Explaining a Dark Side: Public Service Motivation, Presenteeism, and Absenteeism

• Date: 01 December 2019
• Author: Ann-Louise Holten,Ulrich Thy Jensen,Lotte Bøgh Andersen
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X17744865
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X17744865

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2019, Vol. 39(4) 487 –510

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X17744865

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Article

Explaining a Dark Side:

Public Service Motivation,

Presenteeism, and

Absenteeism

Ulrich Thy Jensen1, Lotte Bøgh Andersen2,

and Ann-Louise Holten3

Abstract

Public service motivation (PSM) has many bright sides, but recent studies also

find dark sides, connected to, for instance, higher stress and burnout. However,

results on the PSM–absenteeism association are inconclusive. One reason could

be that PSM increases presenteeism (going to work even when ill), which in turn

increases absenteeism and counteracts—or even exceeds—PSM-based reductions of

absenteeism. Based on a three-wave panel study of Danish public and private sector

employees, we find a strong positive association between PSM and presenteeism and

indications that the PSM–absenteeism link is mediated by presenteeism. The findings

suggest that going to work even on days when employees feel ill is a potential dark

side of PSM and that it may have long-term consequences for the extent to which

employees are absent from their jobs due to sickness. This cautions managers not to

expect that high PSM automatically guarantees high performance and low absence.

Keywords

public service motivation, presenteeism, sickness absenteeism, panel data

Introduction

The intuitive expectation for employees who are highly motivated to help others and

contribute to society would be for them to have lower absenteeism, because going to

1Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA

2Aarhus University and The Danish Centre of Applied Social Science, Denmark

3University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Corresponding Author:

Ulrich Thy Jensen, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, 411 N. Central Ave., Suite 409,

Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA.

Email: ujensen@asu.edu

744865ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X17744865Review of Public Personnel AdministrationJensen et al.

research-article2017

488 Review of Public Personnel Administration 39(4)

work seems an obvious prerequisite for making a difference for others and society. In

general, public service motivation (PSM) research predominantly focuses on the

bright sides of PSM (Perry & Wise, 1990; Ritz, Brewer, & Neumann, 2016), but three

articles investigate the association between PSM and absenteeism directly. Wright,

Hassan, and Christensen (2017) and Edwards (2014) find no relation, while Koumenta

(2015) finds a positive association between PSM and (so-called) involuntary absentee-

ism and a negative association between PSM and (so-called) voluntary absenteeism.

Why are there so few studies, and why are their findings inconclusive? Could it be that

there is no net association, and that bias against null findings has limited the literature?

Whatever the reason, the lack of studies on this important association is problematic.

Absenteeism affects both the cost and the quality of public service provision (Wright

et al., 2017), and PSM might be an important predictor. On the one hand, PSM may be

able to reduce absence by reducing shirking. On the other hand, the emerging literature

on dark sides of PSM suggests that PSM can increase stress and burnout, and thereby

potentially increase absence. In line with the dark-side literature, we argue that PSM

might also increase presenteeism (going to work when ill), and given that presentee-

ism potentially increases absenteeism in the long run, this might explain the inconclu-

sive findings of existing studies. More generally, society might benefit more from

employees’ PSM if we can better understand its effects on presenteeism and absentee-

ism and prevent its potential dark sides.

The key argument in this article—that PSM may not be able to prevent sickness

absence due to its effects on sickness presenteeism—is based on several different find-

ings. Aronsson, Gustafsson, and Dallner (2000) note that the highest levels of presen-

teeism are found in occupational groups with care provision and welfare service at

their core. This is consistent with Barmby, Ercolani, and Treble’s (2002) international

comparison in which the sector with highest absence rates is health and social services.

The reason for these findings, we argue, could be that these sectors employ highly

public service motivated employees and that these employees tend to “do too much”

for society and others, increasing the proclivity to go to work even when ill. While

there may be short-term gains for service beneficiaries, going to work when ill can

have negative effects on employees’ health, causing future sickness absence

(Bergström, Bodin, Hagberg, Lindh, et al., 2009).

The theoretical basis for expecting PSM to affect both absenteeism and presentee-

ism draws on recent contributions within the emerging literature on dark sides of PSM

(e.g., Giauque, Anderfuhren-Biget, & Varone, 2013; Giauque, Ritz, Varone, &

Anderfuhren-Biget, 2012; van Loon, Vandenabeele, & Leisink, 2015). These studies

may offer some explanations for this proposed mechanism, finding that PSM is posi-

tively related to work stress (Giauque et al., 2013) and burnout and negatively corre-

lated with job satisfaction (van Loon et al., 2015). van Loon et al.’s (2015) interpretation

is that public service motivated individuals “sacrifice” themselves too much for soci-

ety and therefore potentially end up in a state of burnout.

Theoretical propositions on absence and presenteeism influencing downstream health

have been proposed (Johns, 2010), and presenteeism has indeed been empirically found

to increase the risk of reduced self-rated general health (Taloyan et al., 2012).