Core values for ideal civil servants: Service‐oriented, responsive and dedicated

Abstract

What do citizens want? How do citizens think public servants should behave? Although such questions seem straightforward, little is known about the values citizens expect public servants to uphold. This paper therefore identifies such values through extensive coding of qualitative data from representative samples of United States (n = 395), Dutch (n = 369), and South Korean (n = 379) citizens. Surprisingly, and contrasting to assumptions in the literature on citizen satisfaction, citizens hardly value effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability. In contrast, we found that the top three universal values that citizens desire from public servants are serviceability, responsiveness, and dedication. These values are generic across countries, age, gender, and education level. However, some values are more important in some countries than in others. These differences show the influence of a country's longstanding public administrative tradition and its current situation. Our findings challenge scholars and government officials to rethink what citizens want from their civil servants.

Does agile improve value creation in government?

“…These changes align with crucial public administration performance indicators like cost savings, efficiency, and service quality improvements (Pollitt & Boukaert, 2017). Moreover, they resonate with values universally valued by citizens such as responsiveness and serviceability (Neo et al, 2023).…”

Conflictos de valores, límites cognitivos y malas prácticas organizativas como riesgos para la utilidad de los códigos éticos en la Administración pública

“…No obstante, en estudios internacionales sí se han hecho análisis del marco de demanda axiológica de la ciudadanía y los resultados son hasta cierto punto sorprendentes. De acuerdo con Neo et al (2023), en contraste con los supuestos de la bibliografía sobre la satisfacción ciudadana, los ciudadanos apenas valoran la eficacia, la eficiencia y la responsabilidad. Por el contrario, los tres valores universales que los ciudadanos desean del funcionariado son la capacidad de servicio o servicialidad, la receptividad o responsividad y la dedicación, además, obviamente, de la integridad.…”

Scholarly hypocrisy or apostasy in public administration: Preaching to the choir, or to an empty room?

“…Perlman, Reddick, and Demir (2023) compare compliance‐based and integrity‐based approaches to ethics management, finding that both are used in practice, that both are distinct, and consequently, an understanding of both is required for a complete sense of ethics management in practice. Neo, Grimmelikhuijsen, and Tummers (2022) ask how citizens think public sector employees should behave; what values should they espouse? They find that citizens do not value effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability as expected, but rather, that the three universal values desired include serviceability, responsiveness, and dedication.…”