Motivation for public service : perspective of self-determination theory (SDT)

Abstract

First, I would like to convey my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Asst. Prof. Chen Chung-An, for his guidance. Prof. Chen provided me with great support throughout my PhD research project. I met and discussed about my research regularly while I was conducting it. Always patient and open-minded, he made me feel welcome and at ease. He has set a very positive example for my future career. With his direction, I managed to publish two papers in the third year of my study. Additionally, Prof. Chen also provided much financial support for me. I used to be a self-funded student in the first two semesters, after which he had hired me as a part-time research assistant, giving me much support. Hence, I am really grateful to Prof. Chen for both his academic, and financial support. Next, I would like to say a big thank you to Prof. Yu Wenxuan and Prof. Wang Jue who are my thesis advisors. Prof Yu helped me a lot with my research and

Work Motivation in the Public Service: A Scale Development Based on the Self-Determination Theory

“…Alternatively, some social scientists debated that public employees may also value extrinsic motives such as job security and stability, social status, prestige, the opportunities to learn new things, the prospect for advancement (Gabris & Simo, 1995;Jurkiewicz et al, 1998;Snyder & Osland, 1996), work-family balance (Buelens & Van den Broeck, 2007), and financial rewards (Hotchkiss et al, 2015). WMPS refers to the various motives that drive public employees to retain and serve in the public service (Gagné et al, 2010;Madsen, 1974;Xu & Chen, 2016). Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 2008) and the Motivation at Work Scale (MAWS) (Gagné et al, 2010(Gagné et al, , 2015, WMPS is grounded in SDT and considers both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Xu & Chen, 2016).…”

“…WMPS refers to the various motives that drive public employees to retain and serve in the public service (Gagné et al, 2010;Madsen, 1974;Xu & Chen, 2016). Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 2008) and the Motivation at Work Scale (MAWS) (Gagné et al, 2010(Gagné et al, , 2015, WMPS is grounded in SDT and considers both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Xu & Chen, 2016).…”

“…SDT is "an empirically derived theory of human motivation and personality in social contexts that differentiates motivation in terms of being autonomous and controlled" (Deci & Ryan, 2012, p. 416). SDT plays a significant role in investigating human behaviors such as physical activities, family interaction, healthy behaviors, learning, and education (Xu & Chen, 2016). The motivation typology of SDT has been widely used in organizational behavior studies, especially in testing how various motivation types impact job performance and work attitudes (Deci et al, 1989;Deci & Ryan, 2008;Fernandez & Moldogaziev, 2015;Gagné & Deci, 2005;Kaplan, 2021;Kim, 2018;Moran et al, 2012;Zheng et al, 2021).…”

“…Beyond the motivation typology, scholars care more about how to promote autonomous motivation because of its positive outcomes. For example, it has been proved that the basic psychological needs (e.g., autonomy competence and relatedness) would facilitate autonomous motivation and decrease controlled motivation (Brunelle & Fortin, 2021;Xu & Chen, 2016). Studies demonstrate that autonomous motivation may lead to positive outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction; Deci & Ryan, 2008;Gagné et al, 2010;Tadić Vujčić et al, 2017) while controlled motivation would associate with negative outcomes (Gagné et al, 2015;e.g., turnover intention).…”

“…In the past three decades, public employees' motivation has been one of the most compelling topics for public management scholars (Mussagulova & Van der Wal, 2021;Perry & Vandenabeele, 2015) as seen from the exponentially growing literature (Xu & Chen, 2016). Most existing studies focus on the motivations of public employees' career selection (e.g., public service motivation and motivation for a public service career; Chen et al, 2018;Perry & Wise, 1990;.…”