In the last decade, Public Service Motivation (PSM) research mainly focused on the altruistic dimension of the construct giving less attention to its self-oriented elements. We argue that the PSM relies on the satisfaction of personal needs while performing a public-service act as much as on the need of pursuing others’ wellbeing.
The main objective of the research is to re-think the PSM as a “mixed” construct, restoring its self-interested dimension. Moreover in the PSM research there is still the need of more sophisticated instruments to overcome the mono-method, mono-measure approach of the literature in the last decade (Ritz, Brewer and Neumann, 2016), so we propose a different point of view for the PSM research.
It has been defined as a “general altruistic motivation to serve the interests of a community of people, a state, a nation or humankind” (Rainey and Steinbauer, 1999), nevertheless the literature also gave importance the self-oriented behavior of individuals. In fact who performs public service acts could also be “satisfying personal needs while serving public interests” (Perry and Wise, 1990). Therefore the vision of the PSM as a purely altruistic construct is a false dichotomy that should be replaced by a bivalent approach to identify all its aspects.
The main research question is to understand to what extent the PSM is related to the will of helping others rather than to the need of pursuing personal interests.
In order to identify the role of mixed motives in the individuals’ PSM we propose the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) as a new method for the analysis of the PSM. The SEM allows to take into account latent variables of which it is possible to observe only some functioning, such as the PSM. Specifically within the Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes model (MIMIC) a latent variable is caused by some variables and reflected by others. In our case, using the European Social Survey database, it is possible to identify both the possible causes of the PSM (age, level of education etc.) and some exogenous indicators (interest in other’s wellbeing, importance to help people, importance given to richness etc.) that capture both the altruistic and the self-oriented behaviour of individuals (Prysmakova, 2013). The main objective of this work is to demonstrate that the two dimensions are both effective on the individuals’ PSM, so that it can easily be defined as a “mixed” construct based on mixed motives.
References
Perry, J.L & Wise, L.R. (1990). The Motivational bases of Public service. Public Administration Review, Vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 367-373.
Prysmakova, P. (2013), Public Service Motivation in Europe: Testing Attitudes toward Work Motives, Florida International University.
Rainey H.G., Steinbauer, P. (1999). Galloping Elephants: Developing Elements of a Theory of Effective Government Organization. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1-32
Ritz, A., Brewer, G.A. and Neumann, O. (2016). Public Service Motivation: A Systematic Literature Review and Outlook. Public Administration Review 76(6), 414-426.
Public_Service_Motivation_as_a__mixed__construct.pdf 