Role Of Public Service Motivation Research Articles

Public service motivation, public sector preference and employment of Kenyan medical doctor interns: a cross-sectional and prospective study

BackgroundKenya grapples with a paradox; severe public sector workforce shortages co-exist with rising unemployment among healthcare professionals. Medical schools have increased trainee outputs, but only 45% of newly qualified/registered doctors were absorbed by the public sector during 2015–2018. In such a context, we explore what influences doctors’ career choices at labour market entry, specifically understanding the role of public service motivation (PSM).MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional and prospective study of interns and recently graduated doctors to examine PSM, their intention to work in the public sector and their final employment sector and status. We surveyed them on their PSM and job intentions and conducted a prospective follow-up survey of the interns, around one year later, to understand their employment status.FindingsWe recruited 356 baseline participants and followed up 76 out of 129 eligible interns. The overall PSM score was high among all participants (rated 4.50/5.00) irrespective of sector preferences. 48% (171/356) of the participants preferred to work in the public sector immediately after internship, alongside 16% (57/356) preferring direct entry into specialist training—commonly in the public sector. Only 13% (46/356) and 7% (25/365) preferred to work in the private or faith-based sector. Despite the high proportion of interns preferring public sector jobs, only 17% (13/76) were employed in the public sector at follow-up and 13% (10/76) were unemployed, due to lack of job availability.ConclusionHigh PSM scores irrespective of sector preferences suggest that doctors are generally committed to serving the ‘public good’. Many intended to work in the public sector but were unable to due to lack of job opportunities. Policymakers have an opportunity to tackle workforce gaps in the public sector as young doctors continue to express a preference for such work. To do this they should prioritise creating adequate and sustainable job opportunities.

A Mediating Effect of Public Service Motivation on Retention Intention Among Child Welfare Students: Task Self-Efficacy

ABSTRACT Purpose This study investigates the role of Public Service Motivation (PSM) in retaining highly skilled and qualified child welfare graduates within the public child welfare sector. Materials and methods Three entire cohorts of child welfare student social workers over three years (N = 125) in BSW and MSW child welfare programs at seven universities in a Southern state were surveyed to examine the effects of task self-efficacy achieved through the curriculum and public service motivation on retention intention among social work students specializing in child welfare practice at both the baccalaureate and master’s levels. Mediation analysis was conducted to estimate the indirect effect of self-efficacy on students’ retention intention. Results The self-efficacy of child welfare students, operationalized as their confidence in performing competencies, significantly influences their intention to remain in the field of child welfare. Furthermore, self-efficacy among child welfare students has a statistically significant effect on their PSM. PSM, in turn, significantly impacts their intention to persist in child welfare work. Discussion The findings indicate that PSM partially mediates the relationship between students” self-efficacy and their intent to remain in child welfare work, even when controlling for educational background. We recommend that child welfare agencies recognize and nurture workers” PSM by incorporating practices that promote PSM.

Impact of public leadership on public service motivation and performance in complex environments

AbstractThis study empirically investigates the effects of public leadership (PL) on job performance (JP) and notes the mediating role of public service motivation (PSM) and the moderating role of environmental complexity (ENC) between PSM and JP. The research framework was tested using a survey of 211 civil servants working in Pakistan. The findings indicate significant positive effects of PL on JP. This relationship was partially mediated by PSM. Additionally, this study found that ENC negatively moderates the positive relationship of PSM and JP and dampens the effect of PSM on JP. The managerial implication of this study is to translate PSM into improved JP by reducing environmental complexities. Suggestions for future research are also presented.

The pathways to innovative work behavior and job performance: Exploring the role of public service motivation, transformational leadership, and person-organization fit in Vietnam's public sector

This study investigates the linkages among public service motivation, transformational leadership, person-organization fit, innovative work behavior, organizational commitment, and job performance in Vietnam's public sector, drawing on the literature on psychological empowerment and social exchange theory. Analyzing data from 464 individuals at public organizations, the study employs partial least squares–structural equation model (PLS-SEM) to reveal significant positive associations between public service motivation, transformational leadership, person-organization fit, and the impact of organizational commitment on job performance. The study highlights the pivotal role of person-organization fit as a mediator in the relation between public service motivation, transformational leadership, and innovative work behavior. Additionally, innovative work behavior, organizational commitment, and psychological empowerment act as mediators in the impact of transformational leadership on job performance. This study contributes new insights to the literature by explaining the importance of psychological empowerment in cultivating innovative work behavior. Moreover, it offers practical implications on enhancing job performance, public service motivation, person-organization fit, transformational leadership, and organizational commitment, in order to help foster a culture of innovation in Vietnam's public sector.

