The dark side of public service motivation : Analysis of noble cause corruption based on the Lebanese case

Based on 32 interviews with civil servants in Lebanon, a country particularly affected by corruption and a difficult social situation, this article aims to understand how public service motivation (PSM) leads civil servants to engage in noble cause corruption (NCC).It involves two novel explorations.First, by focusing on the negative consequences of PSM, it enriches a field of research previously oriented toward understanding PSM's positive consequences.Secondly, by focusing on NCC, it deploys a concept that until now has been applied mainly in the police context.Mobilizing work on these concepts and on moral justification, this research makes two main theoretical contributions.First, we show that the compassion and self-sacrifice dimensions of PSM lead to specific forms of NCC, which we identify as additional support and protection against sanction.This dynamic is a source of internal tension for civil servants who carry out NCC because they are affected by the vulnerability of public service users.Second, we identify three contextual factors, namely physical proximity, workplace autonomy, and relational proximity, that facilitate the linking of PSM and NCC.We show that the link is long-lasting through the development of a moral justification.