The combined impact of professional role identity and public service motivation on decision-making in dilemma situations
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Author | Carina Schott,Trui P.S. Steen,Daphne D. van Kleef |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852315599589 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2018, Vol. 84(1) 21–41
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852315599589
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
The combined impact of
professional role identity and
public service motivation on
decision-making in dilemma
situations
Carina Schott
Leiden University, The Netherlands and the University of Bern,
Switzerland
Daphne D. van Kleef
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Trui P.S. Steen
Leiden University, The Netherlands and KU Leuven, Belgium
Abstract
Working in the public sector implies the need to make decisions in the face of dilemmas.
As consistent decision-making is highly desirable for organizational performance, the
question arises: what do public service professionals base their decisions on? This study
aims to increase our understanding of whether public service motivation and professional
role identity are useful concepts by which to predict what decisions public service pro-
fessionals will make in complexsituations. Using survey data, this research investigates the
impact of these two concepts on the decision-making of veterinary inspectors working at
the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. The results support the hypoth-
esis that decision-making is influenced by the way in which veterinary inspectors interpret
their professional role. Public service motivation, in contrast, seems to have neither a
direct nor a moderating effect on decision-making in the context of dilemma situations.
Points for practitioners
Two important conclusions of this study are of interest for managers working with
professionals. Our findings should urge them to consider the different views that
employees have about their job when teams are formed or when specific combinations
of tasks are assigned. For example, attention should be paid to the question of which
Corresponding author:
Carina Schott, Center of Competence for Public Management, University of Bern, Schanzeneckstrasse 1, P.B.
8573, 3001 Bern, Switzerland.
Email: carina.schott@kpm.unibe.ch
mixture of professional role identities is most suitable to accomplish organizational
objectives. Second, the construct of public service motivation can be used by human
resource managers to assess whether public professionals are motivated to provide
public services. However, the results also indicate that the operationalization of public
service motivation needs to be adapted to the professional context of public service
providers.
Keywords
contextualization, decision-making, professionalism/professional role identity, public ser-
vice motivation
Introduction
1
Working in the specific context of public governance entails a regular need to take
decisions in the face of dilemmas (De Graaf et al., 2014). Public organizations are
challenged to balance ‘traditional’ governmental values, such as integrity, neutral-
ity and legality, with ‘business-like’ values, such as efficiency, responsiveness and
effectiveness. The problem seems to be that there is no overriding ‘good’ or
‘common’ scale ranking the importance of these values (Van der Wal et al.,
2011); a condition that in moral philosophy is called value pluralism (Wagenaar,
1999). Also, public servants have to deal with a great number of stakeholders, each
having their own requests for public services. Borrowing Hardy’s (1981: vii) words,
‘most administrative practice...is a compromise between conflicting values and
forces within society’, which often leads to deviant behaviour because pressures
overwhelm individuals (Van der Wal et al., 2011).
As equality before the law is a core value in the public sector (Rainey, 2003),
variation in the decision-making of public service professionals, provided the con-
text is similar, must be prevented. A deeper insight into what drives the decision-
making of individuals in dilemma situations is necessary because it can help to
anticipate and adjust unwanted decision-making.
Professional role identity (PRI), that is, the perception individuals bring to their
professional role, and public service motivation (PSM), or ‘an individual’s orienta-
tion to delivering services to people with a purpose to do good for others and
society’ (Perry and Hondeghem, 2008: vii), seem promising concepts by which to
identify predictable links between what drives employees and outcome variables.
The aim of this study is to increase our knowledge of what role these two concepts
together play in the decision-making of public service professionals facing dilemma
situations.
To reach this aim, this study uses insights from identity theory. A central argu-
ment of this theory is that individuals ‘engage in activities that correspond in
meaning to the meaning of their identity’ (Burke and Stets, 2009: 188).
Regarding the concept of PRI, this implies that individuals act in ways that are
consistent with the perceptions they bring to their professional role. Individuals
22 International Review of Administrative Sciences 84(1)
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