Relational job characteristics and job satisfaction of public sector employees: When prosocial motivation and red tape collide
| Author | Bram Steijn,Joris van der Voet |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12352 |
SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE
Relational job characteristics and job satisfaction
of public sector employees: When prosocial
motivation and red tape collide
Bram Steijn
1
| Joris van der Voet
2
1
Department of Public Administration and
Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The
Netherlands
2
Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs,
Instituut Bestuurskunde, The Hague, The
Netherlands
Correspondence
Bram Steijn, Department of Public
Administration and Sociology, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, Room T17-43, P.O. Box
1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Email: Steijn@fsw.eur.nl
Recent studies suggested that the relationship between prosocial
motivation and job satisfaction is mediated by relational job charac-
teristics (e.g., job impact and job content). Based on a study of
Dutch child welfare professionals, we theorize and empirically
assess how red tape negatively impacts the relational job character-
istics and job satisfaction of public professionals. Our study shows
that the relationship between red tape and job satisfaction is par-
tially mediated by relational job characteristics. Red tape thus
decreases the job impact and job contact of professionals, thereby
decreasing their job satisfaction. In addition, our study provides
additional insight into how prosocial motivation and red tape are
jointly related to job impact and job satisfaction. This provides sup-
port for the point of view that highly motivated public professionals
are more sensitive to burdensome rules and procedures. In this
respect, red tape acts as a hindrance stressor that thwarts the reali-
zation of prosocial aspirations.
1|INTRODUCTION
The study of employeesdelivering public service—or public professionals—has a long history as illustrated by the semi-
nal work of Lipsky (1969) on street-level bureaucrats. Studying the job satisfaction of public professionals is relevant
because it is an important predictor of job performance and intention to leave (Westbrook et al. 2006; Auerbach
et al. 2010). Thus the job satisfaction of publicprofessionals has been intensively studied, both within the public man-
agement literature (Cantarelli et al. 2016) and within the literature on specific occupational groups such as teachers
(Skaalvik and Skaalvik 2011), policeofficers (Brough and Frame 2004) and welfareworkers (Barth et al. 2008).
The literature on the antecedents of job satisfaction is huge, even with respect to public professionals (DeHart-
Davis et al. 2015; Homberg et al. 2015; Cantarelli et al. 2016). Rainey (2009)—who defined job satisfaction as “how
an individual feels about his or her job and various aspects of it usually in the sense of how favorable—how positive
or negative—those feelings are”(2009, p. 298)—identified individual characteristics, job design, job characteristics
and external factors as its most investigated correlates.
Received: 16 November 2016 Revised: 13 May 2017 Accepted: 15 May 2017
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12352
64 © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm Public Administration. 2019;97:64–80.
Thus, the job satisfaction of public professionals is determined by many antecedents. In this article we study
two features of their work which are highly relevant in contemporary society (Davis 2013). First, public profes-
sionals traditionally have a high degree of prosocial motivation: a particular motivational desire to expend effort in
their job to benefit other people (Grant 2007; Perry et al. 2010). Second, several studies suggest that public profes-
sionals in sectors such as healthcare and education increasingly have to deal with administrative burdens
(Noordegraaf and Steijn 2013; Haw and Kotterbova 2016). This suggests that public professionals are affected by
red tape, for example, unnecessary rules and procedures with a compliance burden that limit their ability to deliver
effective public services (Bozeman 1993). Public professionals are therefore affected both by a desire to benefit
other people, as well as by rules and regulations that may increasingly inhibit their capacity to do so (Wright and
Davis 2003; Davis 2013; Van Loon 2017).
Many recent studies have dealt with public service motivation—PSM—(Ritz et al. 2016) or the closely related con-
cept of prosocialmotivation (Grant 2007).Some studies have suggested that therelationship between PSM or prosocial
motivation and job satisfaction is mediated by relational job characteristics. This motivation will cause public profes-
sionals to attaina higher degree of impact on andcontact with the beneficiariesof their work, resulting in increased job
satisfaction (Stritch and Christensen 2014; Taylor 2014). Similarly, a field experiment by Bellé (2013) shows that
increased contact with beneficiaries leads to higher employee performance among nurses. This effect is greater for
nurses with higher PSM. However, few studies have looked at how relational job characteristics are affected by red
tape. We arguethat it is relevant to do so asred tape could negativelyinfluence the job impact andjob contact of public
professionals.Professionals who spend moretime dealing with bureaucraticrequirements will have less opportunity to
contributeand connect with their clients,which could result in a lowerdegree of job satisfaction.
In this study, we therefore assess the relationships between prosocial motivation, red tape, relational job char-
acteristics and job satisfaction. We will do so by studying a specific occupational group of public professionals,
namely child welfare workers in the Netherlands. These workers are traditionally characterized by a high degree of
prosocial motivation which in their specific field is called “commitment to care of children”(Pösö and Forsman
2013) or the “ethic of human caring”(Ellet 2009). At the same time, child welfare workers have to complete “a large
amount of redundant paperwork within strict timelines”(Westbrook et al. 2006, p. 48) and thus face increasing bur-
dens of bureaucracy and red tape which makes their work more demanding. Moreover, recent literature suggests
that job satisfaction (Strand and Dore 2009) and related issues such as retention and turnover (Westbrook
et al. 2006; Auerbach et al. 2010) are relevant issues for child welfare workers.
The question we seek to answer in this article is: “How are prosocial motivation, red tape and relational job char-
acteristics related to the job satisfaction of Dutch child welfare workers?”We base our study on quantitative data
collected in a sample of child welfare specialists in the Netherlands. The answer to this question not only contributes
to the vast literature on public service motivation and related concepts such as prosocial motivation (Ritz et al. 2016),
but also to the challenges that an increasingly demanding work environment creates for public professionals.
This article is structured as follows. In the next section the theoretical framework is developed including several
hypotheses. Next the method is explained, followed by a presentation of the results using a structural equation
model. The article ends with a discussion and conclusion.
2|THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 |Prosocial motivation as an important work characteristic for public professionals
Commitment to care of children is important for child welfare workers. According to Pösö and Forsman (2013), this
can partly explain why people remain in their job. This “commitment to care”is closely related to more familiar con-
cepts within public administration such as public service motivation (PSM) or prosocial motivation. The latter con-
cept is defined by Grant (2007, p. 403) as “the desire to positively affect the beneficiaries of one's work”. Prosocial
STEIJN AND VAN DER VOET 65
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