Public Service Motivation and Interpersonal Citizenship Behavior in Public Organizations: Testing a Preliminary Model

ABSTRACT

A good deal of research has demonstrated how public service motivation (PSM) facilitates desirable organizational attitudes and behaviors such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work effort. Other research has demonstrated that PSM predicts higher levels of social capital and altruistic behavior in society. Between these two strands of PSM research, there is a gap in knowledge about whether PSM matters to citizenship behavior internal to the organization. This article tests the direct and indirect relationship between individual levels of PSM and interpersonal citizenship behavior using a structural equation model. We also account for the effect of organizational environment by incorporating a measure of co-worker support. We find that PSM has a direct and positive effect on interpersonal citizenship behavior in public organizations, even when accounting for the significant role of co-worker support.     

Fair Trade-Organic Coffee Cooperatives,Migration, and Secondary Schooling in Southern Mexico

We explore three trends in rural southern Mexico (Fair Trade coffee, migration, and conditional cash transfers) that could explain the rapid rise in education from 1995–2005 using survey data from 845 coffee farming households in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. Results from a household fixed-effects model show that household participation in a Fair Trade-organic cooperative contributed to about a 0.7 year increase in schooling for girls. US migration opportunities appear to have even stronger positive impacts on schooling for females. Although participation in Fair Trade-organic cooperatives appears also to have increased male schooling, increased migration opportunities have had an indeterminate effect for males.     

The central provident fund scheme in Singapore: Challenges and reform

The article explains the features and evolution of the Central Provident Fund (CPF) scheme in Singapore and the reforms it has undergone in the face of recent challenges. At its inception, it was designed as an exclusively state managed savings scheme to meet the retirement needs of its members. Over the years, it has been gradually liberalised, allowing account holders to use their savings for additional purposes. In recent years two key challenges have arisen. One has been the problems arising out of liberalisation itself, which has left too many CPF members with insufficient savings for their retirement as a result of mistaken or imprudent choices in committing their savings to the additional options available. In response, the Singapore government has tempered or reversed the process of liberalisation, imposing or maintaining constraints on the use of CPF savings so as to ensure sufficient savings to meet retirement needs. The second challenge is the need to restructure the Singapore economy in the face of regional and global competition so as to sustain the profitability of the business sector and enhance employability of the older workers. The response of the government has been to allow the CPF contribution rates of employers to be adjusted and the CPF salary ceiling to be lowered so as to reduce business costs and increase the chances of employment of older workers. However, using the CPF scheme as a macroeconomic tool by reducing employers’ contribution rates may lead to less scope for CPF members to accumulate sufficient savings for their retirement. This would mean that the response to the second challenge would be at odds with the response to the first challenge.     

Terrorism: An Identity Theory Perspective

The present article outlines the role of personal, social, and cultural identity in religiously and ethnically motivated terrorism. It is proposed that terrorism represents the confluence of a cultural identity strongly based in collectivism and in fundamentalist adherence to religious or cultural principles, a social identity based in sharp contrasts between one's own group and groups perceived as threats, and a foreclosed and authoritarian sense of personal identity or, less often, a diffused and aimless personal identity. Examples from religious-extremist and ethnic conflicts in which terrorism has been employed are used to illustrate the tenets advanced here. Recommendations for addressing and preventing the threat of terrorism are discussed.     

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends: Leveraging Campaign Resources to Maximize Congressional Power

Central to the study of Congress is the study of relationships among members. Electoral collaboration is a function of a member's position in the broader congressional power network. It allows members to leverage their campaign resources to achieve the four classic goals of members of Congress: reelection, making good public policy, obtaining power within the institution, and having one's party in the majority. Using nearly 3.2 million FEC records from 2010 to 2016, we explore the dynamics that influence electoral collaboration. We find members are most likely to collaborate electorally with other members from the same state, party, and committee, and the most electorally vulnerable. Further, party leaders share most frequently with the rank and file. These findings build upon our expanding understanding of congressional collaboration, the networks members of Congress form, and the congressional power structure members operate within.