An Empirical Study on Public Service Motivation of the Next Generation Civil Servants in China

• Published date: 01 June 2013
• Date: 01 June 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0091026013487122
• Author: Kilkon Ko,Lulu Han
• Subject Matter: Articles

Public Personnel Management

42(2) 191 –222

© The Author(s) 2013

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026013487122

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Article

An Empirical Study on

Public Service Motivation

of the Next Generation

Civil Servants in China

Kilkon Ko1 and Lulu Han2

Abstract

Why do the Chinese university students choose government jobs instead of private

companies? Do they have similar job motivations as those who are seeking private

sector jobs? Surprisingly, literature on public administration in China has rarely posed

this question despite China’s adoption of the civil service system since 1993. Specific

examination of public service motivation (PSM) literature also revealed a lack of

empirical studies on the public service spirit of potential public sector employees.

This article analyzes the differences in job motivations between public and private

job seekers using survey data of 329 Chinese university students from the Peking

University, Renmin University, Fudan University, and Nankai University. The results

suggest that both private and public job seekers commonly rank “stable and promising

future,” “high salary,” “chance to exercise leadership,” and “high prestige and social

status” as the most important motivators. Notwithstanding the commonality, public

job seekers, especially female students, show higher public service spirit than private

job seekers.

Keywords

public service motivation, university student, civil service

Introduction

Why do university students in China choose public sector jobs? Do they have similar

job motivations as those who seek private sector jobs? Surprisingly, Chinese public

administration literature has rarely posed this question despite its emphasis on

1Seoul National University, Korea

2National University of Singapore, Singapore

Corresponding Author:

Kilkon Ko, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanak-ro

Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Korea 151-742.

Email: kilkon@snu.ac.kr

487122PPM42210.1177/0091026013487122Public Personnel ManagementKo and Han

research-article2013

192 Public Personnel Management 42(2)

recruiting talents to civil service. One might argue that the empirical examination of

job motivation of Chinese university students may be an unnecessary endeavor given

that the number of applicants always surpasses the number of available public jobs. In

fact, as of 2009, there were 1,050,000 applicants for civil service jobs—This averages

out to about 77 applicants per available civil service position (Gan & Xiang, 2009).

Given such a strong demand for civil service positions and such high competition

among Chinese university students, lavishing special attention to recruitment of com-

petent university students, and thereby the study of their job motivation, may appear

to be unnecessary to both Chinese public managers and scholars of public administra-

tion. However, the high demand for civil service positions does not necessarily reflect

a high level of public service spirit among Chinese university students nor the fact that

the latter deem civil service positions as their ideal vocations.

Given the prevalence of corruption, demoralization, inefficiency, and an authoritar-

ian organizational culture, a sizable portion of the Chinese student population tends to

hold a negative view of the Chinese public service. In addition, the salaries of Chinese

civil servants are found to be relatively lower in comparison to private sector jobs.1

This is over and above the fact that the private sector is able to provide a more attrac-

tive career development path to talented Chinese university students in light of rapid

economic development in China. Despite these negative images of public service and

more promising aspects of private sector jobs, why do university students choose pub-

lic sector jobs over those available in the private sector? Do they have unique job

motivation compared with that of private job seekers?

Public service spirit is of primary importance among the various issues on how to

manage human resources; it even transcends the Chinese university students’ personal

preference for occupation. This is largely a result of the vast growth of the Chinese

administrative system, which leaves the Chinese population highly dependent on its

civil servants who provide a wide range of necessary public goods and services that

directly affect the overall quality of the Chinese public service. If Chinese civil ser-

vants do not possess a high level of public service spirit and are committed to serving

their personal interests instead of serving the interests of the public, both the quality

and the legitimacy of the Chinese civil service will be seriously undermined. Rampant

corruption in China reflects a serious deficit of public service spirit observed among

incumbent Chinese civil servants and naturally raises the concern of public service

spirit of potential civil servants.

The study of Chinese university students’ public sector job motivation can contrib-

ute to the theory building of public service motivation (PSM). The job motivation of

public sector employees and the importance of public service have been studied in the

name of PSM (Perry & Wise, 1990) in public administration literature. The PSM

research insists that public employees have unique motivation as compared with pri-

vate ones, including a special calling to contribute to the community, a strong service-

orientation of helping others (Frederickson, 1997; Houston, 2000; Perry, 1997),

compounded by lesser response to extrinsic rewards such as high salary (Crewson,

1997; Rainey, 1982). However, there is a reasonable concern as to whether this PSM

theory developed within the U.S. context, where public sector jobs were deemed to be

less attractive than private sector ones, is applicable to the Chinese civil service, which

Ko and Han 193

recently established out of the former communist cadre system in 1993 and enjoys

higher popularity than the private sector among university students.

Meanwhile, it is not clear whether the popularity of the public sector is the key fac-

tor in drawing high public service spirit holders. Some Chinese argue that university

students’ job choice is driven by job security and self-centered motivations, rather than

by public service spirit. This argument is contradictory to the proposition by Perry and

Wise who argued that “the greater an individual’s public service motivation, the more

likely the individual will seek membership in a public organization” (Perry & Wise,

1990, p. 370). The absence of empirical studies on the public service spirit of Chinese

university students reinforces the untested postulation that public sector jobs enjoy

immense popularity given self-centered decisions motivated by extrinsic motivators

such as job security, high salary, and prestige.

To fill this knowledge gap on the job motivation of Chinese university students,

this article analyzes the students’ job motivation according to their sectoral job choice

using survey data of 329 Chinese university students from Peking University, Renmin

University, Fudan University, and Nankai University. They are the top universities in

China and produce a large number of civil servants. In order not to lose the contextual

uniqueness of China, we control for family influence on job choice, perception of the

fairness of civil service exam, years of education, gender, and perceived level of cor-

ruption of civil service.

This article has two major distinctive aspects compared with previous studies. First

of all, most PSM studies have studied on-the-job motivation of incumbent public

employees and implicitly assume that people with high public service spirit choose

public rather than private sector jobs. However, this proposition has not been empiri-

cally tested as we have attempted to do in this article. Second, this article applies the

PSM concept to China, which is currently reforming its public administration and is

home to unique cultural traditions, including familism, Maoism, and Confucianism,

which impacts several aspects of the public service in China. This application can thus

contribute to comparative studies of PSM.

This article proceeds as follows: Before analyzing university students’ job motiva-

tion, we briefly review the evolution of the Chinese Civil Service and the challenges it

faces. Following the review of the PSM theory, we address theoretical hypotheses

mainly tested in current literature. These hypotheses are tested after discussion of

research methods and data. Finally, we provide theoretical and practical implications

of our findings to conclude this article.

Context of the Chinese Civil Service and Importance of

Job Motivation of University Students

The civil service based on a merit system is fairly new to China. In 1993, Prime

Minister Li Peng launched the first administrative regulation of national civil servants’

management, which established the foundation of the civil service system in China.

This reform implies the transition of the Chinese public personnel management from

a cadre-based system to the civil service system.