Exploring the interrelationship between public service motivation and corruption theories
sciencedirect.com
Could the secret weapon against public corruption be the inner drive of civil servants themselves — and what happens when that moral motivation collides with classic corruption theory?
Public Service Motivation TheoryPrincipal-Agent ProblemInstitutional Corruption TheoryIntrinsic Motivation Theory
Theory Briefing
- Public Service Motivation (PSM) theory argues some bureaucrats are intrinsically driven by civic duty — a dimension corruption models have long ignored.
- The paper proposes grafting PSM's ethical layer onto existing corruption frameworks to better predict and prevent misconduct in public institutions.
- Where corruption theories focus on incentives and opportunity, PSM flips the lens — asking what makes officials resist temptation in the first place.