Abstract

This study investigates how civil servants’ decision-making behavior is affected by what they are held accountable for. We look into the effects of specification of the accountability standard, and analyze the behavioral changes that might arise by holding civil servants accountable for the implementation of specific rules, as opposed to more loosely defined standards, or no predefined standards at all. Drawing on existing debates in public administration, as well as on theoretical accounts from social psychology, we develop two hypotheses outlining advantages and drawbacks of moving to either side of the accountability standard specification continuum. Specifically, we hypothesize a tradeoff between decision-making effort and decision impartiality. We perform our investigation using an online vignette and a classroom experiment. The results from the investigation do not offer clear support for our expectations. The hypothesis suggesting that accountability for general standards has positive effects on decision processes in terms of effort receives some tentative support, while the one linking specific standards to decision impartiality does not. We discuss possible reasons for this outcome, and draw recommendations for further research aiming to integrate psychological insights into public accountability research.

摘要

本研究探讨公务员的决策行为是如何被影响什么他们被追究责任。我们研究了问责标准规范的影响，并分析了通过让公务员对具体规则的实施负责，而不是更松散定义的标准或根本没有预定义标准可能引起的行为变化。借鉴公共行政中现有的辩论，以及社会心理学的理论解释，我们提出了两个假设，概述了转向问责标准规范连续体任一侧的优缺点。具体来说，我们假设在决策努力和决策公正性之间进行权衡。我们使用在线插图和课堂实验进行调查。调查结果并未明确支持我们的预期。假设一般标准的问责对努力方面的决策过程具有积极影响，这一假设得到了一些初步支持，而将特定标准与决策公正性联系起来的假设则没有。我们讨论了这一结果的可能原因，并为进一步研究提出建议，旨在将心理学见解融入公共责任研究。