For Those Who Care: The Effect of Public Service Motivation on Sector Selection

AuthorStephen B. Holt
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12906
Published date01 May 2018
Date01 May 2018
For Those Who Care: The Effect of Public Service Motivation on Sector Selection 457
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 78, Iss. 3, pp. 457–471. © 2018 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.12906.
For Those Who Care:
The Effect of Public Service Motivation on Sector Selection
Abstract: Public service motivation (PSM) theory suggests that the alignment of values may explain sorting
into public service work. Evidence suggests that people with high PSM cluster in government and nonprofit
organizations. However, reliance on cross-sectional data leaves open the question of whether observed patterns are
the result of public and nonprofit organizations attracting and selecting high-PSM people or cultivating PSM
through socialization within the sector. Using longitudinal data, this article analyzes the relationship between
motivational bases, such as PSM, and sorting into the public, for-profit, and nonprofit sectors. The results indicate
that PSM-related values, measured before labor market entry, predict the sector a person will select for employment.
Moreover, the effect on sector selection does not operate through some commonly cited alternative predictor of sector
employment, such as college completion. Rather, PSM predicts sorting into college majors in a manner consistent
with sector sorting in the labor market.
Evidence for Practice
• Workers enter public and nonprofit organizations with significantly different motivations than workers in
for-profit organizations.
• Managers of public and nonprofit organizations should align tasks and performance rewards with the
prosocial and public interest values held by workers entering their organizations.
• Ensuring task and reward alignment may be particularly important for early-career civil servants.
Stephen B. Holt
University at Albany, SUNY
Since Perry and Wise (1990) articulated formal
propositions about the nature of public service
motivation (PSM) in order to move beyond the
limitations of rational choice theory when examining
public workers, scholarship on PSM has proliferated
(for reviews, see Koehler and Rainey 2008; Ritz,
Brewer, and Neumann 2016; Vandenabeele, Brewer,
and Ritz 2014; Wright and Grant 2010). Public
administration scholars have long argued that the
values and motivations of public sector workers differ
from those of their private sector counterparts, and
these differences carry important implications for
researchers and practitioners (Kelman 1987; Rainey
1982). Public workers, from street-level bureaucrats
such as teachers and police officers to career civil
servants in federal agencies, shape the effectiveness
of public organizations in implementing policies and
providing quality public services. Thus, identifying
sectoral differences in sources of worker motivation
has been a central question for scholars seeking to
build a better understanding of optimal management
practices in the public sector (Behn 1995).
The PSM concept provides a useful theoretical
framework for examining worker motivational
bases that are more commonly observed in the
public sector and their implications for public
worker performance and management practices.
Generally, PSM theory argues that workers in
the public sector can be motivated by a range
of factors, some normative (e.g., commitment
to public service, prosocial values, professional
norms) and some extrinsic (e.g., prestige,
attraction to policy making) (Perry 2000; Perry,
Hondeghem, and Wise 2010; Perry and Wise
1990; Vandenabeele, Brewer, and Ritz 2014).
Indeed, early PSM research empirically established
descriptive differences between public and private
sector workers in values and preferences (e.g.,
Brewer 2003; Crewson 1997; Frank and Lewis
2004; Houston 2006; Lewis and Frank 2002;
Naff and Crum 1999). Recent scholarship on
PSM suggests that PSM is associated with higher
performance (Andersen, Heinesen, and Pedersen
2014) and that aligning tasks to fit workers’
motivational bases in the public sector can improve
performance (Bellé 2013, 2014), underscoring
the importance of sectoral differences in worker
motivation for improving management practices in
public organizations.
Stephen B. Holt is an assistant
professor in the Department of Public
Administration and Policy at the University
at Albany, SUNY.
E-mail: sbholt@albany.edu
Research Article

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