Person-Environment Fit and Public Service Motivation

This article incorporates insights from Person-Environment Fit theories to the discussion about the effect of Public Service Motivation (PSM) on vocational outcome variables. Analysis of a large Dutch dataset shows that workers with a PSM fit are more satisfied and less inclined to leave their job and the organization they work for than workers without such a fit. This is in accordance with the main hypothesis. Other results underline the importance of the PSM concept as they show that public sector workers have a higher level of PSM than private sector workers. Moreover, private sector workers with high levels of PSM are inclined to look for a job in the public sector, which is in accordance with a main propositions of the PSM framework. The article finishes with a discussion on theoretical and methodological issues raised by the analysis and puts forward some suggestions for further research.     

Pension sponsorship and participation: trends and policy issues

Employment sector and employer size account for substantial variation in workers' participation in employer-sponsored retirement plans. Other things being equal, employees in the public sector--that is, federal, state, and local governments--are much more likely to be offered a retirement plan than workers in the private sector. Within the private sector, workers in firms with 100 or more employees are significantly more likely than workers in smaller firms to have the opportunity to participate in a retirement plan. This situation has prompted Congress to seek ways of reducing small businesses' obstacles to pension coverage. For example, Congress has authorized retirement plans that have fewer reporting requirements and less stringent contribution rules than those imposed on larger employers. Evaluating the effect of these laws on pension coverage is complicated by the many other variables that affect an employer's decision to sponsor a retirement plan and a worker's decision to participate in it. Nevertheless, data collected in national surveys of employers and households can be used to establish a baseline against which future changes in retirement plan sponsorship and participation can be measured. Recent surveys of employers and households reveal that: During the 1990s, participation in retirement plans rose among workers in firms with fewer than 100 employees but remained steady among workers in larger firms. The 1990s saw a substantial shift from defined benefit retirement plans to defined contribution plans. Despite increases in participation, workers in firms with fewer than 100 employees are only about half as likely as those in larger firms to participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan. In both the public and private sectors, part-year or part-time workers are much less likely than year-round, full-time workers to be offered an opportunity to participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan.     

A Comparison of the Values and Commitment of Private Sector, Public Sector, and Parapublic Sector Employees

This study investigated differences in general values, work values and organizational commitment among 549 private sector, public sector, and parapublic sector knowledge workers. No differences in general values were observed across sectors, although five significant work value differences were revealed: parapublic employees value work that contributes to society more than public servants, who value it more than private sector employees; parapublic employees value opportunities for advancement less than both public and private sector employees; public servants value intellectually stimulating and challenging work more than parapublic employees; and private sector employees value prestigious work more than public servants. Private sector employees displayed greater organizational commitment than the employees in the other two sectors. Overall, the findings suggest only limited value differences among employees of the various sectors. The finding of some work value differences between employees in the public and parapublic sectors suggests that these two groups merit separate consideration in comparative studies such as this one.     

Drifting towards convergence? Motivation and performance management in state and private companies in the provision of telecom services in Ghana

The concept of expectancy on which many of the theories of workplace incentive programmes are based, claims that when employees are given a particular level of motivation, it will result in some level of performance. The general perception in Ghana is that public sector employees do not perform as efficiently as private sector workers because they lack incentives to do so. However, few studies have compared the incentive structures of the two sectors. Using empirical evidence from four telecom companies in Ghana, this article shows that the gaps between ‘state’ and ‘private’ have narrowed. Also, while incentive structures such as salary, fringe benefits and job (in)security are converging, critical performance management processes like employees' participation in decision‐making, performance appraisal, monitoring and credibility of sanctions are drifting apart. This article concludes that differences in performance between state and private companies may be explained by performance management processes and not incentive structures. It cautions that improved salaries and other office perquisites may not by themselves achieve organisational performance. Rather, incentives should be embedded in a broader approach through effective performance management processes. The information in the article is relevant to the ‘borderline’ part of the public sector under a deregulated environment. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE TRIUMPH OF ECONOMIC RATIONALISM: THE TREASURY AND THE MARKET ECONOMY

The 1980s have seen the triumph of economic rationalism. Greater efficiency has become a sacred goal. Increased competition and the unlocking of market forces, we are told, are the key means to obtain it. Proponents of economic rationalism insist that the public sector is riddled with inefficiencies. The private sector, by contrast, is self-evidently superior. To the extent that the private sector often operates less than optimally, a major reason is the plethora of perverse governmental regulations which hamper its efficiency. Despite the problems, the public sector needs to model itself wherever possible on the private. And where public sector activities can be or are being done in the private sector, then the public sector should surrender such activities. The inevitable result will be an increase in net economic welfare: the economy will become more dynamic and scarce resources will be allocated more efficiently. Such is the rhetoric of the economic rationalists.     