The Impacts of the Servant Leadership on the Innovative Work Behaviors: Looking at the Role of Public Service Motivation and Employee Engagement

The Impacts of the Servant Leadership on the Innovative Work Behaviors: Looking at the Role of Public Service Motivation and Employee Engagement

Disentangling the Nonlinear Effects of Goal Ambiguity on Turnover Intention: Focusing on the Moderating Role of Public Service Motivation

Disentangling the Nonlinear Effects of Goal Ambiguity on Turnover Intention: Focusing on the Moderating Role of Public Service Motivation

Perceived superior trust and organizational commitment among public employees: The mediating role of burnout and the moderating role of public service motivation

The significance of trust as a vital element in the workplace, fostering a strong bond between leaders and their teams, and generating positive organizational outcomes is emphasized in this research. Leveraging the job demand-resource (JD-R) theory, the study employs a dual methodology: experimental (Studies 1 and 2) and field survey (Study 3), to investigate how trust perceived from superiors influences the organizational dedication of public sector employees. It also examines burnout's role as an intermediary and the influence of public service motivation (PSM) as a conditional factor. The key outcomes are: (1) enhanced organizational dedication can result from trust perceived from superiors; (2) this trust indirectly affects dedication through the lens of burnout; and (3) PSM plays a critical role in moderating the impact of perceived superior trust on organizational dedication. By elucidating the dynamic between perceived superior trust and organizational dedication, and its influence, this study presents novel strategies to boost organizational commitment among public employees.

Antecedents of innovative behavior in public organizations: the role of public service motivation, organizational commitment, and perceived innovative culture.

This study examines the dynamics of public service motivation (PSM), organizational commitment, and perceived innovative culture and their collective influence on innovative behavior in public organizations. It uniquely focuses on intrinsic motivational factors, extends the scope of motivational studies to the public sector, and highlights the crucial role of organizational culture in fostering innovation. A web-based survey was administered to 1,021 public servants in the central government of the Republic of Korea. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the relationships between the variables. The SEM results confirmed positive correlations between PSM and both organizational commitment and innovative behavior. However, contrary to expectations, organizational commitment did not significantly predict innovative behavior. Additionally, no mediating effect of organizational commitment was observed. Notably, perceived innovative culture was found to moderate the relationship between PSM and organizational commitment, and between organizational commitment and innovative behavior, particularly in environments with a strong innovation focus. These findings underscore the significance of PSM in spurring innovative behavior in the public sector, broadening our understanding of intrinsic motivation. This study also accentuates the influence of organizational culture on these dynamics. In practical terms, this suggests the importance of nurturing individuals with high PSM and fostering an environment that balances perceived innovative culture. While contributing to the fields of organizational psychology and public administration, this study has certain limitations and indicates the need for further research in various contexts.

Do Motivated Public Servants Behave More Ethically?

Understanding who behaves more ethically and how to boost one’s ethical decision making are important but relatively neglected human resource management (HRM) questions. To fill this gap, we extend recent experimental research on the role of public service motivation (PSM) in enhancing ethical behavior by leveraging a unique setting of anti-corruption reform in South Korea. Building on the difference-in-differences design in a quasi-experimental setting with more than 10,000 civil servants, gathered as part of a representative survey, we find that not only do civil servants’ higher levels of PSM lead to more ethical behavior but that their colleagues with higher levels of PSM are also perceived to be more ethical after policy implementation. As the first quasi-experimental research attempting to estimate PSM’s causal effect on ethical behavioral change, with the largest survey samples to date, our analysis has important implications regarding the greater efficacy of anti-corruption policies and the role of PSM in this context.

Mediating Role of Public Service Motivation in Enhancing the Effect of Spiritual Leadership on Felt Obligation and Affective Commitment

Encouraging positive feelings at work is important in a public organization. While leadership and motivation are recognized as things that can improve the positive form of individual attitudes and behavior among individuals. By integrating the concepts of leadership and motivation as determinants of employee attitudes, the purpose of this research is to analyze about how public service motivation could mediate the effect of spiritual leadership towards affective commitment and felt obligation. Quantitative method is used as a research deductive paradigm with a purposive sampling technique used to obtain 97 civil servants that take part as respondent in this study who work in two Government Agencies in the Province of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Findings indicate that five hypotheses proposed in the study were confirmed, but there was one relationship that was found to have an insignificant effect, which is the direct effect of spiritual leadership on felt obligation. Main implication of the findings reveals about the significant role of public service employee motivation in strengthening spiritual leadership in improving both affective commitment and felt obligation.

