Administrative delegation revisited: Experimental evidence on the behavioural consequences of public service motivation and risk aversion
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211073259 |
| Author | Markus Tepe,Susumu Shikano,Michael Jankowski,Maximilian Lutz |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Administrative delegation
revisited: Experimental
evidence on the
behavioural consequences
of public service
motivation and risk
aversion
Markus Tepe
University of Oldenburg, Germany
Susumu Shikano
University of Konstanz, Germany
Michael Jankowski
University of Oldenburg, Germany
Maximilian Lutz
University of Oldenburg, Germany
Abstract
Getting a grip on issues of administrative delegation is key to the performance of public
organizations. The oversight game models delegation as a conflict of interest between an
inspector and an inspectee to act in the interests of the former. This study tests alter-
native solutions to overcome ‘shirking’in the oversight game. Specifically, we test the
effect of external incentives, as implied by the game-theoretical solution, against the
role of intrinsic factors, namely, public service motivation and job-related risk aversion.
Evidence from a laboratory (N=208) and survey experiment (N=794) show that both
the game-theoretical approach, which inspired new public management, and public
Corresponding author:
Markus Tepe,Institute for Social Sciences, University of Oldenburg, Ammerländer Heerstraße 114–118, 26129
Oldenburg, Germany.
Email: markus.tepe@uol.de
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2023, Vol. 89(3) 613–631
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523211073259
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
service motivation, as its antithesis, fail to explain subjects’behaviour. Instead, job-
related risk aversion makes oversight more and ‘shirking’less likely. This finding hints
towards a more differentiated view of public employees’risk attitudes to improve
administrative delegation.
Points for practitioners
The promise of new public management that oversight issues in administrative delega-
tion disappear with setting appropriate extrinsic incentives is too simplistic. Public ser-
vice motivation, on the other hand, which started as an antithesis of the self-interested
bureaucrat, also fails to solve the issue of ‘shirking’in administrative delegation. Instead,
job-related risk aversion appears to improve administrative delegation, which presents a
remarkable counterpoint to the popular opinion in public management that risk aversion
is problematic for public organizations’performance. Rather than avoid selecting risk-
averse public employees generally, more attention might be paid to the domains of
administrative decision-making in which such traits can be beneficial.
Keywords
laboratory experiment, oversight, public service motivation, risk attitudes, shirking,
survey experiment
Motivation
Administrative delegation and bureaucratic oversight are classical fields for principal–
agent (PA) models (Gailmard and Patty, 2012). Since Weber (1958), asymmetries
between politicians and bureaucrats, as well as senior and subordinate bureaucrats
within the public administration, have characterized rational-legal authority. While
authority rests with the politician or a senior bureaucrat, individual policy fields and
executive instruments’expertise rests with subordinate bureaucrats (Miller, 2005: 203).
PA theory provides a generic toolbox for analysing the consequences of asymmetries
in such delegation relationships. In particular, PA theory is interested in finding a way
to induce agents to avoid ‘shirking’and take actions consistent with the principal’s
goals to implement public policies (Gailmard, 2010: 40).
The oversight game (OG), also referred to as the ‘inspection game’(Rauhut, 2015;
Tsebelis, 1990), offers a decision-theoretical model to study administrative delegation.
In this game, an agent (inspectee) decides to fulfil a task at high or low quality, while
higher quality requires more effort. Simultaneously, the principal (inspector) decides to
control or not control the agents’behaviour, while control is costly to the inspector.
The inspector’s payoff is the highest if the inspectee complies without being controlled,
and the inspectee’s payoff is higher if they provide low quality without being controlled.
The game-theoretical solution to the OG, which rests on the assumption of rational and
selfish players, is to identify the optimal amount of punishment for ‘shirking’at minimal
614 International Review of Administrative Sciences 89(3)
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