Public Service Motivation Research: Lessons for Practice

Public service motivation research has proliferated in parallel with concerns about how to improve the performance of public service personnel. However, scholarship does not always inform management and leadership. This article purposefully reviews public service motivation research since 2008 to determine the extent to which researchers have identified lessons for practice. The results of the investigation support several lessons—among them using public service motivation as a selection tool, facilitating public service motivation through cooperation in the workplace, conveying the significance of the job, and building leadership based on public service values. These results are important because they offer evidence that the field is coalescing around tactics that managers and leaders can use to address enduring concerns about employee motivation in the public sector. They also prompt us to articulate ideas that can guide a tighter integration of research and practice moving forward.     

Elements of Successful Change: The Service Tasmania Experience to Public Sector Reform

For Tasmanians accessing Government services has traditionally required visits to various Lead Agency locations, as service delivery was fragmented and bureaucratic. The Tasmanian Government adopted a customer‐focused approach implementing ‘Service Tasmania’ a One‐Stop‐Shop service delivery concept. This paper investigates what led to the success of this public service reform and in particular what change management practices were applied during the change effort. Ten common factors of successful change have been identified in the literature; these are explored determining their relevance throughout this initiative. Data were collected with semi‐structured interviews conducted with 63 staff plus senior management. Data were analysed using a grounded theory approach and open coding was applied during the first pass through the data to reach the initial codes identifying critical terms and generic key issues. Findings confirm that several management interventions were necessary to address resistance and conflict issues and keep the government reform project on track.     

公共安全：公共管理不可忽视的社会问题

公共安全是公共部门必须重视的公共管理中的一个社会问题。现代社会存在多种威胁公共安全的因素。公共部门要和社会公众共同合作,制定保障公共安全的法律和制度,有效地处理危机,更好地实现社会公共利益。     

From Rhetoric to Blueprint: The Moran Review as a Concerted,Comprehensive and Emergent Strategy for Public Service Reform

On 3 September 2009, Prime Minister Rudd announced a six‐month Review of Australian Government Administration. He appointed an Advisory Group chaired by Terry Moran, Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, to prepare a discussion paper, oversee a benchmarking study and consultations, and craft a blueprint to reform the Australian Public Service (APS) in order to deal with future governance challenges. The vision is to develop a forward‐looking, innovative, collaborative, citizen‐focused, agile, informed and highly‐skilled APS to advise and deliver policy and services for government. Ahead of the Game, a comprehensive Blueprint for action, was released on 29 March 2010. This article provides a high‐level review of motivations and process for the Moran Review, an overview of the Blueprint, an assessment of the strategy and process, and suggestions for moving forward on selected issues.     

公共服务财权配置的问题分析与改革策略

公共服务的财权配置应根据市场经济条件下,各级政府的公共服务职能来确定,合理划分中央与地方的财权,适当安排政府间关于公共服务的财政收支,使各级政府的财权与事权相匹配.分税制确立了各级政府财权划分的基本格局,实践中政府间财政支出的结构不尽合理.税权高度集中,财权层层上移,转移支付失当,基层政府财力趋微,导致各级政府财权与事权不匹配.公共服务的事权配置是财权配置的基础,而财权配置又是事权履行的保证.改革政府间的财权配置应该合理划分政府间税收权限,改革转移支付制度.同时,扩大公共服务机构融资渠道,化解基层政府的财政风险,建立协调发展基金.     

Berlusconi,Boehner and the Brink: Lessons for Political Reform in Britain

In the early autumn of 2013 large minorities in Italy and the United States fermented crises that badly disrupted the government of the two countries. These cases were widely understood as instances of dysfunction in established democracies that would rarely be replicated elsewhere. However, while all the conditions that generated the crises are unlikely to be evident in other established democracies three important factors that caused the disruptions in the American and Italian political processes are also sources of political conflict in Britain. They are the powers of the second legislative chamber, the weakening links between parties and social groups, and the redrawing of electoral boundaries. All of them present problems for political reform in Britain, and understanding the role they played in the two political crises of 2013 is important for future reform in Britain.     

The Impact of Electoral Reform on the Public Service: The New Zealand Case

October 1996 marked the beginning of a new era in New Zealand politics, with the advent of a system of proportional representation based on the German model. This article explores the impact of electoral reform on the public service. First, it summarises the extensive public sector reforms during the mid-to-late 1980s and considers the preparations undertaken by the public service for proportional representation. Second, it outlines the concerns and expectations about the likely consequences of the new electoral system on the bureaucracy. Third, against this background, the article examines the extent to which the public service has been affected by electoral reform. It is argued that despite some notable changes to the political environment within which officials operate, the overall impact of proportional representation on the public service to date has been modest. The analysis presented here is based on a series of interviews conducted during 1997 with ministers, senior public servants, ministerial advisers and parliamentary officials, along with a range of secondary sources.     

