Employees Of Public Organizations Research Articles

Organisational Culture, Leadership Styles and Employee’s Affective Commitment to Change: A Case of Yemen Public Sector

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of leadership style on the affective commitment to change, moderated by the organisational culture. The research adopts both qualitative and quantitative approaches through a survey with 371 employees of public organisations in Yemen, as well as interviews with the managers. The findings showed that the transformational leadership was positively related to the employee’s affective commitment to change; similar to the transactional leadership that was positively related to the affective commitment to change. The results showed that organisational culture had positively moderated the relationship between the leadership styles and employee affective commitment to change. Finally, the findings revealed that the transactional leadership was a strong predictor to affective commitment to change compared with the transformational leadership.

Determinants of public employees' performance: evidence from Ethiopian public organizations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the determinants of employees' performance in Ethiopian public organizations, by examining the determinant factors of motivation, ability and role perception in seven different public organizations that reengineered their business processes.Design/methodology/approachUsing primary data collected from 100 respondents, individual performance, an ordered categorical variable, was regressed on motivation, ability, role perception and certain control variables. An ordered logistic regression model was employed in the research.FindingsResults of the STATA routine indicate that, in Ethiopian public organizations, ability has no significant effect on employees' performance. On the other hand, motivation positively determines performance until some stage of experience, beyond which performance declines with experience. Similarly, role perception is found to be strongly positively related to the likelihood of good performance.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research is required into the dynamic nature of employees' performance. Panel data econometric models might be used to explain the determinants of performance across time. Similarly, future empirical researches in the area in question will be helpful to consider space‐time differences in explaining determinants of employees' performance.Originality/valueThe paper looks into the determinant factors of Ethiopian public organization employees' performance. Currently, Ethiopian public organizations are undertaking Business Process Re‐engineering (BPR) and striving for the system of performance‐based pay. This research has policy implications in relation to designing an effective performance‐based pay system. On the other hand, the paper contributes to the empirical literature, providing a clearer picture of the determinants of public employees' performance.

An Exploratory Study of Time Stress and Its Causes among Government Employees

This article elucidates the temporal dimension of time stress among employees in public organizations. Employees working at five agencies in Indiana were surveyed. Job characteristics and personal variables such as overtime, repetitiveness, gender, family obligation, and age group were found to be insignificant as time stressors. However, political factors such as level of government, goal awareness, political sensitivity, and time allotted for meetings were significant independent variables affecting time stress. To enhance performance in the public sector, especially when a merit pay system is not fully instituted, more attention needs to be paid to the time dimension.

Does Person-Organization Fit Mediate the Relationship Between Public Service Motivation and the Job Performance of Public Employees?

Public service motivation (PSM) is argued to be a meaningful predictor of the performance of employees in public organizations. Many scholars predict that as the level of PSM increases, the performance of public employees will also increase. Unfortunately, existing research has yet to fully support this hypothesis. Two published studies that tested this hypothesis have come to different conclusions. This study investigated whether Person—Organization Fit (P—O Fit) mediates the relationship between PSM and the self-reported performance of public employees, using structural equation modeling. Using a sample of 205 public employees randomly drawn from three public organizations, this study found that PSM had no significant direct impact on the performance of public employees, when P—O Fit was taken into account. The implications of this study and areas of future research are discussed.

The Effects of Social Support on Work–Family Enhancement and Work–Family Conflict in the Public Sector

This study examines the impact of social support on work–family conflict and work–family enhancement. Data from 341 employees of public organizations showed that social support, especially from work sources, reduced the level of work interference with family, one direction of work–family conflict. In addition, all nonfamily sources of social support related positively to work enhancement of family, and all sources of social support, except that received from a supervisor, positively correlated with family enhancement of work. The strengths, limitations, and implications of the study are discussed, and areas for future research are recommended.

The Impact of Discipline on the Use and Rapidity of Dismissal in State Governments

Although several studies have looked at voluntary turnover in public organizations, little research has examined involuntary turnover and average time to terminate employees in public organizations. This study focuses on the impact of a state’s discipline system on its use and rapidity of discharge of state employees. Results show that factors associated with utilization of dismissal of state employees differ from factors associated with how quickly states terminate employees. This study shows that states adopting at-will employment are no more likely to fire employees than states with civil service employment systems are, but they do terminate employment relationships more quickly.

Political Activism of Social Work Educators

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a survey of MSW classroom and field educators regarding their level of political involvement, perceived value conflicts regarding social work and politics, and opinions of future political opportunities for social workers. Data indicate employees of public organizations have a higher level of involvement than employees of non-profit organizations. Follow-up interviews explore this finding. There was evidence of continued ambivalence to the concept of partisanship. Implications for research and education are shared, including the need to teach ethics and compromise in political arenas, and the development of field practica in electoral politics, policy advocacy and government relations.

Experiences with information technology planning in state government: A multiple-site based assessment

Abstract The emergence of advanced information technologies has placed computing capabilities into the hands of virtually every clerical, staff, and managerial employees in public organizations. With the increased emphasis of information technology (IT) in supporting organizational activities in state governments and other public entities, IT planning has also increased in importance. This article reports on IT planning experiences of eight selected agencies in Florida, one of the leading states in IT management. The agencies differed on key dimensions such as size, environmental complexity, environmental turbulence, and other relevant attributes. Each agency in the state goes through a regular two-year IT planning cycle which is guided by a centralized IT planning agency, the Information Resource Commission (IRC). Each agency must adhere to the planning guidelines of the IRC while attempting to produce a quality plan which addresses the agency's problems and opportunities. The article describes important lessons uncovered by discovering consistent patterns across the various agencies during their IT planning processes. These lessons should serve to guide other state governments that are trying to better plan and manage their IT resources.