Fostering Informal Fairness in Management Control Systems. Evidence from Italian Municipalities

The study explores the power of subordinate public employees’ informal perceptions of fairness, as experienced in the managerial uses of municipal management control systems, in influencing their levels of public service motivation and accountability. To this end, a survey was conducted among subordinate employees of Italian municipalities, and thus, a regression analysis was performed to test the research design. The results indicate that the dimensions of informational and interpersonal fairness have a positive effect on public service motivation, which in turn positively affects the degree of employee accountability. The study contributes to the psychology-based literature on management control systems by enhancing the under-explored perceptive perspectives of subordinate public employees.