Does the Love of Money Moderate the Relationship between Public Service Motivation and Job Satisfaction? The Case of Chinese Professionals in the Public Sector

To what extent do attitudes toward money—specifically, the love of money—moderate the relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction among public sector professionals in China? The authors collected data from full‐time public sector professionals who also were part‐time students in a master of public administration program in eastern China. After confirmatory factor analyses, the regression results show that a public servant’s love of money moderates the relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction—that is, individuals with a strong love of money have a significantly stronger relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction than those without, a finding that supports the “crowding‐in effect.” Alternatively, for high love‐of‐money civil servants with a “steel rice bowl” mentality, high job satisfaction is explained by the best offer (output) for the minimum amount of effort (input), at least within Chinese culture. Such findings are counterintuitive in light of Chinese personal values, equity theory, public servants’ institutional background, ethical organizational culture, and corruption.     

Motivating Employees of the Public Sector: Does Public Service Motivation Matter?

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes if, and to what extent, the public service motivation (PSM) construct has an added value to explain work motivation in the public sector. In order to address the specificity of PSM when studying work motivation, the theoretical model underlying this empirical study compares PSM with two other explanatory factors: material incentives, such as performance-related pay, and team relations and support, such as recognition by superiors. This theoretical model is then tested with data collected in a national survey of 3,754 civil servants at the Swiss municipal level. Results of a structural equations model clearly show the relevance of PSM. They also provide evidence for the importance of socio-relational motivating factors, whereas material incentives play an anecdotal role.     

Good Governance Practices in Professional Associations for Public Employees: Evidence of a Public Service Ethos?

Professional associations and occupational societies play an important role in educating and credentialing public employees. Very little research has attempted to connect, empirically, a public service ethos to the professional memberships that public employees carry. Nowhere is that potential influence more likely to be seen than in the governing boards of these nonprofit associations, whose behavior is subject to strong normative and mimetic influences as a result of the public's expectations for good governance. This article uses a large generalizable sample of boards of directors, controlling for many organizational characteristics known to influence board behavior, to compare the governance practices of professional and trade associations serving public employees with those serving the private sector. The results suggest that governance practices are shaped by many forces but that public employees do indeed carry their public values into the associations they join, and these values, in turn, are positively related to board behavior.     

Vive la Différence? The Impact of Diversity on the Turnover Intention of Public Employees and Performance of Public Agencies

ABSTRACT

This article addresses previous shortcomings in diversity management scholarship by testing an expanded diversity model borrowed from the work of Page (2007 Page , S. E. 2007 . The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies . Princeton , NJ : Princeton University Press . [Google Scholar]). Page's model assumes diversity can be measured as both a mean and a variance, and that it consists of cognitive, identity, and preference characteristics. We link Page's conceptualization of diversity to both individual-level outcomes and organizational performance. Results indicate cognitive, preference, and identity diversity have either no or small, mixed effects on employee turnover intentions and agency performance; instead, findings suggest employee voice and organizational size and structure matter more than diversity in our sample. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical ramifications of our findings.     

Will We All Hunker Down? The Impact of Immigration and Diversity on Local Communities in Spain

This article engages with the scholarly debate on the supposed negative effect of immigration and diversity, and analyses its effect on two different forms of trust – community trust and generalized trust – in Spain. Our contribution is twofold. First, with census section level data of representative samples of all the Spanish municipalities, we test the propositions that relate greater ethnic diversity to social trust. Second, we address the limitations intrinsic to the crude measurement of diversity of the Herfindahl index with a systematic consideration of multiple alternative indicators of immigration-related diversity. We find evidence of a negative effect of diversity on community trust but none on generalized trust. Hence, our findings lend some support to the recent scholarship that questions that increasing diversity has a “hunkering down” effect.     

The Future of Leadership in Public Universities: Is Shared Leadership the Answer?

Leadership of public universities has come under fire—from scandals, from funding, from students, from every direction. Top‐down leadership of institutions of higher education has been described as a “disease.” Shared governance—a mechanism of faculty representation in the leadership and decision‐making processes—a seeming alternative, has been described as “a recipe for paralysis.” In this article, the authors proffer shared leadership as a potential elixir for leading public institutions of higher learning, unleashing creative potential, focusing on pressing strategic imperatives, and enabling sustainable systems that leverage true talent to maximum effect. It is time to move beyond the moribund myth of top‐down heroic leadership and beyond the bureaucratic, political quagmire of the current state of affairs in shared governance. Is shared leadership the answer?      

The Promises and Pitfalls of Prime Provider Models in Service Delivery: The Next Phase of Reform in Australia?

At a time of fiscal restraint and reductions in the size of the public sector, governments in Australia are exploring new approaches to delivering public services. One model receiving attention is the prime provider approach. This is an approach where government contracts a lead or prime provider who in turn organizes and manages a group of sub‐contractors. In prime provider approaches, non‐government organizations take on a quasi‐government role and this brings a new complexity into the relationships between the various actors involved in developing and delivering public services. This article provides an overview of prime provider approaches and, drawing on the limited research to date, poses questions that we view as being critical to the current debate. The aim is to provoke further discussion on the potential impact of prime provider approaches.     

The European Union Blowback? Euroscepticism and its Consequences in the Western Balkans

While there exists a large body of literature investigating the European Union’s intervention in the western Balkans, and in particular the influence of so-called ‘enlargement fatigue’, rarely is the western Balkans’ own fatigue towards the EU given serious consideration. This paper examines domestic views about Europe, arguing that aspiring new EU member states have been experiencing various forms of Euroscepticism due to a number of socio-economic, cultural and political factors. The growth of Euroscepticism has helped Russia to play a more assertive and influential role in the region. However, as this paper argues, Euroscepticism is not a rejection of the European perspective and the search for alternatives, but rather a critique of the actual methods, timing and impact of the integration process.     

Better Performance with Performance Budgeting? Analyzing Cases of Success and Failure in Public Administrations

ABSTRACT

The introduction of performance budgeting has substantially changed the working environment of public managers. Changes include a shift from input to outcome orientation as well as more freedom to manage. However, current public management theories are unable to explain why performance budgeting sometimes fails. This article proposes a causal model that integrates three contextual factors and two individual factors in order to explain the diverse results. The model is tested with cases generated from interviews with Swiss public managers. The compiled data suggests that the type of tasks in a department as an antecedent variable and the perceived freedom of public managers have a dominating influence on the perceived reform outcome. Other factors, such as the behavior of the legislature, the project management and the prior career of managers, tend to be less important. These results contribute to the scientific discourse about success factors for performance budgeting in public administrations.     

The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Public Broadcasting? The Case of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The purported capacity of the digital age to solve the problem of market failure in the broadcasting sector was widely expected to further compromise the already fragile status of public service broadcasting in advanced democracies. The proliferation of niche media content made possible by convergence led to speculation that publicly funded broadcasters would be rendered redundant. However while public service broadcasting in Australia and in comparable states remains under financial pressure, many signs point to a renewed government commitment to the sector. Using the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as our case study we argue that the digital era has contributed to the renaissance of the sector in unexpected ways.