Motivated to Adapt? The Role of Public Service Motivation as Employees Face Organizational Change

• Date: 01 September 2013
• Author: Bradley E. Wright,Robert K. Christensen,Kimberley Roussin Isett
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12078

Bradley E. Wright is associate profes-

sor of public management and policy in

the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

at Georgia State University. His research

focuses on how employee attitudes and

behavior are inf‌l uenced by the interaction

between characteristics of the employee

and their organizational work environment.

E-mail: bwright32@gsu.edu

Robert K. Christensen is associate

professor of public administration in the

Department of Public Administration and

Policy, School of Public and International

Affairs, at the University of Georgia. His

research focuses on prosocial and antisocial

motivations and behaviors in the public

and nonprof‌i t sectors. He is a current Lilly

Teaching Fellow at the University of

Georgia.

E-mail: rc@uga.edu

Kimberley Roussin Isett earned

a doctorate in management from the

University of Arizona in 2001. Her research

focuses on institutional pressures and

dynamics in implementing government serv-

ices, with a particular interest in the delivery

of services to vulnerable populations. To

date, she has been awarded just under $1

million in research grant money and has

worked with elected off‌i cials and policy

makers at all levels of government.

E-mail: kim.isett@pubpolicy.gatech.edu

738 Public Administration Review • September | October 2013

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 73, Iss. 5, pp. 738–747. © 2013 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12078.

Bradley E. Wright

Georgia State University

Robert K. Christensen

University of Georgia

Kimberley Roussin Isett

Georgia Institute of Technology

Researchers concerned with organizational change

have consistently emphasized the role that the work

environment plays in employee acceptance of change.

Underexamined in the public management literature,

however, is the role that employee values, particularly

public service motivation (PSM), may play in employee

acceptance of change. Some scholars have noted a positive

correlation between employee PSM and organizational

change ef‌f orts; this article extends this work by attempt-

ing to isolate the mechanisms that explain this relation-

ship. Using data from a survey of employees in a city

undergoing a reorganization and reduction in workforce,

the authors f‌i nd that only employees who scored high on

a single dimension of PSM—self-sacrif‌i ce—were more

likely than others to support organizational change.

Rather than support changes for their potential to

improve public service, this f‌i nding suggests that employ-

ees with higher PSM may simply be less likely to resist

changes that might disadvantage them personally.

A

lthough bureaucratic

organizations are

thought of as intrac-

table, the recent unprecedented

loss of more than 600,000

public sector jobs since the

2008 economic crash (Klein

2012) illustrates that change is

just as pervasive in the public

sector as in the private. For cur-

rent government employees, this

massive reduction in workforce

is changing workloads, substantive duties, as well as

perceptions about job security and ef‌f‌i cacy.

As we know from the extant literature on change, all

change is not created equal.  ere is planned change

and unplanned change, discontinuity changes and

marginal changes, austerity changes and changes

driven by slack, internal change and external change,

and any combination of the above (and others) (cf.

Hall 2002; Tushman and Anderson 1986; Zaltman,

Duncan, and Holbek 1984). Each of these kinds of

changes can have dif‌f erent processes and emphases

that af‌f ect the viability, scope, and extent of change

accomplished and sustained. Despite the myriad

permutations that change can take, one thing is for

certain: employee support for change is critical for

success (Bordia et al. 2004; Ford, Ford, and D’Amelio

2008; Isett et al. 2013; Isett, Morrissey, and Topping

2006; Kelman 2005; Saka 2003). But the factors that

might inf‌l uence whether or how much employees

support change are likely to dif‌f er depending on what

changes are made.

One factor that inf‌l uences employee support for

change is the values that motivate employees to work

in the public sector in the f‌i rst place (Moynihan

and Pandey 2007; Naf‌f and Crum 1999; Ritz and

Fernandez 2011). Employees with higher levels of

public service motivation (PSM) value the interests

and needs of others, particularly those of the broader

community (Rainey and Steinbauer 1999, 23).

Because of this, employee PSM

conceivably inf‌l uences how

receptive one is to organiza-

tional change in public organi-

zations. While previous studies

suggest a positive correlation

between employee PSM and

employee commitment to

change, this article explicitly

tests the underlying mecha-

nisms that contribute to this

relationship.

Up until now, exploration of the relationship between

employee PSM and support for organizational change

has been limited. Current studies emphasize how the

specif‌i c content of the change may af‌f ect the public

and coincide with employees’ valuation of public serv-

ice. In particular, it has been suggested that employee

PSM may increase commitment to organizational

changes that are intended to improve the delivery of

public services (Moynihan and Pandey 2007; Naf‌f

and Crum 1999). However, all changes in the public

Motivated to Adapt?  e Role of Public Service Motivation

as Employees Face Organizational Change

While previous studies suggest

a positive correlation between

employee PSM and employee

commitment to change, this

article explicitly tests the under-

lying mechanisms that contrib-

ute to this relationship.