Honored! Paper by Christian Nitzl and co-authors received SIG Best Paper Honorable Mention in Public and Non-Profit Management

23 Juni 2021

Great acknowledgement for PD Dr. Christian Nitzl and co-authors: At this year’s European Academy of Management (EURAM) conference, the paper “The Effects of Public Service Motivation, Risk Propensity, and Risk Perception on Defensive Decision-Making in Public Administration” received a SIG Best Paper Honorable Mention in Public and Non-Profit Management. Out of a total of 1,000 submissions, the paper received thus a special attention. The paper was co-authored with Dr. Fabienne-Sophie Schäfer and Prof. Bernhard Hirsch.

Decision-makers are often confronted with decisions that are characterized by risk and uncertainty. In particular, public servants must consider multiple goals and multiple risk settings. In most cases, they face “risk-risk trade-offs” rather than a simple choice between risk and its absence. Based on their motivation, public managers must find the best solution for society as a whole. In these decision-making scenarios, public managers might engage in defensive decision-making, which is defined as choosing the second-best option over the best option to reduce risk. The paper investigates how the motivation and risk perception of a public servant influence this defensive-decision making.