Personnel practices in careers of women at the top in government and business in Nicaragua and Costa Rica

This article, which is the first empirical study of upper-level female managers in Central America, extends the exploration of similarities and differences between public and private sectors in human resource management to the context of developing countries. A comparison of work hours, recruitment and selection practices, mentoring, political pressure, gender discrimination and sexual harassment, reported by female managers in public and private organizations in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, yielded no sector-based differences and few country-based differences. We conclude, therefore, that the public sector is not a more supportive or more fair employer for women in management than the private sector in these two countries, contrary to the assumption in the women-in-management literature that the public sector is a more hospitable environment. Improvements in human resources practices are appropriate in both sectors.     

Goats or wolves? Private sector managers in the public sector

Public administration reforms have propagated the use of private sector management skills in the public sector, and an increased openness to managers with a private sector background. This has created a debate between those who think private sector experience improves public institutions by bringing core managerial values such as results orientation, efficiency, or openness to innovation, and those who argue that private sector experience can damage core public sector values, such as impartiality and equity. Despite the abundant anecdotal evidence, broad empirical evidence on the effects of private sector experience on public managers' values remains limited. Using data from a survey among central government top managers in 18 European countries, we show that public managers with private sector experience have, as expected, more core managerial values. Yet, unlike the conventional view, core public values do not suffer.     

Sector Differences in Employee’s Perceived Importance of Income and Job Security: Can These be Found Across the Contexts of Countries,Cultures, and Occupations?

Most empirical research has shown that people working in the public sector perceive job security as more important than people working in the private sector, while the inverse is the case for job income. However, it is not known if these relationships hold globally while controlling for occupation and national context. We combine ISSP data from respondents in 25 countries with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and World Bank data to examine whether the previous generally accepted claims hold while taking into account workers’ occupation, as well as national, cultural, and economic conditions. We find evidence that even when taking into account all these factors, government workers place a higher value on job security than private workers, but contrary to the generally accepted claim, we find no statistically significant difference between government and private workers in their high-income motives when taking the occupation and national context into the models.     

Performance Standards and Evaluation

The benefits of performance monitoring for public services are identified as greater transparency of objectives and accountability for results. This article considers recent experience in developing standards to evaluate efficiency and effectiveness of public services. In broad terms this is being done through performance information which is a much more encompassing concept than standards or indicators. Such information is an element of an accountability framework that provides greater management autonomy and flexibility and extends to the private sector which is increasingly providing, or involved with the provision of, public services.     

The Changing Face of Public Sector Employment

While it is easy, and almost a national sport, to criticise the traditional model of public sector employment as being too generous, there is a rationale for its distinctiveness. The career service model that endured for most of the last century was aligned to the bureaucratic form of public administration of that time. As public administration was 'transformed' into public sector management through the importing of private sector techniques, so too has public sector employment been varied in pursuit of greater efficiency, flexibility and responsiveness.     

Hypotheses on the Italian administrative system

Why is the private economy in Italy thriving, while the public sector is so poor? This article spells out the general characteristics of the structures and procedures of the public sector and outlines the criteria on which to judge its efficiency in order to proceed to the presentation of four explanatory hypotheses.

The first hypothesis is an economic one: the private sector may have exploited the public sector, which bears costs that are to the direct advantage of the private economy. The second hypothesis is social: the public sector is poor because it is a means of taking on labour from the underdeveloped South, becoming in this way a social buffer. The third hypothesis is political: the administration is used to secure political support for the ruling parties (and in particular, for the Christian Democratic Party). The fourth hypothesis is historical: the administration is badly run because, as a result of the Fascist experience, Italians fear any form of ‘Bonapartism’: and it is badly organised because the public sector's take‐off has been delayed and the pace imposed on its development has been excessive. In the last section some remedies are suggested and some conclusions are outlined.     

THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PROGRAMS

Assimilating disadvantaged workers in labor markets has been the focus of national policy initiatives for at least two decades. In recent years, public policies have been formulated which will not only provide incentives for the private sector to employ the disadvantaged, but also afford the private sector a larger responsibility in formulating and implementing targeted employment programs. The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and Target Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) are two major examples. This paper initially reviews the public and private employment and training efforts between 1962 and 1982. Considerable attention is given to summarizing and evaluating the performance of these efforts, especially in light of recent program initiatives by the Reagan Administration.     

