Individual-Level Factors and Organizational Performance in Government Organizations

Abstract

In this journal, Rainey and Steinbauer proposed a theory of effective government organizations, and Brewer and Selden conducted an empirical study with data from the 1996 Merit Principles Survey that confirmed most hypothesized relationships in the theoretical model of organizational performance. Following these studies, this study focuses only on the individual-level factors, such as job satisfaction, affective commitment, public service motivation, and organizational citizenship behavior. It empirically tests the effects of these variables on organizational performance in the public sector of Korea. When the survey data of 1,739 public employees in government agencies were analyzed, the hypothesized relationships in the proposed model were confirmed. I discuss the survey results in light of previous studies, especially those of Brewer and Selden. In this journal, Rainey and Steinbauer (1999) proposed a theory of effective government organizations, urging that this theory be tested empirically; Brewer and Selden (2000) conducted an empirical study with data from the 1996 Merit Principles Survey and confirmed most hypothesized relationships in the theoretical model of organizational performance. In those studies, both individual-level and organization-level factors are involved in the theoretical models; thus each level was not fully examined, and some important factors remain to be considered. Brewer and Selden (2000) inspire me to pursue further evidence about whether the individual attitudes and behaviors of public employees may affect government performance. Popovich defined high-performance organizations as groups of employees who produce desired goods or services at higher quality with the same or fewer resources (1998, 11). Good public employees may be imagined to have such characteristics as high satisfaction with their jobs, high commitment to the organization, high motivation to serve the public, and strong intentions to work for the organization willingly and devotedly. I assume that public employees with these characteristics will contribute to organizational performance and thus that individual-level factors will positively affect organizational performance. I will discuss the individual-level factors and develop the model that relates I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the useful suggestions and comments provided through the review process. Address correspondence to the author at smook@snut.ac.kr. doi:l 0.1 093/jopart/mui013 Advance Access publication on December 16, 2004 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. 15, no. 2 ? 2005 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc.; all rights reserved. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.186 on Sun, 09 Oct 2016 04:20:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 246 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Figure 1 Theoretical Model of Individual-Level Factors and Organizational Performance