Organizational Error Tolerance and Change-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment and Moderating Role of Public Service Motivation.

Error management is an important element of organizational management research, and organizational error tolerance has gradually received attention from researchers in recent years. Most previous studies concluded that organizational error tolerance positively affects both the perceived organizational support and job performance of public sector employees, but few have examined the relationship between organizational error tolerance and change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. This research examines how organizational error tolerance affects change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior using an experimental approach (Study 1, N = 162 and Study 2, N = 228) and a field survey approach (Study 3, N = 377). The results indicate that organizational error tolerance increases psychological empowerment, which in turn increases change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Public service motivation plays a moderating role in this process. Specifically, the positive mediating effect of organizational error tolerance on change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior through psychological empowerment was not significant when the level of public service motivation was high, while it was significant when the level of public service motivation was low. This study clarifies the mechanism and boundary conditions of the effect of organizational error tolerance on change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, provides a more comprehensive and dialectical perspective for research on organizational error tolerance, and extends research on psychological empowerment and change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior.

Managing my shame: Investigating the effects of organizational identity threat and public service motivation on exemplification

AbstractHow do public employees respond to organizational identity threats? The present study investigates how public employees make sense of and react to threatening events that may call into question organization's core attributes and status. Using social identity theory and the appraisal theory of emotions, we develop a model in which organizational identity induced by negative media coverage threat provokes shame that results in exemplification. We further explain the role of public service motivation as a moderator of the proposed mediated relationships. Predictions are tested in an experimental study and a field study involving French police officers. Our results show that shame mediated the positive effect of organizational identity threat on police officers' exemplification behaviors. When public service motivation is high, police officers are more likely to engage in exemplification to cope with organizational identity threat than when it is slow. Theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Ethical leadership and interpersonal citizenship behavior in the public sector

PurposeThis study aims to examine the impact of ethical leadership on the extra-role behavior toward individuals of employees in the public sector. In addition, the study examines the mediating roles of supervisor-subordinate guanxi and public service motivation.Design/methodology/approachResearch data were collected from 222 public servants in local government, Vietnam. Study using partial least square SEM (PLS-SEM) method performed by SmartPLS 3.2.9.FindingsEthical leadership has a direct impact on OCBI. In turn, supervisor-subordinate guanxi holds mediating role in linking the relationship between ethical leadership and OCBI. Public service motivation mediates nexuses between ethical leadership, supervisor-subordinate guanxi and OCBI.Research limitations/implicationsTo encourage public servants to engage in interpersonal citizenship behaviors, leaders must focus on fostering an ethical climate in the workplace by acting as an ethical model and encouraging ethical standards in daily work.Originality/valueThe study provides new insights on the mediating role of public service motivation, guanxi from the perspective of the leader's ethical aspect.

Responding to Unethical Demands by One’s Leader: The Role of Public Service Motivation

ABSTRACT Research shows that public service motivation (PSM) may serve as a buffer of unethical decision-making. We expand research by studying whether PSM is also related to ethics in situations where supervisors demand unethical behaviours from their employees. Our results show that PSM as a global concept and the PSM-dimension “Commitment to Public Values” are both negatively associated with the acceptance of unethical guidelines by one’s supervisor. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the ethical outcomes of highly public-service motivated individuals, while also looking at the dimensionality of the concept of PSM. This research is important because we contribute to a better understanding of how public workers might react when being confronted with unethical demands in their workplace, which presents worrisome issue across many countries around the world.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities: The Role of Leadership Qualities in Adopting Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives during COVID-19

Social entrepreneurship (SE) can spark positive societal change by providing adequate and long-term solutions to global issues. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional businesses have been impacted on micro and macro levels. However, SE can ensure social welfare, job creation, and economic improvement. This study examines the impact of Paradoxical Leadership, Transformational Leadership, and Entrepreneurial Leadership on SE during the pandemic, specifically in the pharmaceutical and textile manufacturing sectors of Punjab, Pakistan. The study also investigates the moderating role of Public Service Motivation (PSM) between these leadership styles and SE. The findings suggest that leadership qualities positively impact SE during COVID-19, and PSM plays a moderating role in the relationship between leadership styles and SE in the manufacturing sector. The results of this study could inform the development of effective leadership strategies for social entrepreneurs during global crises.

