Change management, performance feedback, and public service motivation: cultivating change-oriented behaviour in public organisations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Performance improvement entails change. This article links change-oriented organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), or employee efforts to address procedural deficiencies and optimise behavioural routines to improve individual performance, to change management and performance feedback. Change management captures an organisation’s openness to, tolerance of, and success with change. In contrast, performance feedback is provisioned directly to workers by their superiors. I argue that both processes will drive change-oriented OCB. Second, I implicate public service motivation (PSM) in the change process, arguing that PSM has both a direct effect on change-oriented OCB, and also amplifies the effects of both change management and performance feedback. I test and find empirical support for my theoretical model using a large sample of Korean public sector workers. Based on these results, I argue that sustained, performance-enhancing change is most likely when embedded as a core organisational value and embraced by those with the strongest desire to see the organisation succeed.