Dynamics of Public Service Motivation: Attraction‒Selection and Socialization in the Production and Regulation of Social Services

• Date: 01 January 2014
• Author: Anne Mette Kjeldsen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12154
• Published date: 01 January 2014

Anne Mette Kjeldsen is assistant

professor in the Department of Political

Science and Government, Aarhus University,

Denmark. Her research interests include

public service motivation in the public and

private sectors, especially in the social

services and health care, and distributed

leadership and employee involvement in

public sector reforms.

E-mail: annemette@ps.au.dk

Dynamics of Public Service Motivation: Attraction–Selection and Socialization in the Production and Regulation of Social Services 101

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 1, pp. 101–112. © 2013 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12154.

Anne Mette Kjeldsen

Aarhus University, Denmark

 e literature on public service motivation (PSM) has

typically focused on the relationship between motiva-

tion and public/private sector of employment, while the

character of the work being performed has been neglected.

Using panel surveys with pre- and postentry measures of

PSM among certif‌i ed Danish social workers, this article

provides a unique design for investigating PSM-based

attraction‒selection and socialization ef‌f ects with respect

to the choice between work related to service production

or service regulation (controlled for public/private sector

of employment).  e article shows that the PSM prof‌i les

of social work students predict their preference for one

of the two types of work tasks but do not predict f‌i rst

employment in the preferred job. Conversely, postentry

shifts in social workers’ PSM prof‌i les result from a com-

plex interplay between inf‌l uences from both work task

and sector.

The literature on public service motivation

(PSM) has traditionally focused on the rela-

tionship between this type of work motivation

and the sector of employment (Lewis and Frank 2002;

Perry and Wise 1990; Rainey 1982). Drawing on

person‒environment f‌i t theory, it has been argued that

public sector employees have higher levels of PSM

than private sector employees because of an attraction

ef‌f ect: individuals who are oriented toward helping

others and contributing to society believe that this

is most favorably matched by seeking employment

in the institutional environment of public organiza-

tions (Leisink and Steijn 2008; Perry and Wise 1990;

Vandenabeele 2008b). As individual PSM has been

shown to have a positive ef‌f ect on individual and

organizational performance (Bright 2007; Kim 2005;

Naf‌f and Crum 1999; Vandenabeele 2009), employee

retention (Bright 2008; Wright and Christensen

2010), and job satisfaction (Kjeldsen and Andersen

2013; Taylor 2008; Wright and Pandey 2008), this is

possibly a strong point of the public sector in times of

f‌i scal crisis and an aging workforce.

However, Perry and Hondeghem (2008) empha-

size that PSM is conceptually tied to the delivery of

public services rather than to public or private sector

organizations.  is has been empirically conf‌i rmed

in recent research by Christensen and Wright (2011).

Moreover, most previous studies of the relationships

between PSM and dif‌f erent work environments have

relied on cross-sectional data and research designs

with employed public/private sector personnel, which

does not tell whether individual dif‌f erences in PSM

are a cause or a consequence of choosing a certain

work environment. Person‒environment f‌i t can be

established either by attracting and hiring appropriate

applicants or by inf‌l uencing applicants through organ-

izational socialization once they are employed (Cable

and Parsons 2001; Chatman 1991; Kristof-Brown

1996). To use knowledge about the dynamics of PSM

in the recruitment and retention of highly motivated

employees, we need to know more about the interplay

between the sector and work task using both pre- and

postentry measurements of individuals’ PSM (Perry

and Hondeghem 2008; Wright and Grant 2010).

In order to answer this question, this article relies on

panel data from certif‌i ed Danish social workers who

had the opportunity to undertake work related to

service production and service regulation in both the

public and private sectors and who were interviewed

and surveyed both before and after they accepted their

f‌i rst professional job.  is provides a very strong and

unique design for approaching the dynamics of PSM

in dif‌f erent work settings. More specif‌i cally, the article

examines how an individual’s PSM af‌f ects attraction‒

selection to service-production or service-regulation

work (controlled for public/private employment

sector) and how this work, in turn, has a potentially

socializing ef‌f ect on the individual’s PSM.  e next

section outlines this distinction between service-

production and service-regulation work tasks and its

possible inf‌l uence compared with the sector distinc-

tion.  is is followed by a comprehensive discussion

of the expected PSM-based attraction‒selection and

socialization ef‌f ects concerning the work environ-

ments related to these two types of work.  ird, the

research design, data collection, study measures, and

Dynamics of Public Service Motivation: Attraction‒Selection

and Socialization in the Production and Regulation

of Social Services