More Similarities or More Differences? Comparing Public and Nonprofit Managers’ Job Motivations

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02305.x
• Author: Young‐joo Lee,Vicky M. Wilkins
• Date: 01 January 2011
• Published date: 01 January 2011

Focus on Seminal

Nonprof‌i t

Management

Issues

Young-joo Lee is an assistant professor of

public affairs at the University of Texas at

Dallas. Her teaching and research interests

include human resource management

in public and nonprof‌i t organizations, volun-

teering, and intersectoral collaboration.

E-mail: ylee@utdallas.edu

Vicky M. Wilkins is an associate professor

and the director of the MPA program in

the Department of Public Administration

and Policy at the University of Georgia.

Her teaching and research interests

include public administration, public

personnel management, and representative

bureaucracy. Her research has appeared

in the

American Political Science Review,

Public Administration Review, Journal of

Public Administration Research and Theory,

Administration & Society, Governance,

Review of Public Personnel Administration,

and

Legislative Studies Quarterly.

E-mail: vwilkins@uga.edu

Comparing Public and Nonprof‌i t Managers’ Job Motivations 45

Young-joo Lee

University of Texas at Dallas

Vicky M. Wilkins

University of Georgia

Existing research on career motivations tends to focus

either on the di erence between private and public

organizations or on the di erence between nonpro t

and for-pro t  rms. Although commonalities exist, the

literature suggests that there also are many di erences

in what motivates public and nonpro t employees.

Employing data from the National Administrative

Studies Project III, this research examines how seven

motivational aspects correlate with the choice between

public and nonpro t employment.  e authors  nd

that managers who value advancement opportunities, a

pension and retirement plan, and the ability to serve the

public in their jobs are more likely to accept a job in the

public sector, whereas managers who value family-friendly

policies and increased responsibility are more likely to

accept a position in the nonpro t sector. Participation

in volunteering is positively associated with nonpro t

employment.  e authors suggest a possible link between

volunteering and the unique nonpro t motivation that is

di erentiated from public service motivation.

Scholars argue that the employment sectors

(nonpro t, for-pro t,

and public) di er in

numerous ways, including

environmental factors, organiza-

tion–environment transactions,

internal structure and processes,

employee characteristics, incen-

tive structures, and reporting

structures (Blank 1985; Brown

et al. 2000; Goodin 2003;

Kearns 1994; Rainey, Backo ,

and Levine 1976). Research on

the di erences between sectors

tends to emphasize di erences in

the use of extrinsic and intrinsic

rewards to attract employees.

Speci cally, the research argues

that extrinsic motivation factors

such as pay and advancement

have a signi cantly greater

motivating potential for private managers than for

public and nonpro t managers, while intrinsic rewards

have higher motivating potential for public and non-

pro t managers than for private ones (Khojasteh 1993;

Rawls and Nelson 1975; Rawls, Ullrich, and Nelson

1975; Wright 2001). In sum, the literature suggests

that public and nonpro t employees are less likely to

be motivated by extrinsic factors and more likely to be

motivated by intrinsic rewards compared to workers

in the for-pro t sector (Buelens and Van den Broeck

2007; Benz 2005; Handy and Katz 1998; Lewis and

Frank 2002; Mirvis and Hackett 1983; Rainey 1983).

 e existing research on career motivations tends to

focus either on the di erence between private and

public organizations or on the di erences between

nonpro t and for-pro t  rms. Although some

scholars have studied the characteristics of nonpro t

organizations that di erentiate them from those

in the public sector (Brown et al. 2000; Goodin

2003; Kearns 1994; Mirvis 1992; Schepers et al.

2005), relatively little is known about public/non-

pro t di erences in career motivations.  is study

aims to contribute to a better

understanding of the non-

pro t sector by examining the

distinctive career motivations

of its employees. Particularly,

we investigate what motivates

public and nonpro t managers

to accept a job in their current

organization.  e underlying

assumption in this research is

that people choose to work in

a sector that they expect will

provide them with bene ts they

consider important, regardless

of whether they are extrinsic or

intrinsic rewards. By comparing

job motivations of nonpro t

managers and public managers

in state governments, we can

improve our understanding of

More Similarities or More Di erences? Comparing Public

andNonpro t Managers’ Job Motivations

By comparing job motivations

of nonprofit managers and

public managers in state

governments, we can improve

our understanding of the

motivational correlates of sector

choice. This is a particularly

timely question, as many

levels of government are facing

a “human capital” crisis,

the boundaries between the

nonprofit and public sectors are

blurring, and there is increasing

evidence that employees are

willing to shift between sectors.