At their wits’ end? Economic stress, motivation and unethical judgement of public servants

Ripoll, Guillem; Breaugh, Jessica

doi:10.1080/14719037.2018.1561929

Cited by 24 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Ripoll, 2019; Wright et al., 2016). In particular, it is suggested that PSM (being a moral identity) enables individuals to consistently regulate their ethical behaviours and attitudes in line with the ethical frameworks (norms, values and rules) internalized from the public institution (Ripoll, 2019; Ripoll and Breaugh, 2019). However, there is a need to confirm these arguments by using different professional sectors and organizations (Ripoll and Ballart, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of these concepts, such as economic stress, ethical leadership or basic needs satisfaction, have also been used to explain their indirect impact on reducing unethical judgement and intention by eliciting PSM (e.g. Ripoll and Ballart, 2019; Ripoll and Breaugh, 2019; Wright et al., 2016). However, more work is still needed to examine how other organizational antecedents relate to PSM’s ethical consequences (Ripoll and Breaugh, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ripoll and Ballart, 2019; Ripoll and Breaugh, 2019; Wright et al., 2016). However, more work is still needed to examine how other organizational antecedents relate to PSM’s ethical consequences (Ripoll and Breaugh, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In charge of safeguarding the public interest: the role of goal clarity in shaping public service motivation and the acceptance of unethical behaviours

Ripoll

2019

International Review of Administrative Sciences

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Ethics are important for personal, organizational and societal development. Although the literature has isolated some remedies and causes of unethical attitudes and behaviours, there is a still a need for further research. When focusing on the public context, it has been suggested that the motivation to serve the public interest has a negative relationship with different unethical outcomes. Thus, one interesting avenue of research is to explain how public service motivation can be enhanced by the outcome of certain managerial practices, which may also lead to ethical benefits indirectly. Using data collected from social workers in Catalonia (Spain), this article confirms that goal clarity directly increases the levels of public service motivation and indirectly reduces the acceptance of unethical behaviours by eliciting public service motivation. Research and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Points for practitioners This study highlights the importance of public service-oriented institutional contexts in indirectly shaping unethical outcomes. The findings recommend to public managers and practitioners to provide goal clarity (through certain human-resource management practices such as appraisal or job design) because it increases public service motivation and indirectly reduces the acceptance of unethical behaviour.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In charge of safeguarding the public interest: the role of goal clarity in shaping public service motivation and the acceptance of unethical behaviours

Ripoll

2019

International Review of Administrative Sciences

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“…At the global level, research from the USA has shown that federal government employees are more likely to leave government due to economic turbulence (Piatak 2017). This could be because economic turbulence could change their motivations (Ripoll and Breaugh 2019) or, as the author notes, because of bureaucratic inflexibility, salary, red tape, and general job dissatisfaction due to management cuts, layoffs, and budgetary pressures (Hansen 2014;Feeney 2008;Feldheim 2007). However, these results were only found for federal-rather than local-and state-level employees, which would suggest that different conditions may at play depend on which level of government is under analysis.…”

Section: How Are They Recruited?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Public Servants from a Global Perspective

Breaugh¹,

Hammerschmid²

2020

The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant

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Public servants are an important component of any functioning administrative system. However, a comprehensive, comparative analysis of public servants from a global perspective is rare. The purpose of this chapter and section is therefore to analyze the concept of the civil servant from a global perspective. In order to do so, the chapter examines the concept of the civil servant, who they are, how they are trained, what they do, how they are rewarded, and how political and institutional factors shape personnel systems. Special attention is placed upon comparisons between civil service traditions, international conceptualizations of civil servants, the scope of public service work, and the status of women in public service. The chapter concludes with a brief introduction to each of the subsequent chapters in this section.

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“…First, the stress research in public service contexts is very localized in that it focuses on specific work stressors related to the nature of public institutions, organizations, or jobs. Stressors such as red tape [10], financial stress and job insecurity [11], organizational politics [12], organizational changes related to new public management movement [13], and citizen demand [2] were identified as important stressors within the public service context. However, this localization of the stress concept makes it very hard to compare and synthesize the stress study of public sector employees with the stress study of the general population [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Stress Hinders Health among Chinese Public Sector Employees: The Mediating Role of Emotional Exhaustion and the Moderating Role of Perceived Organizational Support

Bao

Zhong

2019

IJERPH

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Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study examines the detrimental effect of hindrance stressors on self-rated health among a sample of Chinese public sector employees. Analysis of survey data based on 404 MPA students from a leading Chinese university who are working in various public organizations across China suggested that hindrance stressors were negatively related to both physical and mental health (β = −0.11, p < 0.01 and β = −0.38, p < 0.001, respectively), and emotional exhaustion mediated those relationships (95% bias-corrected confidence intervals for the indirect effects on physical and mental health based on 5000 bootstrapped samples were −1.64 to −0.35 and −3.51 to −1.81, respectively, excluding 0). Furthermore, perceived organizational support moderated the effect of hindrance stressors on emotional exhaustion (β = −0.10, p < 0.05), and moderated the indirect effects of hindrance stressors on physical and mental health via emotional exhaustion (index of moderated mediation was 0.116 with bootstrapped confidence interval of 0.018–0.296 for physical health, and 0.317 with bootstrapped confidence interval of 0.008–0.663 for mental health). The effects of hindrance stressors were weaker when perceived organizational support was high, suggesting a moderating effect. Our findings not only provide important theoretical contributions to the literature on public employees’ work-related stress and associated health outcomes, but also offer practical implications to those who are interested in stress intervention to improve the wellbeing of public employees and general society.

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At their wits’ end? Economic stress, motivation and unethical judgement of public servants

Cited by 24 publications

References 80 publications

In charge of safeguarding the public interest: the role of goal clarity in shaping public service motivation and the acceptance of unethical behaviours

In charge of safeguarding the public interest: the role of goal clarity in shaping public service motivation and the acceptance of unethical behaviours

Understanding Public Servants from a Global Perspective

How Stress Hinders Health among Chinese Public Sector Employees: The Mediating Role of Emotional Exhaustion and the Moderating Role of Perceived Organizational Support

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