Do Motivated Public Servants Behave More Ethically?

• Published date: 01 March 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X231216944
• Author: Don S. Lee,Soonae Park
• Date: 01 March 2025
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X231216944

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2025, Vol. 45(1) 29 –55

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X231216944

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Article

Do Motivated Public

Servants Behave More

Ethically?

Don S. Lee1 and Soonae Park2

Abstract

Understanding who behaves more ethically and how to boost one’s ethical decision

making are important but relatively neglected human resource management (HRM)

questions. To fill this gap, we extend recent experimental research on the role of public

service motivation (PSM) in enhancing ethical behavior by leveraging a unique setting of

anti-corruption reform in South Korea. Building on the difference-in-differences design

in a quasi-experimental setting with more than 10,000 civil servants, gathered as part

of a representative survey, we find that not only do civil servants’ higher levels of PSM

lead to more ethical behavior but that their colleagues with higher levels of PSM are also

perceived to be more ethical after policy implementation. As the first quasi-experimental

research attempting to estimate PSM’s causal effect on ethical behavioral change, with

the largest survey samples to date, our analysis has important implications regarding the

greater efficacy of anti-corruption policies and the role of PSM in this context.

Keywords

public service motivation, ethical behavior, policy intervention, experiment, South

Korea

How does civil servants’ motivation affect their ethical decision making? Understanding

how to encourage civil servants to make more ethical decisions is a main concern in

public administration and human resource management (HRM) research and practice

(e.g., Bellé & Cantarelli, 2017; Downe et al., 2016; Menzel, 2015; Meyer-Sahling

et al., 2019). Unethical choices and corrupt behavior by public servants, such as

1Graduate School of Governance, Sungkyunkwan University, Jongno-gu, South Korea

2Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Corresponding Author:

Soonae Park, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, 57-1, Gwanak-gu

08826, South Korea.

Email: psoonae@snu.ac.kr

1216944ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X231216944Review of Public Personnel AdministrationLee and Park

research-article2023

30 Review of Public Personnel Administration 45(1)

seeking personal gains at the cost of broader society, may undermine public trust in

government in general and civil service in particular (Perry, 2015; Vigoda-Gadot,

2007). There are also direct, adverse effects on government performance and account-

ability, not only in the developing world but also in developed countries (Rothschild,

2008; Skivenes & Trygstad, 2017). Therefore, public administration and HRM schol-

ars have emphasized the importance of anti-corruption tools and enforceable ethical

standards in containing corruption and promoting ethics in the public sector (Meyer-

Sahling & Mikkelsen, 2022; West et al., 2013).

Yet, existing research on anti-corruption policies and agencies shows mixed find-

ings. Some studies give examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of instituting

anti-corruption agencies in reducing corruption (de Spelville, 2010), but others display

skeptical views of the efficacy of such agencies and commissions and their reform

measures in tackling ethical problems (Batory, 2002; Quah, 2010). The cases of poor

performance of anti-corruption measures may be traced to several reasons, such as

inadequate institutional foundation, a lack of staff and resources, or poor implementa-

tion. Despite the significant contributions of previous research, however, the behav-

ioral aspect has been less explored in seeking to understand the effectiveness of

anti-corruption measures. Recent experimental research contributes behavioral

insights and evidence of what boosts ethical behavior in the public sector (Christensen

& Wright, 2018; Meyer-Sahling et al., 2019). Nonetheless, this research has limita-

tions, as it relies on hypothetical settings that differ from real world situations to mea-

sure what makes an impact on ethical decision making in the public sector.

In this article, we fill this gap by leveraging the actual implementation of an anti-

corruption policy, in order to observe how such policy execution induces a change in

civil servants’ ethical behavior. We argue that, while an anti-corruption policy could be

effective in curbing unethical choices overall, its impact on civil servants’ ethical

behavior is likely to differ depending on the level of the employees’ public service

motivation (PSM). Given that there is an ethical aspect anchored to the concept of

PSM, such as delivering public services for the purpose of doing good for others and

society (Perry & Hondeghem, 2008), higher levels of PSM will help to encourage civil

servants to behave more ethically when relevant measures are taken to affect the whole

public sector.

To evaluate PSM’s causal effect on behavioral change, we utilize a quasi-experi-

mental identification strategy based on the difference-in-differences design, leverag-

ing a unique setting in South Korea, where in 2016 an anti-corruption law (the so-called

Kim Young-Ran Act) came into effect for all public officials. We examine the ethical

behavioral intentions of civil servants with various levels of PSM before and after the

enforcement of the anti-corruption law, to understand how PSM plays a role in chang-

ing their intent to behave ethically. In contrast to previous experimental research on

PSM that focused heavily on student samples (Christensen & Wright, 2018; Pedersen,

2015), we analyze original survey data from more than 10,000 civil servants, gathered

as part of a nationally representative survey in South Korea. In addition, we use match-

ing methods to control for individual characteristics of civil servants that might be

correlated with PSM. With an exactly balanced subset of data generated through