Fear-Based Decision-Making Theory (FBDMT): A Behavioral Theory of Administrative Choice under Accountability Pressure

Earlier work developed a conceptual framework that positioned fear as an institutionalized mediating mechanism linking accountability structures to conservative administrative behavior. Through theory-driven synthesis across audit culture, risk aversion, and behavioral public administration scholarship, this work identified five recurring forms of fear: anticipatory, sanction, reputational, interpretive, and institutionalized. It also demonstrated their persistent presence across governance literature, even when framed indirectly through narratives of compliance culture or capacity constraints. Subsequent analysis extended this framework by examining how these forms of fear translate into observable administrative practices under audit-intensive governance. This analysis showed how audit intensity, retrospective scrutiny, and asymmetric consequences shape everyday administrative routines and produce behaviors such as overdocumentation, rule rigidity, decision deferral, and defensive standardization. Conservative administrative behavior was therefore established as a rational adaptation to accountability environments rather than a manifestation of incompetence or weak professionalism. The present study advances these foundations into Fear-Based Decision-Making Theory. Rather than focusing only on the identification of fear or its behavioral manifestations, the theory explains how fear governs administrative decision logic under accountability pressure. By integrating conceptual foundations with behavioral mapping, Fear-Based Decision-Making Theory specifies the decision pathway through which accountability-induced fear narrows cognitive evaluation and systematically redirects administrative choice toward defensible and audit-safe options.