Personality traits discriminating between employees in public- and in private-sector organizations

Abstract

Based on data collected from public and private organizations in Greece, this paper examines the differences in individual traits between public and private-sector employees, differences which eventually in uence employees' attitudes and behaviours towards their organizations and their consequent performance, speci cally in organizational commitment and neglect behaviour. The ndings indicate that there are some differences between the two groups of employees. In only three out of ten personality characteristics examined here (security needs, pay needs and Protestant work ethic), are there no distinctions between the groups.These ndings imply that, besides the environmental and structural characteristics of the two sectors which may be the source of attitudinal differences, it might also be that persons attracted to the public sector have different personality characteristics from those attracted to the private sector. Regardless of the source of differences, results point to the need for changing recruitment and selection practices in public organizations as well as for implementing a number of human resource management practices, the lack of which seems to drive junior quali ed staff away from the public sector where they are mostly needed.The later seems to be the case in Greece where the lower pay and the non-competitive, non-challenging atmosphere prevailing in most public-sector organizations seem to play an important role in driving most dynamic employees away from the public sector.

Discrimination across the Sectors: A Comparison of Discrimination Trends in Private and Public Organizations

“…Although most research has suggested no differences between the sectors in security and pay needs (Bourantas & Papalexandris, 1999), as well as general motivation (Baldwin, 1987), other research has suggested that government managers have lower levels of motivation as compared to their private sector counterparts (Rainey, 1979). Overall, it appears that there are no major differences in job satisfaction and motivation between the sectors, but more research may be warranted to clear up some discrepancies.…”

“…Employees within the public sector have perceived lower goal clarity in their jobs (Baldwin, 1987) yet have also displayed a lower need for clarity in the first place (Bourantas & Papalexandris, 1999). However, some research suggests that there are no differences in role conflict or ambiguity between sectors (Rainey, 1979), proposing that the vagueness of public sector objectives may not actually lead to role ambiguity or role conflict.…”

“…Some researchers in this area present the idea that behavioral and attitudinal differences found between individuals across sectors may be due to general personality differences (Bourantas & Papalexandris, 1999). No differences have been found between the sectors in problem solving ability, intelligence, creativity (Rawls et al, 1975), job involvement (Rainey, 1979), and levels of "professionalism" (Fottler & Townsend, 1977, p. 257).…”

“…However, some attributes unique to each sector have been reported. Public sector employees have been found to be more educated (Fottler & Townsend, 1977;Solomon, 1986), have a higher external locus of control (Bourantas & Papalexandris, 1999), and come from more diverse backgrounds (Fottler & Townsend, 1977).…”

Affecting Factors of Public Employees’ Ganizational Commitment

“…Empirical research shows that, in general, the satisfaction levels of private organization employees are significantly higher than those of public employees (Buchanan, 1975;Bourantas and Papalexandris, 1999;Buka and Bilgic 2012, p. 234). This is also supported by the results study of Bordia and Blau (1998), which proved that pay satisfaction increases the overall job satisfaction, but public employees have less room for managing their pay levels.…”