Municipal Employees’ Performance and Neglect: The Effects of Mission Valence

• Author: Sylvie Guerrero,Denis Chênevert
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X19896013
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X19896013

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2021, Vol. 41(3) 447 –465

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X19896013

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Article

Municipal Employees’

Performance and Neglect:

The Effects of Mission Valence

Sylvie Guerrero1 and Denis Chênevert2

Abstract

This article relates mission valence to two performance outcomes of municipal

employees: task performance and neglect. We propose that mission valence is

positively associated with task performance through perceptions of meaning, and

negatively associated with neglect through cynicism. However, based on the negativity

bias principle, we expect the relationships to be stronger through cynicism than

through meaning. We test our research hypotheses on a sample of 177 employees

and their supervisors working in a rural Canadian municipality. Findings highlight

that cynicism is a key mediating variable between mission valence and employees’

performance outcomes. Mission valence affects meaning and cynicism, but meaning is

not related to task performance and neglect.

Keywords

performance, neglect, municipal employees, job resources, cynicism

Introduction

Mission valence, or the extent to which employees perceive the organizational mission

as attractive (Wright & Pandey, 2011), is highly important for organizations that seek

to improve public service quality and motivate employees to dedicate themselves to

citizens (Besley & Ghatak, 2005; Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999). Since the seminal work

of Rainey and Steinbauer (1999), mission valence has gained popularity largely

because of its strong relationship with work effort (Resh et al., 2018; Smith, 2016;

Wright, 2007) and, to a lesser extent, performance (Caillier, 2014, 2015, 2016; Pandey

1University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada

2HEC Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Corresponding Author:

Sylvie Guerrero, Full Professor, HRO Department, École des Sciences de la Gestion, University of

Quebec at Montreal, C.P. 8888, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3P8.

Email: guerrero.sylvie@uqam.ca

896013ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X19896013Review of Public Personnel AdministrationGuerrero and Chênevert

research-article2020

448 Review of Public Personnel Administration 41(3)

et al., 2008). The reason underlying these relationships is that mission valence pro-

vides a sense of purpose and task importance that directs efforts and motivates indi-

viduals to perform their tasks well, even after controlling for extrinsic rewards (Wright,

2007). Overall, these studies converge toward the idea that mission valence fosters the

experience that work is significant and holds a positive meaning.

While these studies have clearly established a relationship between mission valence

and positive reactions for the individual, we still know very little about how mission

valence can protect employees from detrimental attitudes due to a loss of meaning at

work. This is a pity because individuals provide asymmetric responses to their experi-

ence at work, such that a lack of mission valence could have more detrimental conse-

quences for the individual than a situation of high valence (Baumeister et al., 2001).

We thus believe that it is important to study how mission valence relates to positive

and negative reactions at work.

Our research aims to provide an answer to this research gap by identifying and

weighting the positive and negative attitudes and behaviors associated with mission

valence. We test a research model in which mission valence is related to task mean-

ing and in-role behaviors as positive reactions associated with mission valence, but

also to cynicism and neglect as negative reactions associated with mission valence.

Cynicism develops in a general context of meaning loss and value erosion

(Andersson, 1996; Gebert et al., 2016). It is not however the mere opposite of task

meaning. Cynicism reflects a profound attitude of disillusionment (Andersson,

1996), coupled with a sense of alienation resulting from the failure to meet expected

goals (Kanter & Mirvis, 1989; Meyerson, 1990). As a manifestation of burnout

syndrome, it reflects resignation, apathy, and withdrawal from work. We thus

expect cynicism to be coupled with the adoption of withdrawal behaviors at work,

which we measure by neglect.

Overall, this research contributes to the public management and human resource

management (HRM) literature by extending our knowledge on mission valence out-

comes at work. First, we highlight that mission valence is associated with negative

individual reactions that are detrimental for the individual and the organization. The

inclusion of two processes, one positive and one negative, allows us to weight the

positive and negative outcomes associated with mission valence. Second, we study

behaviors at work that we measure from the employee supervisor’s perspective. Earlier

empirical studies have focused on work effort and motivation to analyze the motiva-

tional power of mission valence. However, in so doing, these studies have overlooked

employees’ behaviors associated with mission valence. This is a pity because behav-

iors at work are easily visible by citizens, colleagues, and supervisors, and therefore

directly affect perceptions of service quality and organizational effectiveness. We thus

included in-role behaviors as assessed by supervisors as a measure of individual task

performance (Williams & Anderson, 1991) and neglect as a measure of workplace

deviance (Robinson & Greenberg, 1998). The use of an external source to measure

behaviors (i.e., supervisor assessment) limits the risks associated with self-reported

responses such as social desirability bias and common method bias, and thus strength-

ens the validity of our results.