Experimental Public Service Motivation Research: A Systematic Review and Future Directions

This paper provides a systematic review of empirical experimental studies in PSM from 1992 to 2022. The paper adopted a systematic review methodology by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. A comprehensive search was conducted in sixteen public administration journals, via a systematic search using major online databases. The findings show that there has been a growing interest in the use of experimental designs in PSM studies over the last five years even though the growth has not been consistent. The findings uncovered that most experimental PSM studies involved surveys, laboratory, and field experiments. The paper contributes to the burgeoning PSM literature by systematically analysing in-depth the characteristics of experiments, which were then used to make recommendations to advance the field of experimental PSM.