Carina Schott
Biographic Data
| ID | 4616606 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carina Schott |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carina |
| FAMILY NAME | Schott |
| SIGNATURE | SCHOTT C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3297-8607 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
My workgroup or my desire to serve the society? The influence of workgroup identification and public service motivation on whistleblowing intentions
Socio-psychological processes are important when it comes to whistleblowing. While prior research has explored the direct relationship between workgroup identification and whistleblowing, it has overlooked individuals’ multiple identities. This article examines whether public service motivation (PSM) moderates this association and whether a public service identity salience prime amplifies this dynamic. Using a survey experiment with 582 Chinese p…
Activating employees’ motivation to increase intentions to report wrongdoings
Public servants are frequently confronted with unethical behaviour. Research shows intentions to report wrongdoings are increased by activating public service motivation (PSM). We study whether public servants display different reactions to different wrongdoers and whether intentions are also affected by prosocial motivation (PM). We employed a survey experiment on 11,728 healthcare workers. The results show activating PSM or PM increase intentio…
Empowering leadership in crisis
Existing research suggests that empowering leadership enhances employee well-being, but context-specific empirical studies in the public sector remain scarce. We investigated whether this positive impact persists during a public health crisis. To test this, we conducted a natural experiment, utilizing a longitudinal survey of healthcare employees and administrative data on geographical variance in hospitalization rates during a public health cris…
Adopting agile in government
This study examines the adoption of agile in public administrations through the lens of Scandinavian institutionalism and translation theory. By conducting interviews in 19 German public administrations, we investigate how agile is translated into public settings and how they address associated challenges. Our findings reveal three translation modes: agile stripped down to a cultural concept, agile as governance to foster cross-functional collabo…
Responding to Unethical Demands by One’s Leader
Research shows that public service motivation (PSM) may serve as a buffer of unethical decision-making. We expand research by studying whether PSM is also related to ethics in situations where supervisors demand unethical behaviours from their employees. Our results show that PSM as a global concept and the PSM-dimension “Commitment to Public Values” are both negatively associated with the acceptance of unethical guidelines by one’s supervisor. O…
Does public service motivation truly predict dishonesty? Behavioural evidence from the private and public sectors
The number of studies on the relationship between public service motivation and ethics is increasing. Although research consistently finds evidence for a positive public service motivation–ethical intentions relationship, research on public service motivation and unethical behaviour remains scarce and showcases mixed findings. Based on insights from person–environment fit theory, we argue that the sector in which an individual is employed may hel…
Nudges can be both autonomy-preserving and effective
Nudges are widely employed tools within organizations, but they are often criticized for harming autonomy and for being ineffective. We assess these two criticisms simultaneously: can nudges be both autonomy-preserving and effective in changing behavior? We developed three nudges – an opinion leader nudge, a rule-of-thumb and self-nudges – to reduce a particularly sticky behavior: email use. In a survey experiment of 4,112 healthcare employees, w…
Teacher leadership
Public service motivation and prosocial motivation
This study raises the important question of how public service motivation and prosocial motivation are related to one another and how, together, these two concepts affect behavioural outcomes of public employees. Based on a sample of 747 public employees and using partial least squares structural equation model, we analyse the relationships between public service motivation, prosocial motivation, and different behavioural outcome variables in a s…
Why people enter and stay in public service careers
This article examines the effect of parental socialization and interest in politics on entering and staying in public service careers. We incorporate two related explanations, yet commonly used in different fields of literature, to explain public sector choice. First, following social learning theory, we hypothesize that parents serve as role models and thereby affect their children’s sector choice. Additionally, we test the hypothesis that paren…
Educational Practice and Sociology
Public sector employees in a challenging work environment
Public sector employees are expected to perform well in a work environment that is characterized by a variety of challenges. This Symposium aims to shed light on how environmental changes impact the shared identity, attitudes and behaviour of public sector employees; how public sector employees take charge of continuous change and deal with challenges in their work environment; and how organizations can help employees to tackle such work‐related …
The combined impact of professional role identity and public service motivation on decision-making in dilemma situations
Working in the public sector implies the need to make decisions in the face of dilemmas. As consistent decision-making is highly desirable for organizational performance, the question arises: what do public service professionals base their decisions on? This study aims to increase our understanding of whether public service motivation and professional role identity are useful concepts by which to predict what decisions public service professional…
The Dark Sides of Public Service Motivation
