The Relationship Between Public Service Motivation and Affective Commitment in the Public Sector Change: A Moderated Mediation Model.

Sirui Sun

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631948

Abstract

How can public organizations promote change recipients’ affective commitment to public sector change? Based on socially desirable responding theory, this study explores the theoretical mechanism and boundary effect of the relationship between public service motivation and affective commitment to change. By conducting a survey of 465 front-line public employees in an eastern Chinese city undergoing public sector change, this study found that voice behavior partially mediates the relationship between public service motivation and affective commitment to change. Superficial harmony also negatively moderates the relationship between public service motivation and affective commitment to change through the mediation of voice behavior. This study mainly contributes to our understanding of the theoretical mechanism and the conditional effect of change recipients’ affective commitment during public sector change.

Highlights

In recent decades, to keep pace with the rapid economic changes of globalization, public organizations have faced great pressure relating to organizational change (Homberg et al, 2019; Ahmad et al, 2020a)
We propose Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2: Superficial harmony will negatively moderate the relationship between public service motivation and affective commitment to change through a voice-behavior mediator
Based on socially desirable responding theory, this study examined the theoretical mechanism and boundary effect of affective commitment to change in public sector change

Summary

Introduction

To keep pace with the rapid economic changes of globalization, public organizations have faced great pressure relating to organizational change (Homberg et al, 2019; Ahmad et al, 2020a). Many management studies notice that the decisive way to succeed with organizational change is with the proactive support of change recipients (Oreg et al, 2018; Ahmad et al, 2020a). Frontline public employees implement the actual public sector changes; the extent to which public employees proactively engage in organizational change is essential for its success (Kelman, 2005; Hassan et al, 2020). We focus on the theoretical mechanism of affective commitment to change and add the theoretical values of change proactive support behavior in the context of public administration studies

Methods

Results

Conclusion