The impact of bounded subadditivity on administrative behaviour among public and private workers
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Author | Paolo Belardinelli,Nicola Bellé,Paola Cantarelli |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12710 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The impact of bounded subadditivity on
administrative behaviour among public and
private workers
Paolo Belardinelli
1
| Nicola Bellé
2
| Paola Cantarelli
2
1
Department of Government, London School
of Economics and Political Science,
London, UK
2
Institute of Management, Management and
Healthcare Laboratory, Scuola Superiore
Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy
Correspondence
Paolo Belardinelli, Department of
Government, London School of Economics
and Political Science, Houghton Street,
London WC2A 2AE, UK.
Email: p.belardinelli@lse.ac.uk
Abstract
We use a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design to
explore whether and how bounded subadditivity, and the
resulting certainty effect, may lead public and private
employees to prioritize their activities in ways that are sub-
optimal for their organizations. In a randomized controlled
trial, private sector workers were more likely to join a pro-
ject to which they were able to provide a small contribution
that would turn the probability of success into certainty
rather than an alternative project in which their participa-
tion would make success twice as likely but not certain. This
behaviour, which is consistent with the principle of
bounded subadditivity, was not observed among public
workers in our sample, who did not show any preference
for either project. A qualitative inquiry suggests that the
observed difference in susceptibility to bounded sub-
additivity between public and private employees resonates
with public service motivation, self-determination theory
and identity economics.
1|INTRODUCTION
Public and private organizations have a legitimate interest that their employees prioritize activities that maximize
value to the company. However, behavioural sciences suggest that workers may have a tendency to allocate their
efforts in ways that are suboptimal for their organization. In this study, we explore bounded subadditivity as one of
the behavioural mechanisms that can cause a systematic divergence between self- and organizational interest, thus
ultimately leading to a loss of productivity. The principle of bounded subadditivity (Tversky and Fox 1995; Tversky
and Wakker 1995) states that ‘an event has greater impact when it turns impossibility into possibility, or possibility
Received: 7 May 2020 Revised: 23 October 2020 Accepted: 22 November 2020
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12710
Public Admin. 2021;99:679–693. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 679
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