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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 838-862 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Public Administration Review |
| Volume | 83 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 4 Dec 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank Julia Wesdorp and Freyia Han for their outstanding assistance in the data collection and analysis process. We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editor who provided us with constructive and insightful comments, significantly improving the article. The authors acknowledge funding from NWO Grant 016.VIDI.185.017. Furthermore, Lars Tummers acknowledges that this work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, funded by the Korean Government (NRF‐2017S1A3A2067636).
Funding Information:
National Research Foundation of Korea, Grant/Award Number: NRF‐2017S1A3A2067636 Funding information
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.
Funding
The authors would like to thank Julia Wesdorp and Freyia Han for their outstanding assistance in the data collection and analysis process. We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editor who provided us with constructive and insightful comments, significantly improving the article. The authors acknowledge funding from NWO Grant 016.VIDI.185.017. Furthermore, Lars Tummers acknowledges that this work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, funded by the Korean Government (NRF‐2017S1A3A2067636).
Keywords
- administrative traditions
- normative expectations
- public values