A Comparative Analysis of Public Employee Turnover Intentions and Work Motive Satisfaction

This project asks two primary research questions. First, does a public employee’s fit with their work environment explain his/her turnover intention?  Second, do country-level attributes explain differences across... [ view full abstract ]

This project asks two primary research questions. First, does a public employee’s fit with their work environment explain his/her turnover intention?  Second, do country-level attributes explain differences across countries among public employee turnover intentions?  These questions address a matter of increasing concern for countries across the globe: the ability of governments to attract, select, and retain those individuals who fit best with their work environments.  The attraction, selection, and retention of employees to an organization is often addressed within the person-environment fit literature.  Studies concerned with person-environment fit within the public sector often address the issues of employee motivations.  The existing conclusion being that individuals who value intrinsic work motives are more likely to be satisfied with their work environment.  This project examines the influence of extrinsic and intrinsic work motives on a public employee’s turnover intention.  However, few studies address the role that country-level attributes may have within the attraction-selection-attrition framework as applied to the public sector.  To test the relationship between country-level attributes and turnover intentions in the public sector, key indicators of labor market conditions are examined.  This project uses data from the 2015 International Social Survey Programme’s Work Orientations IV survey, which contains nationally representative surveys administered across many countries.  Country-level data is gathered from the World Bank.  To analyze the data, multilevel logistic regression analysis is employed to estimate models that include both individual and country-level variables.