PUBLIC SERVICE VALUES: A NEW APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF MOTIVATION IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE
| Published date | 01 June 2014 |
| Author | EVA WITESMAN,LAWRENCE WALTERS |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12000 |
| Date | 01 June 2014 |
doi: 10.1111/padm.12000
PUBLIC SERVICE VALUES: A NEW APPROACH TO THE
STUDY OF MOTIVATION IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE
EVA WITESMAN AND LAWRENCE WALTERS
This article details an approach for empirically eliciting and examining public service values and
their impact on decisions made by public servants. The approach involves adaptation of the
Schwartz Portrait Values Questionnaire such that it: (1) elicits values relevant to an individual’s
public service role rather than broad personal values; and (2) incorporates values omitted by the
Schwartz framework, including those identified by Jørgensen and Bozeman and others. To examine
the impact of public service values on specific public management decisions, we use structured
decision context statements similar to those proposed by Tetlock. We find that: (1) the adapted
instrument maps favourably to the Schwartz personal value space; (2) the public service values
space includes value sets that expand and refine the personal value space defined by Schwartz;
and (3) the public service values elicited can be used to predict decisions made by respondents in
specific public service decision contexts.
INTRODUCTION
In this article, we propose a new approach to the measurement and analysis of public
service values (PSV). We view this new approach as an evolution of the public service
motivation (PSM) framework, which has clearly established both the unique nature of
values in the public service and the potential power of these values for explaining the
behaviour of public servants. This article: (1) provides a theoretical framework for the
expanded study of public service values; (2) outlines an approach for instrumentation,
contextualization, and analysis; and (3) demonstrates the potential utility of this approach
by reporting on the results of a pilot study using the PSV methodology.
The study of human values has proven to be of enduring interest in a range of intellectual
endeavours. Concerted efforts to operationalize and measure human value systems have
persisted in psychology, sociology, and philosophy for nearly a century (Beyer 1922;
Allport and Vernon 1931). Management scholars have asserted that values matter in
understanding the behaviour of managers and their subordinates at least since the 1960s
(England 1967). The field of public management – including scholars and practitioners –
has also begun to develop a literature that focuses on the values that do or should guide
those engaged in professional public service (Rutgers 2008).
This interest in values by public management scholars has been particularly focused
on comparisons between the public and private sectors, particularly in response to the
New Public Management movement (Jos and Tompkins 2004). Some argued that those
individuals choosing careers in public service had fundamentally different motivating
values from those choosing other career paths (Perry and Wise 1990; Houston 2000, 2006;
Lyons et al. 2006; Buelens and Van den Broeck 2007; van der Wal and Huberts 2007; de
Graaf and van der Wal 2008). Other authors have been more prescriptive, arguing that
different values should guide public servants from those guiding private sector employees
(Heintzman 2007). Active streams of research continue to evolve in public values (Schmidt
Eva Witesman is an assistant professor of public management at the Romney Institute of Public Management at Brigham
Young University, Provo, Utah, USA. Lawrence Walters is the Stewart Grow Professor of Public Management at the
Romney Institute of Public Management at Brigham Young University.
Public Administration Vol. 92, No. 2, 2014 (375–405)
©2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
376 EVA WITESMAN AND LAWRENCE WALTERS
and Posner 1986; Selden et al. 1999; Kernaghan 2000, 2003; Lynn 2001; Langford 2004;
Schreurs 2005; Lyons et al. 2006; Salminen 2006; Jørgensen and Bozeman 2007; van der
Wal and Huberts 2007; Rutgers 2008; van der Wal et al. 2008a; van der Wal and van Hout
2009) and public decision-making (Lindblom 1959; Tetlock 1986; Simon 1997; Nutt 2006).
Among the most prevalent manifestations of this line of research has been PSM, which
has garnered the interest of scholars from across the globe (Perry and Wise 1990; Perry 1996;
Alonso and Lewis 2001; DeHart-Davis et al. 2006; Coursey and Pandey 2007; Moynihan
and Pandey 2007; Paarlberg and Perry 2007). The study of PSM and the associated
discussion of public values and public decision-making have been a dominating force in
academic and practitioner conferences alike. However, as Andersen et al. found in their
empirical evaluation, the complementary and associated topics of PSM and public values
display important differences (Andersen et al. 2012).
PSV: THE EVOLUTION OF PSM
In their introduction to the concept of PSM, Perry and Wise (1990) link the values of
public servants to their job-related actions: ‘In calling for a recommitment of Americans
to the values associated with public service, political leaders assume that such motives
can be translated into effective and efficient bureaucratic behavior.’ We argue that
despite valuable contributions made by PSM research and research in public values, vital
questions remain unanswered, including:
1. What values are most commonly invoked by public administrators to justify action?
2. To what extent does context affect the salience of particular values?
3. To what extent are public service values malleable, for example by programmes in
public administration or on-the-job training and experience?
4. What variation and/or patterns in public service values exist among individual
administrators and across sectors and subsectors?
5. To what extent do public service values compete with other values that might not be
widely considered to be compatible with serving the public interest?
6. How do public service values change over time?
Note that some of the questions identified here are very similar and/or related to those
identified by Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007). The explicit study of public service values
should seek to provide valuable insights into these questions.
The past two decades of research in PSM have resulted in strong evidence that it
is a phenomenon with important implications for employee sector choice (Perry and
Wise 1990; Houston 2000), human resource practice (Alonso and Lewis 2001), and
organizational behaviour (Paarlberg and Perry 2007). Much of the PSM literature has
focused on issues associated with the identification and measurement of a particular set
of personal value constructs as captured in the six dimensions of PSM (attraction to public
policy making, commitment to the public interest, civic duty, social justice, self-sacrifice,
and compassion). These dimensions were identified as constructs particularly unique and
valuable to individuals making decisions about whether or not to pursue work in the
public sector and how to make decisions in the public service work setting.
We argue that the set of potentially relevant public service values is even broader than
the set identified by Perry and Wise (1990). Given the importance of the values identified
by the PSM literature for describing and explaining public sector behaviour, we posit
Public Administration Vol. 92, No. 2, 2014 (375–405)
©2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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