Over the past decade, research on public service motivation (PSM) has made substantial progress in terms of explaining the desired work outcomes of the concept such as individual performance and satisfaction. In light of Perry and Wise’s warning, already voiced in 1990, that high levels of PSM may produce negative outcomes, we find it all the more surprising that there is only a small albeit growing body of research on its potential “dark sides.”…
Informal socialization in public organizations
Organizations try to socialize employees' behaviour through formal practices such as training programmes and selection procedures. This article focuses on how times of informal socialization, outside the organization's direct sphere of influence, impact the behaviour of employees. The research is based on data from 67 semi‐structured interviews with Dutch veterinary inspectors in a cross‐sectional and a longitudinal panel. Their work is character…
What Does It Mean and Imply to be Public Service Motivated
In public service motivation (PSM) literature, PSM is assumed to have a positive effect on performance. Even though frequently mentioned, this assumption has proved difficult to verify empirically. In this article, we argue that individual interpretations of what it means to serve the public interest need to be considered to get a grip on the concept of PSM and its behavioral consequences. As interpretations of “the public interest” vary dependin…
What Does It Mean and Imply to be Public Service Motivated
In public service motivation (PSM) literature, PSM is assumed to have a positive effect on performance. Even though frequently mentioned, this assumption has proved difficult to verify empirically. In this article, we argue that individual interpretations of what it means to serve the public interest need to be considered to get a grip on the concept of PSM and its behavioral consequences. As interpretations of “the public interest” vary dependin…
Nudges can be both autonomy-preserving and effective
Nudges are widely employed tools within organizations, but they are often criticized for harming autonomy and for being ineffective. We assess these two criticisms simultaneously: can nudges be both autonomy-preserving and effective in changing behavior? We developed three nudges – an opinion leader nudge, a rule-of-thumb and self-nudges – to reduce a particularly sticky behavior: email use. In a survey experiment of 4,112 healthcare employees, w…
Public sector employees in a challenging work environment
Public sector employees are expected to perform well in a work environment that is characterized by a variety of challenges. This Symposium aims to shed light on how environmental changes impact the shared identity, attitudes and behaviour of public sector employees; how public sector employees take charge of continuous change and deal with challenges in their work environment; and how organizations can help employees to tackle such work‐related …
The combined impact of professional role identity and public service motivation on decision-making in dilemma situations
Working in the public sector implies the need to make decisions in the face of dilemmas. As consistent decision-making is highly desirable for organizational performance, the question arises: what do public service professionals base their decisions on? This study aims to increase our understanding of whether public service motivation and professional role identity are useful concepts by which to predict what decisions public service professional…
Informal socialization in public organizations
Organizations try to socialize employees' behaviour through formal practices such as training programmes and selection procedures. This article focuses on how times of informal socialization, outside the organization's direct sphere of influence, impact the behaviour of employees. The research is based on data from 67 semi‐structured interviews with Dutch veterinary inspectors in a cross‐sectional and a longitudinal panel. Their work is character…
Does public service motivation truly predict dishonesty? Behavioural evidence from the private and public sectors
The number of studies on the relationship between public service motivation and ethics is increasing. Although research consistently finds evidence for a positive public service motivation–ethical intentions relationship, research on public service motivation and unethical behaviour remains scarce and showcases mixed findings. Based on insights from person–environment fit theory, we argue that the sector in which an individual is employed may hel…
Why people enter and stay in public service careers
This article examines the effect of parental socialization and interest in politics on entering and staying in public service careers. We incorporate two related explanations, yet commonly used in different fields of literature, to explain public sector choice. First, following social learning theory, we hypothesize that parents serve as role models and thereby affect their children’s sector choice. Additionally, we test the hypothesis that paren…
What Does It Mean and Imply to be Public Service Motivated
In public service motivation (PSM) literature, PSM is assumed to have a positive effect on performance. Even though frequently mentioned, this assumption has proved difficult to verify empirically. In this article, we argue that individual interpretations of what it means to serve the public interest need to be considered to get a grip on the concept of PSM and its behavioral consequences. As interpretations of “the public interest” vary dependin…
The Dark Sides of Public Service Motivation
Over the past decade, research on public service motivation (PSM) has made substantial progress in terms of explaining the desired work outcomes of the concept such as individual performance and satisfaction. In light of Perry and Wise’s warning, already voiced in 1990, that high levels of PSM may produce negative outcomes, we find it all the more surprising that there is only a small albeit growing body of research on its potential “dark sides.”…
Informal socialization in public organizations
