An Exploratory Study of the Consequences of Perceived Organizational Prestige on a Range of Work Attitudes and Behaviors among Public Employees: A Call to Future Research

Abstract

Government organizations in the United States routinely face harmful scrutiny from the mainstream media, politicians, and citizens. The messages from these sources communicate that many Americans are not happy with their government nor its public agencies. These sentiments are likely to lower the prestige of public organizations in the eyes of current employees and hamper retention efforts. However, there is a limited amount of empirical research that has explored the consequences of employees’ perceived organizational prestige (POP) perceptions in public organizations. This study seeks to fill this gap by exploring the direct association that POP perceptions have on a range of work outcomes for the purpose of stimulating future research on the topic. Based on a sample of federal employees working for the Department of Homeland Security in the United States, this study found that POP was significantly related to job and organizational satisfaction, commitment, self-reported performance, work related stress, and turnover intentions. The implications of findings for future research are discussed.