Can institutional trust research benefit from the addition of public service motivation?

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
Author/s Francesco Paolo Cerase
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/172
Language Italian Pages 20 P. 167-186 File size 233 KB
DOI 10.3280/SL2025-172008
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The author centers the attention on the trust involved in the relationships between individual citizens and public administration (institutional trust) and, after advancing the conceptualization of institutional trust as a multi-level construct, argues that two questions need to be further explored: how in the process of trust development the different levels of analysis are interrelated, and why in relating to the individual citizen the public official as the trustee should be concerned about being trustworthy. In dealing with these two questions, the author addresses the attention to public service motivation (PSM) theorizing and points out how institutional trust research may benefit from the addition of the conceptualization PSM offers of public officials’ working ethos and behaviour.

Keywords: Institutional trust; Public service motivation; Multi-level analysis; Public officials’ discretional power

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Francesco Paolo Cerase, La ricerca sulla fiducia istituzionale può trarre vantaggio dall’apporto della motivazione al servizio pubblico? in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO " 172/2025, pp 167-186, DOI: 10.3280/SL2025-172008