Antecedents of Public Service Motivation

Abstract

Public administration practitioners and educators have long contended that public employees are different from employees in other sectors of American society. Conventional wisdom and empirical evidence that public employees are different led Perry and Wise to define a construct, public service motivation (PSM), intended to capture the distinction. At a more abstract level, the grounding of PSM in three types of motives—rational, normative, and affective—suggests another source for insights about PSM. The profession is another institution that is likely to influence public service motivation. The beliefs that individuals acquire through then political affiliations also are antecedents of public service motivation. The political ideology variable also exhibited a mixed association with the PSM dimensions. Liberalism-conservatism was significantly associated with attraction to policy making and self-sacrifice. Investigation of organizational influences should seek to assess the effects of organizational experiences and policies on the public service motivation of members ever time.