AM I A PUBLIC SERVANT OR AM I A PATHOGEN? PUBLIC MANAGERS' SECTOR COMPARISON OF WORKER ABILITIES
| Author | BARRY BOZEMAN,CHUNG‐AN CHEN |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12034 |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
doi: 10.1111/padm.12034
AM I A PUBLIC SERVANT OR AM I A PATHOGEN?
PUBLIC MANAGERS’ SECTOR COMPARISON
OF WORKER ABILITIES
CHUNG-AN CHEN AND BARRY BOZEMAN
Political rhetoric in the United States is rife with condemnations of public sector workers. The
assertion that public sector workers are less creative, talented, or autonomous than those working
in businesses pervades in both academic studies and public opinions. Facing constant criticisms, do
public managers also perceive that government workers are less able than their private sector peers?
If so, and more importantly, does the perceived inferiority of worker abilities shake their confidence,
thereby undermining their work attitudes? The present study employs social comparison theory
to answer these questions. Based on state government managers’ responses in the United States,
the results indicate that a clear majority of public managers perceive public sector inferiority
with respect to worker creativity, talent, and autonomy. The findings also show that perceived
inferiority is related to lower job satisfaction, job involvement, and pride in working for the current
organization. Based on the findings, we provide suggestions to both researchers and practitioners.
INTRODUCTION
Public management scholars have long occupied themselves with a puzzle: does sector
context matter? While some scholars, especially sociologists and business management
researchers, conclude that sector context either matters little (e.g. Nowell 2009) or that
any observed effects are owing to misspecified models (Meyer 1982), public management
scholars provide evidence that public and business organizations differ in many important
aspects (Rainey and Bozeman 2000). For example, they demonstrate that managerial strat-
egy (Nutt and Backoff 1993), decision-making (Coursey and Bozeman 1990), performance
management (Andrews et al. 2011), and, perhaps most important, core values (Bozeman
2007) are different in these two sectors.
In at least some instances, the literature suggests that the public organizations’ differ-
ences with enterprises are to the formers’ detriment. For example, organizational red tape
tends to be more extensive in public than in private sector organizations (Bozeman and
Feeney 2011). Indictments of public sector performance go well beyond issues of red tape.
Scholars feel that the public sector is necessarily less efficient, and some conclude from
this that it is also, perforce, less effective (e.g. Bartel and Harrison 2005). Typically, the
argument for public sector deficiencies follows this line of reasoning: public organizations
face little market competition and have reduced incentives for innovation; they receive
resources on the basis of monopoly status with little relation of performance to growth;
and they suffer from strong political interference with the frequent result being limited
ability to plan for the long term.
Administrative reform proponents, both popular (Osborne and Gaebler 1992) and
academic (Walsh 1995), believe that these features limit worker abilities such as creativity
and autonomy in the public sector. Some scholars (e.g. Dixit 1997) feel that a lack of
market and monetary incentives may prohibit talented but risk-seeking individuals from
entering the public sector. In sum, public managers in the United Sates and many other
Chung-An Chen is in the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Barry Bozeman is in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
Public Administration Vol. 92, No. 3, 2014 (549–564)
©2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
550 CHUNG-AN CHEN AND BARRY BOZEMAN
countries are often subject to critical comments and distrust, not only from pundits but
sometimes from friends and the public who feel that government employees are less
creative, talented, and autonomous.1
Charles Goodsell (2004), among others, has catalogued many of the criticisms of the
public sector and suggested some of the effects on public managers. The frequent signalling
that public sector workers are ‘less able’ may have an impact on public managers. Yet
while many scholars and policy makers understand the importance of public managers’
images of their work, there is surprisingly little empirical research on the topic. With
few exceptions (e.g. Feeney 2008), previous research has not focused on public managers’
perceptions of their own work in comparison to their perceptions of private sector peers,
not to mention attitudinal outcomes of such perceptions. To fill the gap, we examine: (i)
how public managers compare worker abilities including workers’ talent, creativity, and
autonomy in the respective sectors; and (ii) whether these sector comparisons influence
public managers’ work-related attitudes such as job involvement, job satisfaction, and
pride working for the current organization.
At least two reasons endorse our selection of the three abilities. First, they embrace abili-
ties internal (i.e. talent and creativity) and external (i.e. autonomy) to individuals. Workers
are motivated when both are reinforced (Ryan and Deci 2000). In addition, administrative
reform proponents often question these three aspects of public sector workers and call for
the introduction of market mechanisms and public–private partnership. Public managers
regularly face private sector comparisons with respect to employee talent, creativity, and
autonomy and it would be surprising if these comparisons had no effect on their work
attitudes.
Public managers’ frequent comparison to private sector counterparts seems a par-
ticular category of the intergroup social comparison processes documented by social
psychologists (e.g. Brewer and Weber 1994). This comparison of ‘we’ to ‘they’ is subtlely
different from the processes involved in ‘I’ to ‘you’2(Brewer and Weber 1994). Therefore,
we employ social comparison theory (Festinger 1954) to explain how public managers
may frame their views about public versus private sector context. According to social
comparison theory (SCT), comparison with similar others helps people evaluate their
own opinions and abilities, especially in those instances when objective, non-social means
are unavailable. These social comparisons may affect one’s psychological status, bringing
either positive effects such as pleasure, self-motivation, and self-enhancement or negative
outcomes such as envy, resentment, and derogation (Brickman and Bulman 1977; Wert
and Salovey 2004).
In the present study, SCT suggests the following questions: Do public managers who
perceive that the private sector is superior in worker abilities differ in their work attitudes
from those who do not have such perceptions? If differences exist, are the attitudes
more positive or more negative among those who perceive private sector superiority?
We answer these questions by testing variables from the National Administrative Studies
Project-III (NASP-III). This study begins with a brief introduction of SCT, followed by
hypotheses, findings, and implications.
SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY
Social comparison theory was first proposed by Festinger (1954). As others have further
refined and applied the theory, it has become a cornerstone of social psychology (for
an overview, see Corcoran et al. 2011). In this early research on SCT, Festinger argues
Public Administration Vol. 92, No. 3, 2014 (549–564)
©2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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