doi: 10.1111/padm.12158 TAKING THE ‘HIGH ROAD’: DOES PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION ALTER ETHICAL DECISION MAKING PROCESSES? EDMUND C. STAZYK AND RANDALL S. DAVIS Although public administration scholars have long been interested in promoting administrative ethics, recent lapses in judgment by government employees make the study of ethics even more pressing. Yet, we know relatively little about how public values and publicly oriented motives infu- ence the ethical obligations employees reference when confronting organizational problems. We employ Perry’s (2000) process model of public service motivation to connect public values, public service motivation, and employees’ understanding of their ethical obligations. Using data collected from over 1,400 managers in United States municipal governments, we present fndings that suggest that public service motivation appears to be positively correlated with ethical obligations rooted in virtue and integrity, or high road ethics, for less professionalized employees. Further, broader constel- lations of public values encourage increased application of high road ethics for the same employees, but only to the extent that they foster public service motivation. INTRODUCTION The ethical transgressions of government offcials have been a cause for concern through- out history. Yet, in today’s fast-paced media environment, government offcials’ ethical missteps are more diffcult to hide and receive greater scrutiny when discovered. For instance, US federal government agencies have been caught up in two major scandals since 2012 – both indicative of signifcant ethics violations. First, inquiries into the US General Services Administration (GSA) revealed severe fnancial waste and the misuse of taxpayer dollars to provide employees with extravagant bonuses and conferences at lavish resorts. Second, contrary to existing policy, employees in the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted conservative political groups applying for tax exempt status for more extensive review. As these examples highlight, ethical lapses continue to plague public organizations. These cases also raise serious ethics questions. Were GSA offcials unaware of existing ethics rules prohibiting excessive spending or did they ignore their ethical obligations? Based on what criteria (e.g. an intuitive sense of the public good or [mis]interpretations of organizational rules) did IRS offcials justify targeting certain political groups for greater scrutiny? Unfortunately, we know little about how public employees approach ethical dilemmas and why they opt for one course of action over another. Consequently, it is critical to evaluate how public employees weigh information when confronting ethical dilemmas. Scholars have long acknowledged that public employees’ perceptions of their ethical obligations in a given situation often vary (Rohr 1978; Waldo 1980; Mosher 1982; Svara 1997; Cooper 2006). In part, variation originates from the fact that multiple, competing frames of reference shape employees’ perspectives regarding their ethical obligations. For example, US scholarship typically asserts that individuals are simultaneously obligated to an internal, subjective sense of virtue derived from personal values as well as external, Edmund C. Stazyk is in the Department of Public Administration & Policy, American University, Washington, DC, USA. Randall S. Davis is in the Department of Political Science, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, USA. Public Administration Vol. 93, No. 3, 2015 (627–645) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.