Changes in public service motivation: Can public administration education help cultivate it?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211024334 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Changes in public service
motivation: Can public
administration education
help cultivate it?
Wan-Ling Huang
National Taipei University, Taiwan, Republic of China
Abstract
This study aims to investigate the influence of public administration education on the
development of college students’public service motivation over time. The data come
from a four-wave panel survey of 868 Taiwanese undergraduate students who enrolled
in college in 2015; 418 of them majored in public administration and 450 majored in
business administration. Latent growth modeling was employed to capture a change
of overall public service motivation and individual public service motivation dimensions.
Our findings show that students’public service motivation tends to change during the
college years, while public administration education may not significantly contribute to
its development.
Points for practitioners
Research findings offer some implications for practice. Given that public service motiv-
ation seems to be changeable, it becomes relevant for public managers to invest in devel-
oping employees’motivation to serve and make a positive difference in others’lives.
However, any in-service training aiming to foster employee public service motivation
should not focus too much on knowledge delivery, but rather accentuate the establish-
ment and practice of service values.
Keywords
Latent growth modeling, panel study, public administration education, public service
motivation, undergraduate socialization
Corresponding author:
Wan-LingHuang, Department of PublicAdministration and Policy, National Taipei University,No. 151, University
Rd., Sanxia Dist., New Taipei City 237303, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Email: whuang@mail.ntpu.edu.tw
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2022, Vol. 88(4) 1176–1191
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523211024334
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Introduction
In recent decades, public service motivation (PSM) has become one of the most popular
topics in public administration (PA) research. One thing particularly worthy of attention
is that numerous studies have reported a positive relationship between individuals’PSM
and several desirable outcomes, including work performance, job satisfaction, organiza-
tional commitment, knowledge sharing, organizational citizenship behavior, and so on
(Breaugh et al., 2018; Chen and Hsieh, 2015; Leisink and Steijn, 2009; Ritz, 2009;
Shim and Faerman, 2017). In light of this perspective, it is important to understand
whether PSM can be “cultivated”and, if so, what factors may determine its development.
Some studies have revealed that pro-social motivation, a value associated with PSM,
tends to be inborn and remains relatively static over time (Kroll and Vogel, 2018; Vogel
and Kroll, 2016), while others have reported that PSM can be dynamic, being influenced
by external forces (Bellé, 2013; Brænder and Andersen, 2013; Kjeldsen and Jacobsen,
2013; Ward, 2014). The seemingly inconclusive evidence may result from the possibility
that individuals’PSM levels may be relatively stable but can still experience change as a
response to contextual factors. As Christensen et al. (2017) indicated, individuals’PSM
levels may not vary drastically in adulthood, but are likely to be influenced by both inten-
tional and unintentional practices in the surrounding environment.
We are, thus, curious about what factors might determine individuals’PSM levels.
Prior studies have reported the influence of demographic characteristics (Bright, 2005;
Camilleri, 2007; Parola et al., 2019; Riccucci, 2018; Vandenabeele, 2011), family social-
ization (Perry et al., 2008), and work environments (Camilleri, 2007; Kjeldsen, 2014),
though very few have paid attention to the relationship between education and PSM.
Given that education is expected to affect individuals’motivation by shaping their
beliefs, values, and professional identification (Pandey and Stazyk, 2008), the present
study aims to further discover the effect of education, particularly professional education
in the PA field, on individuals’PSM levels.
Developing students’public service values is considered one of the most important
goals of PA programs. The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and
Administration (NASPAA, 2014: 2) clearly indicates in its accreditation standards for
master’s degree programs that “The mission, governance, and curriculum of eligible pro-
grams shall demonstrably emphasize public service values.”Accordingly, PA programs
should aim to cultivate students’motivation to serve the public, in addition to providing
professional training regarding administrative knowledge and analytic methods. In many
countries, undergraduate programs in PA also consider training future civil servants as
their mission. Therefore, whether PA education successfully cultivates students’PSM
has practical implications for the quality of civil service personnel.
As discussed later, a few studies have been conducted to examine whether PA educa-
tion facilitates individuals’PSM, but their findings are not consistent and their research
designs prevent them from making a conclusive argument. Given that more than four-
fifths of empirical studies on PSM have adopted cross-sectional designs that face limita-
tions in examining the development of PSM (Ritz et al., 2016), longitudinal data from
Taiwanese college students were collected for this study. Latent growth modeling
Huang 1177
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