Public service motivation

About: Public service motivation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1157 publications have been published within this topic receiving 47260 citations.

Measuring Public Service Motivation: An Assessment of Construct Reliability and Validity

Abstract: The public administration literature makes many assertions that the motivations of individuals who pursue public service careers differ in important ways from other members of American society. This research advances the study of these assertions by creating a scale to measure public service motivation. Public service motivation (PSM) represents an individual's predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions. The construct is associated conceptually with six dimensions: attraction to public policy making, commitment to the public interest, civic duty, social justice, self-sacriflce, and compassion. Likert-type items are developed for each dimension to create the PSM scale. The measurement theory for the scale is tested using confirnatory factor analysis (CFA). The present study reports initial reliability and validity results.

Galloping Elephants: Developing Elements of a Theory of Effective Government Organizations

Abstract: Much of the theory and discourse on public bureaucracies treats them negatively, as if they incline inevitably toward weak performance. This orientation prevails in spite of considerable evidence that many government organizations perform very well, and in spite of many examples of their excellent performance. This article draws on the literature and research on effective government organizations to select and develop conceptual elements of a theory to explain their effectiveness. The available research suggests that such a theory should include the following components. supportive behaviors from external stakeholders such as political authorities; agency autonomy in refining and implementing its mission; high "mission valence" (an attractive mission); a strong, mission-oriented culture, and certain leadership behaviors. The discussion further posits that these factors enhance several forms of motivation of people in the agency-task motivation, mission motivation, and public service motivationthat can be differentiated but that must be linked together in effective government agencies. A corollary of this fact is the falsity of an equally common claim. that public and nonprofit organizations cannot, and on average do not, operate as efficiently as private businesses. . . . (Simon 1998, 1 1) The elephant serves as a virtually archetypical symbol of a large, cumbersome, lumbering being. Yet an elephant can run very fast. Pachyderm means thick-skinned, yet elephants display sensitivity in acts of altruism and nurturance beyond those that 1/Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory For valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I am grateful to Bob Durant, Jameson Doig, Ken Meier, Patrick Wolf, and many of the participants in the theory panel at the 1998 Midwest Political Science Association meeting. I could not take all their comments and critiques into account in my revisions, so they bear no responsibility for limitations

Public-Service Motivation: Building Empirical Evidence of Incidence and Effect

Abstract: Three secondary data sources are used to answer four questions that relate to the theory of public-service motivation. The questions focus on the incidence of public-service reward motivations, consistency of these motivations over time, their impact on organizational performance, and the ramifications of a publicservice ethic for the theory of representative bureaucracy. Using descriptive and multivariate statistics, the analyses conclude that there are generalizable and stable differences in the reward motivations of public- and private-sector employees. There is also evidence that public-service motivation in the federal sector is positively related to organizational commitment. In contrast, there is no evidence that public-policy attitudes vary between those who are and those who are not public service oriented.

The Role of Organizations in Fostering Public Service Motivation

Abstract: In seeking to explain the antecedents of public service motivation, James Perry focuses on the formative role of sociohistorical context. Th is study tests Perry’s theory and examines the role that organizational factors play in shaping public service motivation, based on responses from a national survey of state government health and human service managers. Th e fi ndings support the role of sociohistorical context, showing that public service motivation is strongly and positively related to level of education and membership in professional organizations. Th e results also underscore the signifi cant infl uence of organizational institutions, indicating that red tape and length of organizational membership are negatively related to public service motivation, whereas hierarchical authority and reform eff orts have a positive relationship. Th erefore, public organizations have both an opportunity and a responsibility to create an environment that allows employees to feel they are contributing to the public good.