Public versus Private: Not That Different, Not That Consequential

Abstract

There are several differences between the public and private sectors which are referred to frequently in the public administration literature. However, there are few studies which verify these differences. This article reports the findings from a study of three “classic” differences between the public and private sectors that are relevant to public personnel management. It also examines the impact of these differences on employee motivation. The findings indicate that the classic differences do exist, but are not as substantial as the literature would lead one to believe. They also indicate the public-private differences do not have a substantial impact on employee motivation.

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

“…Some proponents of organizational theory suggest that there are too few differences between the public and private sectors to warrant differentiation (Baldwin, 1987). For example, some argue that organizations in both the public and private sectors face the same challenges in work and worker productivity (Drucker, 1973).…”

Public Service Motivation among Indonesian Employees: a Critical Review Toward the Psm Theory

“…Keeping in line with public-service motivation as a focus on intrinsic rewards, it is expected that public employees place less emphasis on job security than do private-sector employees. Newstrom, Reif, and Monczka (1976) and Crewson (1995b) concluded that government workers do assign less importance to job security.In contrast, Schuster (1974), Bellante and Link (1981), Baldwin (1987), and Jurkiewicz, Massey, and Brown (1998) reported that public-sector employees place a higher importance on job security. Furthermore, additional research has reported that employees of the two sectors do not differ on this factor (Rainey, 1982;Wittmer 1991;Gabris and Simo, 1995).…”

“…In contrast, private employees focus more on extrinsic rewards in the form of high pay, status and prestige, and promotion. However, Baldwin (1987) and Gabris and Simo (1995) suggested that although differences may exist between public and private employees, these differences are exaggerated in the research literature.…”

Public Service Motivation in Public and Nonprofit Service Providers: The Cases of Belarus and Poland

“…At the same time, a number of studies show equal values assigned to earnings and psychological rewards across public and private sector employees (e.g. Lyons, Duxbury & Higgins 2006, Maidani 1991, Baldwin 1987, Gabris & Simo 1995.…”

“…Most of the results mentioned above are derived from the observation of small probability samples, usually limited geographically to a county, a city, or a state with samples that were no larger than 350 respondents (e.g. Baldwin 1987, Gabris & Simo 1995, Jurkiewicz, Massey & Brown 1998, Maidani 1991, Wittmer 1991. Crewson (1997) and Houston (2000) are notable exceptions because they both analyze survey data sets with large, national probability samples and estimate multivariate models with more complete sets of control variables.…”