Judging unethical behavior: the different effects of external and public service motivation

ABSTRACT

While the claim that Public Service Motivation (PSM) has a positive effect on ethical judgment is well-established in the literature, this link is less clear for external sources of motivation. Little is known about how these two types of motivation can be influenced to boost ethical judgment. This article addresses these two shortcomings, studying the effects of PSM and external motivation on the judgment of unethical actions, and the process of assumption of institutional logics by individuals with more basic needs satisfaction. The empirical analysis applies full structural equation modeling, testing the hypotheses on a sample of 574 case managers working on a program that integrates health and social services in Catalonia (Spain). The results illustrate the distinct relation of PSM and external motivations with the judgment of unethical acts. They also indicate that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs indirectly reduces the acceptance of unethical acts. However, this indirect effect only happens through PSM. These findings have important implications for academic research and for the prevention of the development of mild judgments of unethical behavior in the workplace.

Acknowledgments

This work would not have been possible without the helpful comments and criticisms of the anonymous reviewers and editors.

Funding

This article was funded by the FPU programme of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (FPU 14/06498) to support the author to pursue his PhD in Politics, Policies and International Relations at the UAB, and by a project of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness on Public Service Motivation, Objective Performance and Citizen Satisfaction (CSO2017-86653-P). An earlier version of this article was presented at the IRSPM conference 2016.

Notes

1 The term “external” motivation is used instead of the more common “extrinsic” motivation to be coherent with the terminology of self-determination-theory (SDT), which is the basis of the theoretical argumentation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Guillem Ripoll

Guillem Ripoll ([email protected]) is a Ph.D. Researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Politics, Policies and International Relations). His research revolves around the expansion of the concept of public service motivation; specifically, he investigates the relationship between motivation and ethics.

Xavier Ballart

Xavier Ballart ([email protected]) is a Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His main lines of research at present are public service motivation and performance. Other lines of research are program evaluation, public management, and innovation.