Changes in the accountability obligation, intensity, and working drive of public employees: evidence from a survey experiment

Abstract Governments worldwide have established accountability as a key mechanism to promote public employees’ work behaviors. In this study, we propose that changes in two critical aspects of accountability—intensity and obligation—have distinct effects on public employees’ work drive. Increased accountability intensity, characterized by close supervision and strict sanctions, can reduce intrinsic motivation and decrease public employees’ willingness to engage in their tasks proactively. Conversely, the imposition of an additional hierarchical accountability obligation—the perceived duty to justify actions to higher-level administrative supervisors or political leaders—can either enhance or hinder work drive, depending on whether public employees view it as an opportunity to gain benefits or as coercive pressure. To explore this, we conducted a survey experiment with 1,221 public employees in China. Our results indicate that increased accountability intensity generally reduces public employees’ work drive, although the impact of incremental accountability obligations on their work drive remains unclear. These findings deepen our understanding of how changes in accountability influence the work drive of public employees.