Servant leadership and employee's job performance: the role of public service motivation in Ethiopian public sector organizations

PurposeThis study aims mainly to examine the mediating role of public service motivation (PSM) in the relationship between servant leadership and employee performance in the context of Ethiopian public sector organization employees.Design/methodology/approachA survey design has been used, where all the 154 employees from seven public sector organizations participated. A confirmatory factor analysis employed on the 149 valid responses further validated the hypothesized model.FindingsThe study supported the significant relationship between servant leadership, public service motivation and job performance. Moreover, it exhibited a complete mediating effect of public service motivation, on the relationship between servant leadership and an employee's job performance.Practical implicationsThe successful mediation of PSM into servant leadership and job performance indicates that the new government must focus on empowering colleagues to have a say in the department-level policy formulation process.Originality/valueThe novelty of this study stems from the fact that it is a rare study that investigates the relationship between PSM and servant leadership and job performance in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, where a regime change in 2018 triggered a flurry of reforms to the public sector work culture.

Transformational leadership and work engagement in public organizations: promotion focus and public service motivation, how and when the effect occurs

Transformational leadership and work engagement in public organizations: promotion focus and public service motivation, how and when the effect occurs

In- and Out-Group Biases and Public Service Motivation: A Configurational Study of Donation Behavior in China

ABSTRACT We seek to offer a threefold contribution to extant knowledge regarding the effect of public service motivation on the actual behavior of individual citizens. First, theoretically, we examine the role of public service motivation as a potential antecedent of in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination in an inter-country context through a configurational lens. Second, empirically, we contribute to the state of the art by conducting an incentivized donation study in which Chinese participants have to decide about giving away real money to poor students in the Chinese province Yunnan and/or neighboring country Myanmar. Third, methodologically, we analyze the impact of bundles of potential conditions promoting donation by applying fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, next to classic probabilistic regression.

Work Outcomes of Occupational Health and Safety: The Role of Transformational Leadership and Public Service Motivation

Safety culture and unsafe behavior have been considered to be important factors in operational safety in various fields, including transportation systems. The study sought to analyze the relationship between occupational health and safety and employee work outcomes, the moderating role of public service motivation and employee work outcomes, and transformational leadership and employee work outcomes. A cross-sectional survey using convenience sampling technique was adopted with a sample of 300 public transport bus drivers from Takoradi Market Circle, Ghana. A five-point Likert scale integrated questionnaire was used. The study use SmartPLS software 3.2.8 to analyze the data. The study found Occupational Health and Safety to have direct positive and significant relationship with Employee Work Outcomes. Furthermore, the study found public service motivation also have positive and significant connection with Employee Work Outcomes. Also, the study found support for the relationship between Transformational Leadership and Employee Work Outcomes. Again, transformational leadership moderates the relationship occupational health and safety and employee work outcomes. In a similar fashion, public service motivation was found to moderate the relationship between occupational health and safety and employee work outcomes. It is recommended that workshops and training sessions on safety to enhance the alignment of safety practices for drivers as industrial employees responsible for transport operations. Also, employers should implement safety reward programs that enable drivers to follow good levels of health and safety. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-23-06 Publication date: December 31 st 2022

Work engagement, burnout, and the motivation to serve among law enforcement officers during the COVID-19 pandemic and community protests in the USA

Abstract In recent years, law enforcement officers in the USA have faced substantial new demands due to the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide community protests for racial justice and police reform. To understand the impacts of these new demands, this study investigates changes in officer work engagement and burnout over time and the role of public service motivation (PSM) in sustaining high work engagement and attenuating burnout. Using survey data collected in 2019 and 2021 from all officers working in a state-level police organization in the Midwest region of the USA, we find not only that officer work engagement has decreased and burnout has increased but also that PSM is an important predictor of officer work engagement. Contrary to our expectation, we also observe a positive relationship between PSM and burnout among frontline officers in 2019 and no evidence of a relationship in 2021. These findings confirm the adverse impacts of COVID-19 and community unrest on officer work engagement and burnout and suggest that PSM generally enhances officer work engagement but under certain conditions may also increase officer burnout.