Government or Business? Identifying Determinants of MPA and MBA Students’ Career Preferences

• Author: Anne Oosterbaan,Zeger van der Wal
• Published date: 01 June 2013
• Date: 01 June 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0091026013487123
• Subject Matter: Articles

Public Personnel Management

42(2) 239 –258

© The Author(s) 2013

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026013487123

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Article

Government or Business?

Identifying Determinants

of MPA and MBA Students’

Career Preferences

Zeger van der Wal1 and Anne Oosterbaan2

Abstract

This article reports on a survey study into provisional career determinants of masters

in public administration (MPA) students and masters in business administration (MBA)

students (N = 131) in the Netherlands. The survey measures whether both student

groups hold different values, motivations, and sector perceptions and how these, in

turn, determine provisional sector choices right before they graduate. Differences

between both groups are larger and more classical than current literature and

previous studies suggest: MPA students hold public values, have high levels of public

service motivation (PSM), positive public sector perceptions and negative private

sector perceptions, and opt without exception for a public sector career. For MBA

students, the results are completely opposite. Arguably, both groups have a rather

nullified image of professional lives in both sectors, reinforced by their respective

degree programs. Implications are offered for future debates on public and private

sector differences and the relation between attraction and socialization of different

people types by both sectors.

Keywords

PSM, values, career choice, MPA, MBA

Introduction

There are many preconceived ideas and perceptions about the public and private sectors

that might influence potential government and business managers in their choice for a

prospective employer. Graduate students who have reached the end of their studies are

faced with a difficult choice: “Where do I want to work?” An impending employee

1National University of Singapore, Singapore

2The Housing Alliance, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Zeger van der Wal, 469c Bukit Timah Road, 259772 Singapore.

Email: sppzvdw@nus.edu.sg

487123PPM42210.1177/0091026013487123Public Personnel Managementvan der Wal and Oosterbaan

research-article2013

240 Public Personnel Management 42(2)

looks for a suitable organization that matches his competences and personality. As stud-

ies show, an employee is more satisfied when he feels that he “fits” within the organiza-

tion (Posner & Schmidt, 1993). In turn, employers will try to respond to this sentiment

because of the ongoing “war on talent” on the international labor market (Lent &

Wijnen, 2007). Both governments as well as businesses seek to recruit the most talented

potentials, resulting in increased competition between the two sectors (Redman-

Simmons, 2008; Steijn, 2006). The private sector is willing to provide high salaries and

lease automobiles, whereas the public sector counts on other (more intrinsic) recruit-

ment mechanisms such as good fringe benefits and advertisement campaigns that stress

how challenging it is to contribute to solving social issues (Steijn, 2006).

Indeed, an aspect of growing importance for an employer as well as an (potential)

employee is the “person–organization fit” (POF), the way in which a person fits within

his or her working environment (Vandenabeele, 2008). In the selection phase prior to

choosing a career, and even prior to a choice for a specific education, students also

make choices based on a “fit” between themselves and their future employer or job.

Therefore, it can be assumed that students with a public value orientation opt sooner

for the public sector while students with a more distinct business profile prefer the

private sector. Two masters programs that are traditionally expected to produce stu-

dents with such clear value orientations and sectoral preferences are masters in public

administration (MPAs) and masters in business administration (MBAs).

One may wonder, however, as to whether such a stringent distinction does in fact

exist within the current MPA and MBA student population and what sorts of values

and motivations specifically determine career preferences. Were students in recent

cohorts not taught that a concept such as “sector blurring” (Bozeman, 2004) character-

izes best the modern-day public sector organizational landscape? A development that

combined with new public management (NPM) reforms might have made strict sec-

toral demarcations less and less relevant. And aren’t much of the scholarly publica-

tions in business nowadays stressing corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an

integral element of regular business discourse pointing at increasing public account-

ability obligations for the business sector (Fortanier & Kolk, 2007)?

The practice as well as the theory of public administration and business administra-

tion has become more complex and less distinctive during the last decades. The question

is whether this also implies that potential managers retain less contrasting ideas about

both sectors. And is it generally true that a choice for a MPA automatically leads to a

career in public administration and management, and the choice for a MBA to a life

working in business and industry?1 These questions form the basis of this empirical sur-

vey on the provisional career choices of Dutch MPA and MBA students (N = 131).

Different Sectors: Different Values, Motivations, and

Perceptions?

A recurring question within public and business administration is whether both sectors

perhaps attract different types of people. Are government organizations’ employees

different from company employees, do they apply different sets of values and norms,

are they motivated by different issues, and do they have a different image of their