公共服务动机：内涵、检验途径与展望

公共服务是一种特殊的使命,它解决的是涉及整个社会的公共问题.担当这一使命的个体应具有一种更高水平的伦理.传统动机理论在解释这一点上遇到了许多困境.公共服务动机理论则集中研究公共部门行为,在于识别、测量和理解这种公共服务伦理.有一些学者在这方面已经做了不少努力,通过检验公共部门雇员的公共服务动机水平和影响因素,揭示公共服务动机的结构,试图建立对公共服务行为能做出更合理解释的公共服务动机过程理论.这一理论虽然在研究方法和结论上是否具有普遍性还需进一步完善,但已经显示出对公共服务行为解释的合理性,并可能为公共部门行为激励结构设计提供一种新的思想源泉.     

The Public Service: Independence, Responsibility and Responsiveness

In recent years there has been controversy surrounding the issues of the independence, responsibility and responsiveness of our public services. Critics come from two opposing directions: (i) there have been charges of politicisation of the public service, with the implication that it has lost its independence and become dominated by the government; (ii) Pusey (1991) has accused 'economic rationalists' in the public service of pursuing their own neo-classical agenda and dominating government policy. Both criticisms reveal a misunderstanding of the respective roles and responsibilities of ministers and public servants and the proper relations between them. In our system of democratic government, it is the prerogative of ministers to decide and the role of departments to propose and advise and then implement the decisions of ministers. This contribution begins by considering the respective responsibilities of ministers and officials, before canvassing the charges of politicisation and what should be expected from public servants in contributing to policy development. Finally there is consideration of the ethical values of public servants and what responsibility they might have for the 'public interest'.     

Suited to Serve: The Antecedents and Perceptions of Public Service Motivation in National Service

While research suggests that public service motivation may be a dynamic trait in individuals, particularly early in their careers, other recent research has found that PSM may be relatively stable upon entry into the workforce (Vogel and Kroll 2016). To identify more precisely the decision point among individuals considering a public service career, the present study uses the antecedents of public service motivation framework (Perry 1997) to predict participation in AmeriCorps, a voluntary national service program in the United States. Findings reveal that antecedent conditions of PSM, including the prevalence of seeing family members and mentors help others as well as participation in student government, predict whether an individual will join an AmeriCorps programs. Many of these self-reported motivations support the argument that people attracted to public service hold strong other-regarding values. These findings suggest that human resources managers would be wise to consider these antecedent conditions to public service motivation when identifying pools of talent for recruiting and selecting prospective employees.     

Public Employees as Swing Voters: Empirical Evidence on Opposition to Public Reform

Reform offers economic gains for society atlarge, but can represent a threat to theinterests of public employees. Publicsector reform faces opposition from votersemployed in public sector. Norwegian dataallow for an analysis this interpretation.Survey data show that public employeesprefer less reform than the rest of thepopulation. The voting behavior of publicemployees is more sensitive to reform thanis that of other voters (the swing voterhypothesis), and hence: shares of publicemployees in a local jurisdiction have anegative impact on the probability ofreform.     

The Family Support Act of 1988: Federalism, Developmental Policy, and Welfare Reform

Revising the usual distinction between developmental and redistributivepolicies, I suggest that state and federal governments eachseek programs they believe will help them gain their developmentalgoals. But there is little consensus on the types of welfareprograms that actually do create economic development. Stateand federal participants in welfare reform consequently promotethe kind of federal arrangements that are likely to producethe policies they favor. The developmental politics of the FamilySupport Act of 1988 are shown through five main reform issues:child support; national minimum benefits; transitional benefits;welfare for families having both parents present; and education,training, and employment programs.     

State Fiscal Responses to Welfare Reform during Recessions: Lessons for the Future

The 1996 welfare reform transformed open-ended matching grants to states to fixed block grants. This article considers whether, given the new regime, states will be able and willing to meet the need for public assistance during recessions. The accumulation of large balances of unspent federal welfare funds helped states weather the first year or so of the current recession without having to cut programs for needy families. While new fiscal rules promoted positive reform during a period of economic prosperity, they may be leaving states and their most vulnerable citizens at serious risk as the economic and fiscal slowdown continues.     

从新公共管理到新公共服务——西方公共行政理论的最新发展

自20世纪80年代以来,新公共管理理论在西方国家“突破官僚制”的行政改革中,逐渐成为主导性的行政范式。但新公共管理理论对经济、效率、效能的片面追求,使得民主、公民权和公共利益等公共行政应有的价值观念丧失殆尽。在此背景下,一种新的公共行政理论———新公共服务理论应运而生了。它在肯定新公共管理理论固有价值的基础上,对其理论与实践中的缺陷进行了批判,努力构建一种以公民权利和公共利益为指向、顺应现代公民社会发展要求的新的公共行政范式。