Does Perceptions of Organizational Prestige Mediate the Relationship Between Public Service Motivation, Job Satisfaction, and the Turnover Intentions of Federal Employees?

• DOI: 10.1177/0091026020952818
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Leonard Bright
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026020952818

Public Personnel Management

2021, Vol. 50(3) 408 –429

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026020952818

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Article

Does Perceptions of

Organizational Prestige

Mediate the Relationship

Between Public Service

Motivation, Job Satisfaction,

and the Turnover Intentions

of Federal Employees?

Leonard Bright1

Abstract

Public opinion polls consistently suggest that government employment is not

considered to be highly prestigious by most Americans. These negative images are

likely to stifle the public sector’s recruitment and retention efforts. Scholars have

suggested that individuals with high levels of public service motivation (PSM) are

better equipped to work in these environments, yet no studies can be found that

have directly explored the relationships between PSM and the perceptions that

public employees hold regarding the images that citizens hold of their organizations.

This article sought to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the extent to which

perceptions of organizational prestige (POP) mediate the relationship between PSM

and the job satisfaction and turnover intentions of public employees. Using a sample

of federal employees working for the Transportation Security Administration in

Oregon, this study found that POP fully mediated the relationship between PSM and

turnover intentions and partially mediated the relationship between PSM and job

satisfaction. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords

federal government, HRM, job satisfaction, turnover

1Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Leonard Bright, Associate Professor, The Bush School of Government & Public Service, Texas A&M

University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.

Email: lbright@tamu.edu

952818PPMXXX10.1177/0091026020952818Public Personnel ManagementBright

research-article2020

Bright 409

Introduction

Job satisfaction and turnover intentions are two of the most important attitudes in

organizations. Low job satisfaction is associated with high turnover intentions

(Lambert et al., 2001; Lum et al., 1998; Mobley, 1977), which in turn raises the finan-

cial stakes for organizations as they must bear the costs of rehiring, onboarding, and

training new employees. This is why retaining excellent employees is a top priority for

most organizations, but achieving these outcomes is not as straightforward for many

government organizations for at least two reasons. For one, the federal workforce is

older on average when compared to other levels of government and has a significant

number of employees who are eligible to retire. According to the U.S. Office of

Personnel Management, 60,000 employees retire from the federal government each

year. Replacing these positions with competent employees is not an easy task espe-

cially given the evidence that government employment is not the most attractive for

the average citizens (Partnership for Public Service, 2012) and not even for many

students in public affairs programs (Bright & Graham, 2015; Chetkovich, 2003; Infeld

& Adams, 2011; Light, 1999a)

Second, government organizations also operate in environments of distrust. Opinion

polls and national surveys have consistently reported that citizens have lower levels of

satisfaction and trust in government organizations (Berman, 1997; Garrett et al., 2006;

Goodsell, 2003). For example, only 19% of Americans believe that government can be

trusted always/most of the time according to a Pew Research Center (2015) poll. Even

though these viewpoints may partly reflect the opinions that citizens have of political

leaders, there is evidence that citizens hold negative viewpoints of the federal govern-

ment and its agencies specifically. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI,

2020) recently reported that citizen satisfaction with the federal government “declined

for the second straight year, erasing the considerable gains made between 2015 and

2017.” According to ACSI, the federal government has the lowest level of customer

satisfaction when compared to all other sectors, with the Department of Interior receiv-

ing the highest scores (78) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development

receiving the lowest scores (56). Similarly, the General Social Survey (GSS) found

that confidence in government agencies is trending downward, with the exception of

views concerning the military (Smith & Son, 2013). To make matters worse, according

to the GSS, a significant percentage of citizens believe that the federal government

cannot be trusted to do what is right and that its administrators are routinely involved

in corruption. There are some who suggest that these negative viewpoints are driven

by deep seated unconscious biases that link “government” with waste and incompe-

tence that are constantly promulgated by politicians and the mass media (Bok, 2001;

Goodsell, 2003; Marvel, 2015). However, empirical evidence proving this connection

is mixed (Hvidman & Andersen, 2016; Meier et al., 2019).

Nonetheless, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) provides an excel-

lent context for understanding the effects that negative citizen viewpoints and hostile

media coverage can have on public employees. The TSA is routinely the focus of mass

media coverage which broadcasts stories and images of frustrated citizens who