The paradox of public bureaucracies:Discriminatory bureaucrats in non-discriminatory bureaucracies

Bureaucracies are expected to treat customers equally and are assumed to attract people with a high Public Service Motivation (PSM). While PSM has positive effects on individual and organizational performance, a growing body of literature points out that PSM might also entail darker sides which so far have not been empirically scrutinized in detail. This article demonstrates the fundamental paradox of modern bureaucracies: People with high levels of PSM are especially vulnerable towards pro-social rule-breaking (PSRB) behavior which ultimately leads to discriminatory behavior threatening the very foundations of the bureaucratic principle. We test our theory by conducting an original vignette-based experiment replicated in three countries (Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands) with 1,239 observations in total. Our findings provide first behavioral evidence on the linear relationship between PSM and the likelihood of PSRB. Furthermore, results reveal that the relation between PSM and PSRB is moderated asym...