Why Does Interest in Government Careers Decline among Public Affairs Graduate Students?

Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Investigating Nonprofit Sector Commitment Among Nonprofit Education Alumni

“…Our findings indicate that nonprofit alumni who work in the sector express stronger commitment. These findings help elucidate that nonprofit related degrees help cultivate a labor supply for the nonprofit sector, and compared to previous findings documenting the declining commitment to public service among public administration alumni (Bright, 2016(Bright, , 2018Bright & Graham, 2015), Further reflecting Tschirhart et al's (2008, p. 685) remark that the "supply side of labor markets is constrained by sector," the choice to work in the nonprofit sector initiates a confirmatory loop for nonprofit alumni where accruing work experience affirms sector selection and sustains sector commitment.…”

“…Accordingly, scholars, based on independent interest as well as spurred by professional association interests, have sought to understand if alumni of specific graduate programs build careers in those fields (for examples, see: Bright, 2016;Chetkovich, 2003;Tschirhart et al, 2008). This research stream investigates if graduate degrees are an effective pipeline into the given field, while considering what might detract from a career in a field of study (Bright, 2016(Bright, , 2018Bright & Graham, 2015). These studies understand degree programs as fertile ground for leadership development (Infeld, Adams, Qi, & Rosnah, 2010) and have sought to isolate characteristics of the alumni themselves, the field of employment, or the degree program that may contribute to or detract from a career in the field of study.…”

Public service motivation and public sector employment preference: Comparing Italian and British students

“…Recent work by Lee and Choi (2016) identified only job security as a major driver of public sector preference in a sample of Korean college students. Additionally, some studies are limited by their use of samples consisting exclusively of public sector employees or students of public administration related subjects (Bright & Graham 2015). Other works offer support for the PSM sector attraction link.…”

The effects of legal versus business education on decision making in public administrations with a Weberian tradition

“…3 Conceptual framework and hypotheses 3.1 Socialization effects during university education (education effect) Bandura (1977) argued that individuals learn through either the consequences of their own behaviour or the observation of relevant, existing models. The existing literature defines socialization within a group as the result of learning from the consequences of one's own behaviour (Kolb 1981;Allinson and Hayes 1988;Cockerton et al 2002;Bright and Graham 2015). Following Lüthje (2008), we assume that, in the context of university education, exam results and students' relationships with professors or fellow students allow individuals who study law or business to assess the progress of their socialization in the discipline that they have chosen.…”