Exploring the foundational origins of public service motivation through the lens of behavioral genetics
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| Author | Christoffer Florczak,Stig Hebbelstrup Rye Rasmussen,Ulrich Thy Jensen,Justin M. Stritch,Kaare Christensen,Asbjørn Sonne Nørgaard,Robert Klemmensen |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12837 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Exploring the foundational origins of public
service motivation through the lens of behavioral
genetics
Christoffer Florczak
1
| Stig Hebbelstrup Rye Rasmussen
2
|
Ulrich Thy Jensen
3,4
| Justin M. Stritch
3
| Kaare Christensen
5
|
Asbjørn Sonne Nørgaard
6
| Robert Klemmensen
7
1
Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg
University, Aalborg, Denmark
2
Department of Political Science, University
of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
3
School of Public Affairs, Arizona State
University, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
4
Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public
Leadership, Aarhus University, Aarhus,
Denmark
5
Danish Aging Research Center and the
Danish Twin Registry, University of Southern
Denmark, Odense, Denmark
6
Cevea, København, Denmark
7
Department of Political Science, University
of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Correspondence
Christoffer Florczak, Department of Politics
and Society, Aalborg University, Fibigerstræde
1, Office 28, 9220 Aalborg Ø, Denmark.
Email: ckfl@dps.aau.dk
Abstract
Despite the proliferation of research on public service motiva-
tion (PSM), fundamental questions about its origins continue
to evade scholars: Is PSM driven by genetics, socialized
through experiences, or both? If PSM is socialized, when does
socialization occur? Answering these questions is critical for
reconciling the state versus trait debate, and for assessing the
validity of practical implications prescribed by PSM studies.
Utilizing “nature's own experiment,”we adopt a classical twin
design with 1035 twin pairs to identify how genetic heritabil-
ity, a common environment, or unique environment and expe-
riences can explain variation in PSM. Results show that PSM
is heavily influenced by individuals' unique environments and
experiences; not by genetics. This lends strong evidence to
PSM'suniquenessasamotivational construct as related
“other-regarding”concepts show sizeable genetic compo-
nents. Finally, our results corroborate that PSM is a human
resource with dynamic properties organizations can cultivate
to enhance productivity in public service workforces.
Public service motivation (PSM) research continues to generate a vast literature on everything from antecedents
(e.g., Kim, 2021; Pandey & Stazyk, 2008; Perry, 1997; Van Witteloostuijn et al., 2017) to its effects on individual
behavior and performance (e.g., Andersen et al., 2014; Jensen & Vestergaard, 2017). Despite this progress, enduring
questions continue to haunt PSM research: Is PSM a stable trait—a“predisposition”as originally suggested by Perry
and Wise (1990)?—or is it dynamic and malleable?
Received: 29 April 2021 Revised: 9 December 2021 Accepted: 27 December 2021
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12837
Public Admin. 2023;101:993–1013. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 993
These questions are at the heart of the dominant—yet often implicit—assumption of most empirical PSM research:
PSM is a human resource that can be fostered to enhance productivity of public sector workforces (e.g., Christensen
et al., 2017). While few may regard this assumption as controversial, merely adopting an axiomatic assumption that PSM is
dynamic hampers our ability (1) to advance conceptual understandings of PSM and (2) to legitimately c laim practical recom-
mendations on its applications. If PSM is a predominantly stable trait with a sizeable genetic component or heavily
influenced by early childhood socialization, organizations are confined to harnessing its power through selection and
recruitment processes. Conversely, if PSM is dynamic and malleable, identifying potential ways that family, education, and
organizational environments can cultivate this resource through socialization processes should remain a key objecti ve.
To help close this critical and fundamental gap in the PSM literature, we offer several contributions to PSM the-
ory and research. First, while the “state versus trait”debate is not new (Wright & Grant, 2010), its continuous
resurfacing (e.g., Jensen et al., 2020) stresses the pressing need to resolve this conundrum. This has important impli-
cations for both PSM theory and the practical recommendations flowing from it. An important part of advancing
PSM theory is disentangling its conceptual roots and demonstrating its uniqueness from other, related “other-regard-
ing”constructs. One way to demonstrate conceptual distinctiveness of PSM is to showcase its discordant properties
from constructs such as altruism, emphathy, and prosociality that all have sizeable genetic components. Second, even
if PSM is rooted in socialized environments and experiences, these may occur either early or later in life creating
more stable or volatile properties. Tracing the roots of PSM and parsing early versus later-in-life socialization is an
important precondition for advancing PSM theory. Finally, providing rigorous empirical evidence to assess the valid-
ity of the axiomatic assumption that PSM is dynamic offers legitimacy to the large existing body of work that pre-
scribes a host of practical recommendations on ways to cultivate PSM in public service workforces.
Our article is structured as follows. First, we introduce how the field of behavioral genetics affords us a unique
opportunity to advance fundamental insights into the conceptual origins of PSM. Next, we show how existing
research have explored the role of environmental factors for PSM, but has neglected to investigate potential genetic
origins. We then formally introduce our model, which allows us to trace genetic origins of PSM by parsing its vari-
ance into three components: Genetic, common environment, and unique environment. In the results section, we
demonstrate that PSM entails no heritable components but manifests and develops as a function of environmental
factors. We conclude the article with a discussion of implications and propose that the literature's current focus on
debating “stable trait”versus “dynamic state”of PSM is obfuscating the more important issue of identifying which
mechanisms help solidify and which mechanisms help create change in PSM.
1|EXPLORING FOUNDATIONAL ORIGINS OF PSM: HOW DOES
BEHAVIORAL GENETICS HELP US?
1.1 |Behavioral genetics
Operating at the crossroads between biology and the social sciences, behavioral genetics considers individual differences
in attitudes and behaviors using methodologies commonlyappliedingeneticsresearch(Medland&Hatemi,2009).Much
behavioral genetics is considered basic research as it seeks to advance theories by understanding the very nature of social
phenomena. While this way of advancing theory differs from most empirical PSM research which attempts to establish
associations between a predictor (x)andanoutcome(y), understanding PSM's genetic and social origins is a foundational
precursor for any applied research on PSM's practical value for public service workforces and productivity.
A tenet of the behavioral genetics tradition for understanding the nature of social phenomena concerns separating
the effects of genetic variation from effects of social variation. This prevents genetic variation from confounding correla-
tions between social phenomena. The most common method for achieving this separation is the “classical twin design.”
This design relies on decomposing variance in a phenotype. A phenotype refers to an observable, measurable characteris-
tic of an individual. In the language of behavioral genetics, PSM is the phenotype of interest in our study.
994 FLORCZAK ET AL.
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