Working for a Good Cause

A rich literature in public administration has shown that public sector employees have stronger altruistic motivations than private sector employees. Recent economic theories stress the importance of mission preferences and predict that altruistic people sort into the public sector when they subscribe to its mission. This article uses data from a representative survey of more than 30,000 employees from 50 countries to test this prediction. The authors find strong evidence of a mutually reinforcing role of altruism and mission alignment in sorting into the public sector, particularly among highly educated workers and among workers in less‐developed countries.     

Virtual Government: What Will Remain Inside the Public Sector?

Around the world, the public sector is changing in ways which challenge the Weberian or bureaucratic paradigm. If we are to comprehend these changes, we must abandon the binary model of public and private sectors and better understand the non-state public sector. Looking to historical and international examples, this article asks what has to remain inside the state. While acknowledging that there are significant drivers for reform, it argues that the size of government — large or small — should not be a matter of ideology.     

Collaborative Innovation: A Viable Alternative to Market Competition and Organizational Entrepreneurship

There are growing pressures for the public sector to be more innovative but considerable disagreement about how to achieve it. This article uses institutional and organizational analysis to compare three major public innovation strategies. The article confronts the myth that the market‐driven private sector is more innovative than the public sector by showing that both sectors have a number of drivers of as well as barriers to innovation, some of which are similar, while others are sector specific. The article then systematically analyzes three strategies for innovation: New Public Management, which emphasizes market competition; the neo‐Weberian state, which emphasizes organizational entrepreneurship; and collaborative governance, which emphasizes multiactor engagement across organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. The authors conclude that the choice of strategies for enhancing public innovation is contingent rather than absolute. Some contingencies for each strategy are outlined.     

Comparing Affective Commitment in the Public and Private Sectors: A Comprehensive Test of Multiple Mediation Effects

Employees’ organizational commitment is associated with a number of positive outcomes, such as employee motivation, job satisfaction, productivity, and retention. But previous research has suggested that there may be important sector differences in both commitment and its explanations, yet results are very mixed. We study sector differences in affective organizational commitment among 1,043 public and private office workers who perform very similar tasks across sectors, testing the influence of factors thought to explain commitment and expected to vary between the sectors. We propose that the mixed results are due to different variables mediating the relationship between sector and organizational commitment. Conducting a multiple mediation analysis, we find that more hierarchy negatively mediates the relationship between public sector employment and organizational commitment. On the other hand, the relationship between public sector employment and organizational commitment is positively mediated by public service motivation and participatory management. This highlights the importance of not only studying simple sector differences, but also including relevant individual and organizational-level variables that can explain the mechanisms behind such differences.     

The Public/Private Cleavage in a Welfare State: Attitudes Toward Public Management Reform

This study contributes to the growing literature on differences in attitudes between public and private sector employees, particularly with respect to their receptivity or resistance to public management reforms. We begin by asking the question: to what degree does perceived self-interest play a role in accounting for attitudes toward public management reforms such as downsizing, privatization, and public spending? Using attitudinal data from Sweden, a social welfare state with a large public bureaucracy, a tension is observed both among public employees in different levels of government and between public and private sector employees. In the context of public management reforms, national government employees emerge as more right-leaning politically and more supportive of public management reforms than those working in local government. The analysis finds, particularly among national government employees, that while interest as measured here is strongly related to attitudes toward reform, status as a public employee and status as a public bureaucrat are not as significant as other components of interest in accounting for attitudes toward public management reform.     

The role of the public sector in introducing operations research/management science within developing countries

This article examines the role the public sector has played in introducing operations research/ management science (OR/MS) in developing countries. To this end, some of the difficulties in applying OR/MS within the environment of a developing country in general, and within their public sector in particular, are briefly discussed, and the first applications of OR/MS in some such countries are reviewed. In spite of the fact that the application of OR/MS in the public sector is generally more difficult than that in the private sector, it is shown that OR/MS has, in most cases, entered countries through the public sector. Possible reasons for this phenomenon are discussed and an assessment of the contribution of OR/MS to public sector decision-making is made.     

NOT JUST BRICKS AND MORTAR: EEO IN HOMESWEST

Abstract: Moves by both state and federal governments to implement private sector management practices in government administration have received attention from a number of writers. Feminist critics of corporate management argue that, in very devolved situations, public sector management concentrates on the achievement of program outcomes to the detriment of other management objectives and Equal Employment Opportunity is ignored. The contention that efficiency and effectiveness are promoted at the expense of equity under a regime of public sector corporate management will be addressed through a case study of the West Australian Housing Commission, Homeswest. This paper examines the results of Equal Employment Opportunity programs in a highly corporatised state government agency.