: Evidence from a Priming Experiment with 3,000 Chilean Civil Servants (2021)
Journal Article

Education is at the centre of theories of how bureaucracies professionalize. Going back to Weber, the process towards a capable and professional bureaucracy has been viewed as driven by the entry of well-educated, professional recruits. We argue that... Read More about Bureaucratic Professionalization is a Contagious Process Inside Government: Evidence from a Priming Experiment with 3,000 Chilean Civil Servants.

Exit, Voice, and Sabotage: Public Service Motivation and Guerrilla Bureaucracy in Times of Unprincipled Political Principals (2021)
Journal Article

Democratic backsliding has multiplied "unprincipled"political principals: governments with weak commitment to the public interest. Why do some bureaucrats engage in voice and guerrilla sabotage to thwart policies against the public interest under "un... Read More about Exit, Voice, and Sabotage: Public Service Motivation and Guerrilla Bureaucracy in Times of Unprincipled Political Principals.

Merit recruitment, tenure protections and public service motivation: Evidence from a conjoint experiment with 7,300 public servants in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe (2020)
Journal Article

How can governments manage civil servants to enhance public service motivation (PSM)? Despite the centrality of PSM in public administration research, the effects of management practices on PSM remain understudied. We address this gap through a conjo... Read More about Merit recruitment, tenure protections and public service motivation: Evidence from a conjoint experiment with 7,300 public servants in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Distortions of incentive to performance and reduction of motivation in the federal public service in Brazil (2020)
Journal Article

In the current structure of careers in the Brazilian Federal Government, public officials who do not hold a DAS position have two predominant ways of reaching a higher salary level: years of service and passing a written examination for a higher paid... Read More about Distortions of incentive to performance and reduction of motivation in the federal public service in Brazil.

(Un)principled principals, (un)principled agents: The differential effects of managerial civil service reforms on corruption in developing and OECD countries (2020)
Journal Article

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

Stepping out of the shadow of the past: how career attributes shape ministerial stability in post-communist democracies (2020)
Journal Article

How do career attributes affect the survival of post-communist ministers? We theorise that career attributes determine “desirability” of ministers, and therefore the length of their tenure. While political career attributes provide superior expertise... Read More about Stepping out of the shadow of the past: how career attributes shape ministerial stability in post-communist democracies.

Oiling the bureaucracy? political spending, bureaucrats and the resource curse (2019)
Journal Article

What role do bureaucrats play in the development of the resource curse in countries that have recently discovered oil? Much of the resource curse literature argues that political leaders spend natural resource revenue in ways that entrench their poli... Read More about Oiling the bureaucracy? political spending, bureaucrats and the resource curse.

The Causal Effect of Public Service Motivation on Ethical Behavior in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey Experiment (2018)
Journal Article

Public service motivation (PSM) and ethical behavior are central concerns in public administration. Yet, experimental evidence on the causes of ethical behavior and the causal effects of PSM remains scarce, curtailing our understanding of both. This... Read More about The Causal Effect of Public Service Motivation on Ethical Behavior in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey Experiment.

Civil service management and corruption: what we know and what we don't (2018)
Journal Article

Numerous studies have linked a range of economic, social, and institutional variables with corruption in government. Yet, most of this literature overlooks the management of public officials themselves. This is a relevant omission: almost all corrupt... Read More about Civil service management and corruption: what we know and what we don't.

Hidden costs of cuts: austerity, civil service management and the motivation of public officials in Central and Eastern Europe after the crisis (2016)
Journal Article

The implementation of austerity measures presents a dilemma for governments. While austerity measures such as cutbacks aim to reduce costs and enhance public sector efficiency, the same measures might undermine the motivation of employees and, conseq... Read More about Hidden costs of cuts: austerity, civil service management and the motivation of public officials in Central and Eastern Europe after the crisis.

Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries (2016)
Journal Article

Research on bureaucracy and corruption tends to concentrate on cross-national research taking countries as the unit of analysis. Yet national-level measures neglect large differences within countries. This paper therefore takes the perspective of ind... Read More about Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries.

Party patronage in contemporary democracies: results from an expert survey in 22 countries from five regions (2016)
Journal Article

This Research Note presents a new dataset of party patronage in 22 countries from five regions. The data was collected based on the same methodology to compare patterns of patronage within countries, across countries and across world regions that are... Read More about Party patronage in contemporary democracies: results from an expert survey in 22 countries from five regions.