Public Service Motivation Concepts and Theory: A Critique

Bozeman, Barry; Su, Su

doi:10.1111/puar.12248

Cited by 262 publications

(246 citation statements)

References 100 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

221

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Prosocial motivation, in contrast, is conceptualized in a more open way, as it is a motivation to benefit others regardless of membership or collective needs of a group. This resonates with other reflections on the PSM concept that have criticized its conceptual foundations (Bozeman and Su 2014;Prebble 2016). To these criticisms, we add the paradoxical observation that PSM's emphasis on policy and politics -especially the dimension attraction to policy making -may decrease rather than increase its applicability and validity in a public sector context.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 77%

What’s in it for others? The relationship between prosocial motivation and commitment to change among youth care professionals

Voet

Steijn

Kuipers

2016

Public Management Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study assesses the relationship between prosocial motivation and commitment to change among youth care professionals. We draw on person-environment fit theory to propose that this relationship is conditional on employees' perceived meaningfulness of the change for society and clients. Our results confirm the expected positive relationship between prosocial motivation and commitment to change. Our analysis suggests that the moderating relationship between prosocial motivation, client meaningfulness and commitment to change should be understood as a substitutive relationship: both prosocial motivation and client meaningfulness are sufficient conditions, but the presence of both is not a necessary condition for commitment to change.

show abstract

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 77%

What’s in it for others? The relationship between prosocial motivation and commitment to change among youth care professionals

Voet

Steijn

Kuipers

2016

Public Management Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Numerous studies over the past few decades have presented evidence that an increased motive to serve the public good is prevalent in the public sector workforce. [13,14] The influence of public service motivation on job satisfaction, turnover rates, organizational commitment and performance was examined and explained with varying degrees. Wright and Grant [15] summarized that people with higher public service motivation are more likely to work for public organizations because they obtain satisfaction through providing public service, which results in an overall better job performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious work environment – benefit or challenge? A qualitative study on motivation at work in a religiously affiliated hospital

Seemann

2016

JHA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Workplace spirituality and faith are important and emerging trends in business that should direct managers' attention for various reasons. Therefore, this qualitative study asks whether a religious work environment provides a beneficial or challenging factor for an organization. It examines the particular work environment of a faith-based hospital and its effects on employees' motivation and work ethics. The study adopts a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with human resources (HR) staff and nurses of an Adventist Hospital in the USA. The interviewees were purposefully selected to learn about their individual perspectives. The findings indicate that religiously affiliated organizations attract a special type of employee with a certain work ethic. The respectful, friendly and helpful treatment of colleagues amongst each other is one of the biggest differences when compared to non-faith-based organizations. Additionally people are more altruistic, humble and dedicated. In addition, the community outreach and the chance to support patients, both medical and spiritual, gives the work a special meaning. However, the study also indicates some challenges due to the religious affiliation, especially in the case of tough business decisions. Thus understanding the special features of a religiously affiliated organization and its effects on employees might help secular organizations to provide a spiritual working environment for their employees to take advantage of the beneficial effects without having to deal with the identified weaknesses.

show abstract

“…Finally, it appears from our findings that PSM's influence is not sector-bounddefined by legal status -as some have suggested it might be (Bozeman & Su 2014;Prebble 2014) but that it also contributes to performance in employment outside the public sector. This is not to say that public service motivation in reality reflects a general service or prosocial motivation but rather that work aimed at contributing to society is not exclusively to be found in the public sector (Steen 2008).…”

Section: Contributions Of This Dissertationmentioning

confidence: 86%

The role of public service motivation in performance. Examining the potentials and pitfalls through an institutional approach

2017

Bestuurskunde

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cover designEsther Ris, www.proefschriftomslag.nl Internal designMadelief Brandsma grafisch ontwerp, Arnhem English editingGiles Stacey, Englishworks PrefaceBeing a public service motivation (PSM) scholar is great. People seem to always think about your research topic -the motivational drive to contribute to society unselfishly, even being willing to sacrifice yourself for society -and have an opinion about it. For instance, whenever colleagues needed help they would immediately assume (and express) that I would help them because I am very public service motivated (just as someone studying consumerism in sports is a sports consumer and someone focusing on transparency is fully transparent… the force of logic is strong in science). Getting coffee is something I would of course sacrifice myself for -would it not contribute to society because coffee was essential for others to finish their PhD? Actually, on this last point I have to agree as the coffee trips to IJs& Zopie were crucial in finishing this book. Moreover, at parties when I would tell about my dissertation (yes, I go to very exciting parties!) and state that I study the motivation of public servants, the reaction was usually: "Then you must be finished quickly" followed by a rant on lazy and unresponsive public servants… Luckily, I found that these public servants were motivated enough that it remained interesting for me to study for four years (full-time!).A common question asked to any PhD is why? Why spend four years on one topic? And why this topic? As a student I wrote every paper on the European Union. I wrote my high school final project on the potential success and failure of the expansion of the European Union and my bachelor thesis on the (lack of) Europeanisation in Dutch municipalities. Then why switch to public service motivation? I guess the main reason is that I have always felt a fascination for those people in our society that try to make it a better place to live, sacrificing their time and energy often above what is asked of them, and even putting their lives on the line. I have heard them being described as self-interested, lazy bureaucrats but that was not my impression and I therefore wanted to know more about their drive to work for society. I have not been disappointed in that regard, as I have had the fortune to meet many inspiring public employees that do their work with incredible passion. What wondered me was the general proposition in the literature that highly public service motivated employees will perform better in their job than those with lower levels of PSM. Did it not matter what situation you are in? What would happen if a public servant that really wants to contribute to society does not feel able to do so through his or her work? We have all encountered situations in which we were motivated but were thwarted in reaching our goals.When finishing a PhD for instance, you encounter difficulties such as organizations that do not respond, time constraints and losing sight of the goal. The title of my research process co...

show abstract

Public Service Motivation Concepts and Theory: A Critique

Cited by 262 publications

References 100 publications

What’s in it for others? The relationship between prosocial motivation and commitment to change among youth care professionals

What’s in it for others? The relationship between prosocial motivation and commitment to change among youth care professionals

Religious work environment – benefit or challenge? A qualitative study on motivation at work in a religiously affiliated hospital

The role of public service motivation in performance. Examining the potentials and pitfalls through an institutional approach

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About