The Typology of Public Sector Agent Conflict of Interest: Scoping Review of Conflict of Interest Studies in Public Sector

Conflicts of interest have been at the heart of many recent economic crimes. The first step in the management of conflict of interest is to provide a clear and exact definition of the term. This study attempts to coalesce various definitions of the term utilizing scoping review methodology.  The data collection tool was a reference to studies conducted based on the conflict of interest in the field of public administration. For data analysis, the qualitative indicators were identified in order to examine the conducted studies. The study identifies four main types of conflict of interest for public sector agents: financial interest of a public sector agent, non-financial interest of a public sector agent, financial interest of relatives, and non-financial interest of relatives. As long as the financial interest of the government agent is the focal point, the analysis of other types of conflict of interest in legislation system, reforms, and structural observation is overlooked. If legislative system and structural reforms limit themselves to the financial interest of the government agent, more than half of the conflict of interest cases of the government agent will be neglected. The management of conflict of interest will be on a right track once a comprehensive definition of the term is presented, a feature which forms the main concern of this paper.