Are transformational and transactional types of leadership compatible? A two‐wave study of employee motivation

Transformational and transactional leadership strategies have become prominent in public administration research, but it is unclear whether they are compatible or whether they could undermine each other. We examine the combined and interactive effects of transformational and three types of transactional leadership (contingent verbal rewards, material rewards, and sanctions) on employee work motivation, conceptualized as work engagement and intrinsic motivation. Panel analyses using repeated measures of 385 leaders and 3,797 employees show that transformational leadership and contingent verbal rewards increased employee motivation. However, simultaneous use of contingent material rewards undermined the benefits of transformational leadership. Thus, the motivational potential of service‐ or community‐oriented visions was undercut when leaders also appealed to extrinsic material motives. This could help explain why financial incentives do not always have the expected benefits in public organizations. We therefore argue that research and practice should pay more attention to how different leadership strategies work in combination.     

Corporate Social Responsibility,Public Service Motivation and Organizational Citizenship Behavior in the Public Sector

This article examines the mediating role of public service motivation (PSM) on the relationship between employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). A sample of employees working in public sector banks in Egypt completed a structured questionnaire comprising of questions regarding CSR perceptions and PSM. Immediate supervisors rated the OCB of employees who responded to the survey. Results reported in the paper found the following: a) Employee perceptions of both internal and external CSR had a positive influence on the development of employee desire to serve the public; b) PSM partially mediated the relationship between internal CSR perceptions and employee OCB; c) PSM fully mediated the relationship between external CSR perceptions and OCB. This study extends current knowledge of the theoretical foundations surrounding CSR at the individual-level of analysis and offers practical implications by stressing the importance of employee desire to serve the public.     

Distributed leadership and performance-related employee outcomes in public sector organizations

Distributed leadership is the sharing of leadership tasks between managers and employees. This article demonstrates how a distributed leadership perspective adds to the public administration literature by including an important sensitivity to planned and nonplanned leadership. We propose a theoretical model that explains the impact of distributed leadership on employee outcomes which have a direct or indirect impact on organizational performance in public organizations contingent on alignment with individual leadership capacity and organizational goals. Our empirical analysis in the Danish hospital sector shows initial support for the expected relationships between distributed leadership and performance-related employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and innovative behavior. This indicates that the distributed leadership perspective holds the potential to strengthen service delivery in complex public service organizations while there is weaker support for the notion that the positive impact of distributed leadership depends on individual leadership capacity and their support for organizational goals.     

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Using a sample of full-time employees of a public sector organisation in South Korea, this study examines whether transformational leadership (TL) has a significant positive effect on affective commitment (AC) and organisational citizenship behavior (OCB), and whether AC is positively related to OCB. The study also examines whether AC mediates the effects of TL on OCB. The results of higher-order structural equation modeling indicate a positive relationship between TL and AC; no significant relationship between TL and OCB; and a significant positive relationship between AC and OCB. Thus, the results clearly demonstrate that AC fully mediates the relationship between TL and OCB. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and proposals for future research are made.     

Low-Hanging Fruit: Leadership,Perceived Prosocial Impact,and Employee Motivation

Transformational leadership affects public service motivation, but little is known about the context dependency of this association. If citizen contact and, therefore, relative perceived impacts on others and society differ, the association between transformational leadership and motivation is also expected to differ. Analyzing public employees and their leaders from four organizational contexts, we find that employees have relatively higher perceived impact on others and are more user-oriented in contexts with high citizen contact. The association between transformational leadership and employee motivation also depends on employees’ perceived impact, implying that some fruit hangs lower than other when leaders try to increase employee motivation.     

DOES A PUBLIC SERVICE ETHIC ENCOURAGE ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR? PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION,ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND THE WILLINGNESS TO REPORT ETHICAL PROBLEMS

This article aims to advance our understanding of and confidence in the relationship between employee public service motivation (PSM) and ethical behaviour by testing the degree to which PSM predicts the ethical behaviour or behavioural intention of government employees. Building on previous research, we argue that government employees with higher PSM are not only more likely to internalize values that support public interests, they also are likely to be concerned less about the potential consequences that they may experience by reporting unethical conduct within their agencies. Using data collected through a survey from 477 employees working in a large state agency, we find that supervisors with higher PSM are more likely to be perceived by their subordinates as exhibiting ethical leadership, supervisors exhibiting higher ethical leadership are more likely to have subordinates with higher levels of PSM and that subordinates with higher PSM express a higher willingness to report unethical behaviour within their agency. We discuss implications of these findings for research on PSM.     

