Work Motivation and Public Service Motivation: Disentangling Various Types of Motivation and Individual Outcomes

The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which work motivation, as understood using Self Determination Theory, and Public Service Motivation (PSM) are conceptually and empirically related. We also test both... [ view full abstract ]

The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which work motivation, as understood using Self Determination Theory, and Public Service Motivation (PSM) are conceptually and empirically related. We also test both theories against job satisfaction, an important concept in organizational and public administration studies of which both have shown previous relationships to. Firstly, we critically examine the theoretical assumptions of both theories and examine the research field in an attempt to understand how the two concepts may or may not be related at their dimensional and aggregate level. Secondly, multilevel OLS regression is performed to examine their individual contributions to job satisfaction. We will test this research model using a survey administered across two public offices in the state of Bern, Switzerland. OLS regression results show SDT to be have the strongly relationship to job satisfaction, with a dominance analysis yielding work motivation as almost 80% of the explained variance. Preliminary moderation analysis results however, shows that PSM can be important in cases of low work motivation.