Review: Public service motivation—practical problems, scientific evidence and the role of a research community

Vandenabeele, Wouter; Skelcher, Chris

doi:10.1080/09540962.2015.1061165

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Publication data demonstrate a steady increase in the number of peerreviewed articles addressing the topic of PSM in one way or another (Perry and Hondeghem 2008b;Vandenabeele et al 2014;Ritz et al 2016). Equally, citation scores for PSM-related articles demonstrate that such papers have above-average citations (Vandenabeele and Skelcher 2015) indicating that the topic is one that engenders debate.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the role of the research community should not be underestimated in explaining the appeal. Key players in the PSM field have devoted large parts of their careers to building constructive and positive research communities not only in the US but also in Europe (Vandenabeele and Skelcher 2015;Ritz et al 2016). In fact, in recent years, most of the high-impact research projects on PSM have been based in Europe (in particular in denmark, the Netherlands, and Italy).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Public Service Motivation: State of the Art and Conceptual Cleanup

Vandenabeele

Ritz

Neumann

2017

The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration and Management in Europe

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Public service motivation is an increasingly researched and, at the same time, hotly debated concept in the field of public management and public administration. It refers to the motivation people have to contribute to society. This chapter provides an overview of what has happened so far in this field since the introduction of the concept in the 1980s and 1990s, with a particular focus on the role of the research community. In this overview, causes, consequences, and related theories are identified. The chapter also establishes gaps in the literature and issues that remain unresolved. In so doing, we carry out a conceptual cleanup by positioning the subject alongside related but different concepts such as intrinsic motivation, altruism, and prosocial motivation. IntroductIonPublic service motivation (PSM) is usually viewed as the motivation that people have to contribute to society (Perry and Hondeghem 2008a). In contemporary public administration and public management research, few topics have engendered as much debate as has PSM. For some, it is the answer to one of the big questions in public management, for example, as stated by Robert

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Public Service Motivation: State of the Art and Conceptual Cleanup

Vandenabeele

Ritz

Neumann

2017

The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration and Management in Europe

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“…But bureaucrats come in many different forms and shapes (Downs, 1957). Ever since Perry’s (Perry, 1996; Perry & Wise, 1990) introduction of the PSM construct, scholarship in public administration and management argues that high-PSM people are attracted to (stay in) the public sector (Bozeman & Su, 2015; Perry, 1996; Vandenabeele & Skelcher, 2015). This follows from the attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) model (Wright & Grant, 2010) and the homophily logic (McPherson et al, 2001), arguing that groups of people reveal in-group similarities and out-group differences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Service Motivation and Prosocial Rule-Breaking: An International Vignettes Study in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands

Weißmüller

Waele

Witteloostuijn

2020

Review of Public Personnel Administration

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We theorize that people with high Public Service Motivation (PSM) are especially prone to engage in prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB) behavior, which ultimately leads to discriminatory practices, particularly for clients associated with positive affect. We conduct an original vignette study in three countries (Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands) with 928 observations in total. Our findings provide tentative behavioral evidence on a linear relationship between PSM and the likelihood of PSRB and a strong positive association with client likeability, which is an asymmetric relationship: Negative affect cues have a larger negative effect than positive affect cues have a positive effect on PSRB. Although our results vary across the three country studies regarding the effects of PSM, overall, the results imply that high-PSM individuals have a tendency to being more likely to engage in PSRB and that clients who are perceived as more favorable will receive a less strict application of bureaucratic rules compared to less favorable clients.

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“…People reporting high levels of PSM are more likely to terminate the PPP early than people with lower levels. This is surprising because highly public service motivated people are especially likely to self-select into the public sector presumably in the prospect of using their motivation to help others and contribute to the greater good (Crewson 1997;Vandenabeele and Skelcher 2015). High PSM is usually regarded as a robust indicator for a higher likelihood of trusting and being trusted (Tepe 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sector-Specific Associations, Trust, and Survival of PPPs: A Behavioral Experiment Based on the Centipede Game

Weißmüller

Vogel

2020

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

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Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become widespread in the delivery of public services. This study explores behavioral mechanisms of building and eroding trust in partnering across sectors at the micro-level of interaction between public and private partners. Combining classic theoretical concepts on the development of interorganizational trust and administrative behavior, this study derives theory suggesting that partners’ sector affiliation may have adverse signaling effects on individuals’ intention to uphold effective partnerships over time, and that this intent may be moderated by sector-specific associations. Tested with a novel and dynamic multi-stage behavioral experiment based on the classic centipede game conducted with German graduate students (N=482; Obs.=4,338), results suggest that sector affiliation functions as a strong but potentially misleading signal for partners’ strategic behavior in PPPs and that sector-specific associations asymmetrically moderate respondents’ will to collaborate. These findings contribute to a more nuanced theoretical understanding of the micro-foundations of strategic behavior particularly at nascent stages of PPPs, calling into question basic assumptions about coordination efficiency in cross-sectoral partnerships.

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Review: Public service motivation—practical problems, scientific evidence and the role of a research community

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

Public Service Motivation: State of the Art and Conceptual Cleanup

Public Service Motivation: State of the Art and Conceptual Cleanup

Public Service Motivation and Prosocial Rule-Breaking: An International Vignettes Study in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands

Sector-Specific Associations, Trust, and Survival of PPPs: A Behavioral Experiment Based on the Centipede Game

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