How empowering leadership reduces employee silence in public organizations

The intentional withholding of critical work‐related information can have serious negative consequences in public organizations. Yet, few studies have examined why public employees intentionally remain silent about problems and how to prevent such behaviour. This article provides insights into how managers may lower employee silence in government organizations. We develop a model that suggests that empowering leadership by frontline supervisors reduces public employee silence, by improving employee trust in their supervisors, granting employees control over their jobs, and strengthening identification with the organization. We test the model in two cross‐sectional studies with data collected from all employees working in two local governments in the United States. We find empirical support for the model in both studies. We discuss the implications of the research results for public management scholarship and practice.     

Does Ownership Matter for Employee Motivation When Occupation Is Controlled for?

The public service motivation literature argues that public employees are more motivated than private employees to deliver public service for the benefit of society. But the reason for this may be that the classical welfare services are predominant in the public sector. This article therefore investigates if ownership matters to employee motivation when occupation is controlled for. The findings show that the employees in both sectors have pro-social motivation, but that public sector employees are more motivated to work for the public interest, whereas private sector employees are more motivated to help individual users of services. The survey data are based on 3,304 Danish employees working in private as well as public organizations.     

Does transformational leadership stimulate user orientation? Evidence from a field experiment

While doing good for specific citizens and users is often considered a powerful motivator among public service employees, little research has rigorously evaluated how public managers can promote individualized prosocial motivation. We follow recent studies on the behavioural implications of ‘user orientation’ to explore how public managers can use a specific leadership strategy—transformational leadership—to reinforce employees' individualized prosocial motivation. Combining a field experiment with 80 childcare centre managers and survey reports from their 590 preschool teachers, we assess the effect of a transformational leadership training programme on user orientation. The results show a positive effect on user orientation three months after the training programme but no persistent effect 15 months after the intervention. This implies that, at least in the short term, public managers can use transformational leadership behaviours to stimulate user orientation.     

SERVANT LEADERSHIP,TRUST, AND THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES IN CHINA

So‐called servant leaders strive selflessly and altruistically to assist others before themselves, work to develop their followers' greatest potential, and seek to benefit the wider community. This article examines the trust‐based mechanisms by which servant leadership influences organizational commitment in the Chinese public sector, using data from a survey of civil servants. Quantitative analysis shows that servant leadership strongly influences affective and normative commitment, while having no impact on continuance commitment. Furthermore, we find that affective trust rather than cognitive trust is the mechanism by which servant leadership induces higher levels of commitment. Our findings suggest that in a time of decreasing confidence levels in public leaders, servant leadership behaviour may be used to re‐establish trust and create legitimacy for the Chinese civil service.     

Changes in Prosocial Motivation over Time: A Cross-Sector Analysis of Effects on Volunteering and Work Behavior

A gap in research on prosocial motivation is that very little is known about its change across time, let alone, how such changes affect employee behavior. Using multiple waves of panel data, covering a period of sixteen years, this article finds that prosocial motivation is mostly stable, and there are no broader socialization effects in the private and public sector. However, when prosocial motivation increases, it leads to increases in either work or volunteering behavior, suggesting that public employees may use alternative outlets to realize their motivation if such motivational capital cannot be linked to the mission of their organizations.     

Only If We Agree? How Value Conflicts Moderate the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Public Service Motivation

Existing studies find positive associations between transformational leadership and public service motivation (PSM), but value conflict may moderate the relationship. This is investigated for Danish University Colleges using a mixed-methods design. These colleges educate future teachers, pedagogues, nurses, and social workers, and their strong public service-oriented missions and potentially conflicting public values make this sector a well-suited case to test whether consensus on public values is a precondition for a positive association between transformational leadership and employee PSM. Based on a survey of 968 employees combined with qualitative interviews concerning specific public values, we find that the less value conflict, the stronger the positive relationship between the direct managers’ level of transformational leadership and the employees’ PSM. This is also the case for the top management. This implies that transformational leadership might be a way for managers to enhance employee PSM, but only if there is no severe value conflict.     

Talking the Talk of Public Service Motivation: How Public Organization Logics Matter for Employees' Expressions of PSM

This article aims to move beyond the public-private dichotomy in studying public service motivation (PSM) by showing how organizational logics matter for the type of PSM (instrumental, normative, or affective) that employees express. Using data from 50 interviews in police stations, prisons, hospitals, municipalities, and schools, we show that differences in service logic (the user's feeling of the desirability of a service) and user logic (people-changing or people-processing services) matter for employees’ expressions of PSM in that this results in different emphases within public service motivation. We conclude that institutions such as organizational logics matter for PSM expressions and that research on PSM should account for differences between public service-providing organizations.     

