Principal investigator: Kristina S. Weißmüller; Co-PI: Lode De Waele & Arjen van Witteloostuijn

Other collaborators: Catherine Althaus, Robert K. Christensen, Ting GONG, Dennis Hilgers, Fabian Homberg, Mei-Jen HUNG, Sang-Mook KIM , Kristoffer Kolltveit, Ming-Feng KUO, Jenny Lewis, Fabio Monteduro, Janine O’Flynn, Guillem Ripoll Pascual, Adrian Ritz, Lisa Schmidthuber, Dong Chul SHIM , Tsai-tsu SU, Jeannette Taylor, Richard Walker, Hanyu XIAO, & Sunny Litianqing YANG

Research objectives: Public sector corruption is a critical yet severely understudied phenomenon worldwide. The CorPuS project is a non-commercial, non-commissioned pro-bono scientific research project driven by an international network of academic researchers who are passionate about understanding public sector corruption and about finding effective solutions for practice. The CorPuS project was initiated by Kristina S. Weißmüller, Lode De Waele, and Arjen van Witteloostuijn who also coordinate the project as principle investigators. Collectively, the CorPuS research consortium consists of 21 researchers based in 20 universities and academic research institutes in 15 countries worldwide in the first wave of the project. In 2020, we started raising data in five additional countries (second wave). 

More information: www.corpus-project.org 

Keywords: Corruption; Anti-corruption; Rule Breaking; PSM; Public Integrity; Behavioral Public Administration

Related publications:

1.  De Waele, L. & Weißmüller, K.S. (2019). Over de bureaucratische paradox en de effecten van Public Service Motivation op corruptie (On the bureaucratic paradox and the effects of Public Service Motivation on corruption). Vlaams Tijdschrift voor Overheidsmanagement (Flemish Journal of Public Management) 24 (2): 43-56. http://vtom.be/table_of_content.aspx?sy=2019&pn=2 [Preprint] 

2. De Waele, L., Weißmüller, K.S., & van Witteloostuijn, A. (2021).  Bribery and the role of public service motivation and social value orientation. A multi-site experimental study in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. Frontiers in Psychology - Organizational Psychology, 12:655964. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.655964 [open access]

3. Weißmüller, K.S., De Waele, L., & van Witteloostuijn, A. (2022). Public Service Motivation and Prosocial Rule-Breaking – An international vignettes study in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 42(2): 258-286. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X20973441. [Preprint] 

4. Weißmüller, K.S., & De Waele, L. (2022).  Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education. Research in Higher Education, 63, 768-796. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09669-1 [open access] 

5. Weißmüller, K.S., & Zuber, A. (2023). Understanding the Micro-foundations of Administrative Corruption in the Public Sector: Findings from a Systematic Literature Review. Public Administration Review, 83(6), 1704-1726. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13699 [open access]

Principal researchers & project managers: Kristina S. Weißmüller & Rick Vogel

Collaborators: Robin Bouwman

PhD-Project at the Chair of Public Management funded by University of Hamburg, Germany 

Research objectives: PPPs are extremely powerful organizational arrangements that allow the sharing of risk and benefits of large scale projects in a synergetic manner. However, many PPPs fail because partners find it hard to maintain efficient long-term relationships across sectoral boundaries. In this project, we explore behavioral biases in decision-making within the context of public-private partnerships. We introduce novel psychological and behavioral research methods such as z-Tree experiments and game theoretical approaches into PA and PM research to investigate the role of ‘publicness’, ‘otherness’, PSM, and (anti-)public sector attitudes on strategic choice in PPPs with a special focus on risk behavior, the emergence and erosion of trust, collaboration efficiency, and institutional rule compliance.

Keywords: Risk Behavior; Public-private Partnerships; Strategic Management; Anti-public Sector Bias; Deviant Behavior; Behavioral Public Administration

Related publications:

1. Weißmüller, K.S. (2022). Publicness and Micro-Level Risk Behaviour: Experimental Evidence on Stereotypical Discounting Behaviour. Public Management Review, 24(4): 601-630. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2020.1862287 [Preprint]

2. Weißmüller, K.S., & Vogel, R. (2021). Sector-specific associations, trust, and survival of PPPs: A behavioral experiment based on the centipede game. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 31(3): 578–595. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaa050 [Preprint] 

3. Weißmüller, K.S., De Waele, L., & van Witteloostuijn, A. (2022). Public Service Motivation and Prosocial Rule-Breaking – An international vignettes study in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 42(2): 258-286. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X20973441. [Preprint] 

4. Weißmüller, K.S., Bouwman, R., & Vogel, R. (2021). Satisficing or Maximizing in Public-Private Partnerships? A Laboratory Experiment on Strategic Bargaining . Public Management Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2021.2013072 [Preprint]

5. Weißmüller, K.S. (2020). Risk in Public Private Partnerships: Behavioral Experiments on Risk Preference, Risk Perception, and Risk Participation. Doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Social Sciences, University of Hamburg, Germany. 1st advisor: Prof Dr. Rick Vogel, 2nd advisor: Prof. Dr. Andreas Lange. https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/handle/ediss/8556 [open access]