Organizations try to socialize employees' behaviour through formal practices such as training programmes and selection procedures. This article focuses on how times of informal socialization, outside the organization's direct sphere of influence, impact the behaviour of employees. The research is based on data from 67 semi‐structured interviews with Dutch veterinary inspectors in a cross‐sectional and a longitudinal panel. Their work is character…
Educational Practice and Sociology
Public sector employees in a challenging work environment
Public sector employees are expected to perform well in a work environment that is characterized by a variety of challenges. This Symposium aims to shed light on how environmental changes impact the shared identity, attitudes and behaviour of public sector employees; how public sector employees take charge of continuous change and deal with challenges in their work environment; and how organizations can help employees to tackle such work‐related …
The combined impact of professional role identity and public service motivation on decision-making in dilemma situations
Working in the public sector implies the need to make decisions in the face of dilemmas. As consistent decision-making is highly desirable for organizational performance, the question arises: what do public service professionals base their decisions on? This study aims to increase our understanding of whether public service motivation and professional role identity are useful concepts by which to predict what decisions public service professional…
Teacher leadership
Public service motivation and prosocial motivation
This study raises the important question of how public service motivation and prosocial motivation are related to one another and how, together, these two concepts affect behavioural outcomes of public employees. Based on a sample of 747 public employees and using partial least squares structural equation model, we analyse the relationships between public service motivation, prosocial motivation, and different behavioural outcome variables in a s…
Why people enter and stay in public service careers
This article examines the effect of parental socialization and interest in politics on entering and staying in public service careers. We incorporate two related explanations, yet commonly used in different fields of literature, to explain public sector choice. First, following social learning theory, we hypothesize that parents serve as role models and thereby affect their children’s sector choice. Additionally, we test the hypothesis that paren…
Nudges can be both autonomy-preserving and effective
Nudges are widely employed tools within organizations, but they are often criticized for harming autonomy and for being ineffective. We assess these two criticisms simultaneously: can nudges be both autonomy-preserving and effective in changing behavior? We developed three nudges – an opinion leader nudge, a rule-of-thumb and self-nudges – to reduce a particularly sticky behavior: email use. In a survey experiment of 4,112 healthcare employees, w…
Adopting agile in government
This study examines the adoption of agile in public administrations through the lens of Scandinavian institutionalism and translation theory. By conducting interviews in 19 German public administrations, we investigate how agile is translated into public settings and how they address associated challenges. Our findings reveal three translation modes: agile stripped down to a cultural concept, agile as governance to foster cross-functional collabo…
Responding to Unethical Demands by One’s Leader
Research shows that public service motivation (PSM) may serve as a buffer of unethical decision-making. We expand research by studying whether PSM is also related to ethics in situations where supervisors demand unethical behaviours from their employees. Our results show that PSM as a global concept and the PSM-dimension “Commitment to Public Values” are both negatively associated with the acceptance of unethical guidelines by one’s supervisor. O…
Does public service motivation truly predict dishonesty? Behavioural evidence from the private and public sectors
The number of studies on the relationship between public service motivation and ethics is increasing. Although research consistently finds evidence for a positive public service motivation–ethical intentions relationship, research on public service motivation and unethical behaviour remains scarce and showcases mixed findings. Based on insights from person–environment fit theory, we argue that the sector in which an individual is employed may hel…
Activating employees’ motivation to increase intentions to report wrongdoings
Public servants are frequently confronted with unethical behaviour. Research shows intentions to report wrongdoings are increased by activating public service motivation (PSM). We study whether public servants display different reactions to different wrongdoers and whether intentions are also affected by prosocial motivation (PM). We employed a survey experiment on 11,728 healthcare workers. The results show activating PSM or PM increase intentio…
Empowering leadership in crisis
Existing research suggests that empowering leadership enhances employee well-being, but context-specific empirical studies in the public sector remain scarce. We investigated whether this positive impact persists during a public health crisis. To test this, we conducted a natural experiment, utilizing a longitudinal survey of healthcare employees and administrative data on geographical variance in hospitalization rates during a public health cris…
My workgroup or my desire to serve the society? The influence of workgroup identification and public service motivation on whistleblowing intentions
Socio-psychological processes are important when it comes to whistleblowing. While prior research has explored the direct relationship between workgroup identification and whistleblowing, it has overlooked individuals’ multiple identities. This article examines whether public service motivation (PSM) moderates this association and whether a public service identity salience prime amplifies this dynamic. Using a survey experiment with 582 Chinese p…
Political science (13 works) · Public relations (11 works) · Business (10 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Public service (9 works) · Public sector (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior (7 works) · Marketing (7 works)