Contextualized measures of public service motivation: the case of Spain
| Author | Xavier Ballart,Clara Riba |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852315574995 |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Review of
Administrative
Article
Sciences
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2017, Vol. 83(1) 43–62
Contextualized measures of
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852315574995
of Spain
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Xavier Ballart
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Clara Riba
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Abstract
Since the initial ‘public service motivation’ concept and measures were developed,
various studies have raised concerns with regard to cultural differences. According to
previous research trying to supplement the four original dimensions of the original
construct with a fifth dimension, this study follows this same strategy, taking into
account three aspects of the Napoleonic administrative tradition. The analysis captures
one new dimension with political loyalty values, which slightly improves the measure-
ment of public service motivation in that specific context.
Points for practitioners
Previous research has showed that ‘public service motivation’ has consequences in
terms of individual and collective behaviour and, thus, it may contribute to improve
organizations. Public service motivation has been related to performance, organizational
commitment and job satisfaction, among other attitudes and behaviours. It has also been
used by public administrations in job selection processes.
Keywords
Civil service, human resources management, personnel policies, public administration
Introduction
The discussion concerning the motives that induce individuals to choose to work
for the community and to perform a public or social service (Brewer and Selden,
1998; Rainey and Steinbauer, 1999; Vandenabeele, 2007) has attracted a lot of
attention among public management scholars and has created a growing
Corresponding author:
Xavier Ballart, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Edifici B Campus, Bellaterra 08193, Spain.
Email: xavier.ballart@uab.cat
44
International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(1)
international research sub-area on public service motivation (PSM). However,
early studies already warned that PSM is a value-laden concept and that some
values may be more important in some countries than in others, questioning the
appropriateness of applying the same concept, items and dimensions to measure
PSM across countries (Norris, 2003; Vandenabeele and Van de Walle, 2008). The
issue of cultural difference is an important one, not only because the literal trans-
lation of some of the items used to measure PSM may sound different to the ears of
public and non-public employees in different countries, but also because the ideas
of ‘helping others’ and ‘doing good for others and society’ might be interpreted
differently in countries with different views on the roles of the state, the private
sector or civil society.
Since the initial PSM concept and measures were developed in the US, various
studies measuring PSM in different countries have raised concerns related to some
of the items and dimensions of the construct (Coursey and Pandey, 2007; Giauque
et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2012; Vandenabeele, 2008). Research has followed a rather
conservative approach, building on Perry’s (1996) PSM dimensions and items to
measure PSM, with two different orientations: in one case, a group of scholars
from 12 countries tried to develop and test a revised measurement instrument for
PSM (Kim et al., 2012); in other cases, researchers have tried to supplement the
four original dimensions of the original construct with a fifth dimension to capture
the prevailing values in the public service regime of the specific country (Giauque
et al., 2011; Vandenabeele, 2008), sometimes omitting one dimension or combining
two dimensions and creating a new one (Castaing, 2006; Coursey and Pandey,
2007; Coursey et al., 2008; Taylor, 2007).
In this article, we follow this second orientation, combining two of the four
original dimensions and creating a new dimension with the aim of creating a cul-
turally specific supplement. In order to do so, we only consider public employees in
the upper ranks of the administration who have chosen to make their professional
career in the public sector, and we focus on public values as we understand that one
dimension of PSM should concentrate on public values that are influenced by the
administrative tradition, a concept that takes into account the state vision and
work values. The results suggest that it is possible to adapt the concept and meas-
urement instrument of PSM to each specific case by taking into account specific
public values. This is important as it confirms that modified measures provide a
better empirical foundation for the measurement of PSM. At the same time, it
confirms the difficulty of making comparisons of PSM across countries. We hope
that this article is a starting point for the study of PSM in Spain and a contribution
to the study of PSM in groups of countries with similar political and administrative
traditions.
Pursuing the measurement of PSM
The most commonly used definition of PSM was proposed by Perry and Wise
in 1990: ‘an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded
Ballart and Riba
45
primarily or uniquely in public institutions’ (Perry and Wise, 1990: 368). There
are many other definitions of PSM but only a few refer explicitly to beliefs
and values. According to Vandenabeele (2007: 547), the foundation of PSM is
the ‘beliefs and values that transcend self and organizational interests on behalf
of a larger political entity’. This is particularly interesting since beliefs and
values connect the individual with the political and administrative environment
and culture. With regard to the measurement of PSM, the majority of PSM
studies use some variation of Perry’s (1996) dimensions: ‘attraction to policy-
making’, ‘commitment to the public interest’, ‘compassion’ and ‘self-sacrifice’.
This is the main model that has been used to measure PSM even though there
is an ongoing discussion regarding the number of dimensions and the conveni-
ence of redefining those dimensions.
According to the original conceptualization by Perry and Wise (1990), PSM
reflects three categories of motives: rational, norm-based and affective. Rational
motives are present when individuals want to participate in policymaking to pursue
their political agenda or when individuals commit to a public programme because
they personally identify with it. Norm-based motives are generated by a desire to
pursue the public interest, and they include a sense of patriotism, civic duty or
loyalty to the government. Finally, affective motives refer to behaviour motivated
by emotional responses to different social contexts and are characterized by a desire
to help others.
This initial conceptualization of PSM received several critiques. Some scholars
argued that ‘rational’ motives may include self-interested motives or some other
form of individual gain or the advancement of special or private interests (Wise,
2000; Wright and Pandey, 2008). They also argued that ‘normative’ and ‘affective’
motives could overlap (Wright and Pandey, 2008) or that the items of compassion
do not always represent affective motives (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007; Wright,
2008). Some found in their empirical analysis that ‘commitment to the public inter-
est’ and ‘self-sacrifice’ could be reduced to one dimension (Castaing, 2006; Taylor,
2007), while others argued that ‘attraction to policymaking’ captures two attitudes
that may not align with each other – attraction to policymaking and attraction to
politics – and therefore that results could express dissatisfaction with politicians
rather than a low interest in public policymaking (Coursey and Pandey, 2007;
Coursey et al., 2008).
In this regard, the most complete revision of the original motives proposed a
distinction among ‘instrumental’ motives, ‘value-based’ motives and ‘identification’
motives (Kim and Vandenabeele, 2010). ‘Instrumental’ motives refer to the meth-
ods used to perform a meaningful public service, such as working in the public
sector and participating in the policymaking process. ‘Value-based’ motives con-
cern the public values that individuals seek to promote, and ‘identification’ motives
are related to the people that public employees identify with because of their situ-
ation of vulnerability. On the basis of this distinction, Kim et al. (2012, 82) con-
ceive PSM as a four-dimensional construct, with self-sacrifice as ‘the foundational
concept representing the altruistic or pro-social origins of PSM’ and three other
46
International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(1)
dimensions that they rename ‘attraction to public participation’, ‘commitment to
public values’ and ‘compassion’. According to this distinction, the project proposes
new items that represent those motives.
This new conceptualization of PSM is better designed to capture self-sacrifice,
affective commitment and the idea of pursuing certain public values: equity, con-
cern for future generations, accountability and ethics. It also excludes the idea of
attraction to politics in order to concentrate on participation in policymaking and
other activities that contribute to the community and society. However, it brings
together in one dimension items related to public participation and commitment to
public interest, sacrificing, in this case, part of the homogeneity of indicators that
was achieved in the other three dimensions. In its effort to...
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