Organizational commitment in public servants through civic engagement

The public service motivation (PSM) theory has emphasized the distinctive motivational character of public employees in serving public institutions. However, scarce research has explored whether public service motivation extrapolates to civic engagement as another way to participate in public affairs. We contend that public employees' stronger sense of public interest expands toward higher engagement levels in social, economic, political, and civic organizations. Using data from the most recent wave of the World Values Survey from 2017 to 2020 in 77 countries—this study compares the degree of civic engagement of public servants with general citizens' level of engagement. Results across all world regions, except Africa, support the hypotheses that public servants are more willing to participate in civic organizations. However, public employees' civic engagement is contingent on organizational type (modern vs. traditional) and bureaucratic rank (top- vs. street-level), for street-level bureaucrats participate more in traditional but not modern organizations.     

Change leadership and change embeddedness in public organizations: Connecting macrolevel reform to microlevel implementation

Governments initiate major public sector reforms for various reasons. Although change leadership appears crucial, its role in implementing reforms in public organizations receives scant attention. Insights from public administration and change management literature help to bridge the gap between these macrolevel and microlevel perspectives. Our multilevel study of two youth care organizations addressing public sector reform explores how leadership behavior—and in interaction between top and middle managers—contributes to the concept of what we call change embeddedness among front-line employees. The use of leadership behaviors during the reform that are leader centric (shaping) appear to be associated with greater ambiguity and worse change embeddedness. However, leadership focused on engaging employees and boundary spanning with external organizations seems to support the embeddedness of the reform, especially when these behaviors are connected to a clear sense of purpose around the change.     

COVID-19-induced governance transformation: How external shocks may spur cross-organizational collaboration and trust-based management

Persistent efforts to meet the demand for cross-organizational collaboration and trust-based management have been halted by a mixture of bureaucratic inertia and entrenched New Public Management thinking. This article explores whether the COVID-crisis has broken the reform deadlock. Based on a handful of recent surveys and interviews conducted by Danish public sector organizations, we look at the crisis-induced transformations in local public administration. The main finding is that the pandemic has forced administrative agencies to collaborate with each other to solve new and pressing problems in a turbulent environment. Similarly, it has urged public managers to trust the skills and motivation of their employees, who must solve administrative tasks in innovative ways and with limited managerial support, supervision and monitoring. While changes may amount to little more than a temporary departure from normalcy, lesson-drawing, learning retention and proactive leadership may help to produce a sustainable transformation.     

Contingent and Non-Contingent Working in Local Government: Contrasting Psychological Contracts

Given that the contingent worker is likely to be a familiar presence in the public service workplace of the future, this paper explores the consequences of contingent work arrangements on the attitudes and behaviour of employees using the psychological contract as a framework for analysis. Drawing upon survey evidence from a sample of permanent, fixed term and temporary staff employed in a British local authority, our results suggest that contract status plays an important role in how individuals view the exchange relationship with their employer and how they respond to the inducements received from that relationship. Specifically, contingent employees are less committed to the organization and engage in organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) to a lesser degree than their permanent counterparts. However, contrary to our hypothesis, the relationship between the inducements provided by the employer and OCB is stronger for contingent employees. Such findings have implications for the treatment of contingent and non-contingent employees in the public services.     

A Two-Pronged Approach? Combined Leadership Styles and Innovative Behavior

This article examines the relationship between transformational, transactional, and empowering leadership and the innovative behavior of public sector employees. Instead of investigating their association individually, this article focuses on the interaction between different types of leadership. The analysis is based on a survey from one of Denmark’s largest hospitals (n = 1,647). The main result is that empowering leadership, which focuses on employee capacity, moderates the association between transformational leadership, which is directed at motivation, and innovative behavior. The findings emphasize the importance of not only focusing on a single leadership style but also understanding how they work in combination.     

High Performance Expectations: Concept and Causes

Employees contribute more when they are aware of their leaders’ high performance expectations (HPE), but how can leaders successfully convey HPE? Here it is argued that both transformational and transactional leadership behaviors involve goal-setting, which can affect employee-perceived HPE. Using a leadership training field experiment with 3,730 employees nested in 471 organizations, the findings support that training in transformational, transactional and combination leadership training significantly increased employees’ HPE relative to a control group. Furthermore, transformational leadership and pecuniary rewards seem to be important mechanisms. This implies that public leaders can affect HPE through leadership and thus potentially organizational performance.