Only When the Societal Impact Potential Is High? A Panel Study of the Relationship Between Public Service Motivation and Perceived Performance

• Author: Peter Leisink,Wouter Vandenabeele,Nina van Loon,Anne Mette Kjeldsen,Lotte Bøgh Andersen
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X16639111
• Date: 01 June 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X16639111

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2018, Vol. 38(2) 139 –166

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X16639111

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Article

Only When the Societal

Impact Potential Is High?

A Panel Study of the

Relationship Between Public

Service Motivation and

Perceived Performance

Nina van Loon1,2, Anne Mette Kjeldsen2,

Lotte Bøgh Andersen2, Wouter Vandenabeele1,

and Peter Leisink1

Abstract

Many studies find positive associations between public service motivation (PSM)

and performance, but much of this literature is based on cross-sectional data

prone to endogeneity and common method bias. Moreover, we know little about

potential moderators. In this study, we test the moderating role of societal impact

potential (SIP)—the degree to which the job is perceived to provide opportunities

to contribute to society. We use cross-sectional data from 13,967 employees in

2010 and 2012 aggregated to construct longitudinal data for 42 organizations. As

expected, the association between PSM and individual perceived performance is

positive when SIP is high. However, when SIP is low, PSM is only weakly or not at

all related to performance. This is an important insight for organizations that try to

enhance performance through PSM. Our findings suggest that this can only be done

when the employees think that their jobs allow them to contribute to society.

Keywords

public service motivation, performance, societal impact potential

1Utrecht University, The Netherlands

2Aarhus University, Denmark

Corresponding Author:

Nina van Loon, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Bartholins Alle 7, 8000 Aarhus,

Denmark.

Email: nina@ps.au.dk

639111ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X16639111Review of Public Personnel Administrationvan Loon et al.

research-article2016

140 Review of Public Personnel Administration 38(2)

Introduction

How can we explain why some public organizations perform better than others? The

public administration literature indicates that public service motivation (PSM) can be

an important element in explaining high performance, because it can make employees

go “above and beyond the call of duty” (DiIulio, 1994; Perry & Wise, 1990). PSM

represents an autonomous type of motivation, stemming from a sense of duty and

identification with public service provision (Houston, 2011; Vandenabeele, 2013).

Individuals with high PSM therefore feel an internal drive to work hard and do well, if

they work on a public task (Vandenabeele, 2007). Several studies have documented a

positive association between PSM and individual performance (e.g., Andersen,

Heinesen, & Pedersen, 2014; Bellé, 2013; Bright, 2007; Vandenabeele, 2009), but we

know less about this relationship at the organizational level. Some studies conclude

that PSM is positively associated with organizational performance (Brewer & Selden,

2000; Kim, 2005), but most of these studies only look at individual employees as the

unit of analysis.

This study reexamines the hypothesis about a positive PSM–performance relation-

ship. We seek to make two significant contributions. Utilizing a large representative

data set of Dutch public-sector employees in 42 organizations collected as two inde-

pendent, representative samples in 2010 and 2012, we test the hypothesized positive

association using the individual-level pooled data set (n = 13,697) and provide a con-

servative test of the PSM–(perceived) performance relationship over time at the orga-

nizational level (n = 42)—testing the robustness of the individual-level findings in a

panel setup where our data allow us to use a fixed effects regression analysis. In addi-

tion to looking at organizations as relevant units of analysis, our study also asks

whether the relationship only exists when there is a good fit.

Our contribution regarding whether the PSM–performance relationship is context-

dependent is especially relevant for the generalizability of the PSM–performance rela-

tionship. Studies of the PSM–performance relationship usually assume that it is

possible for all employees in public organizations to contribute to society. We know

from previous studies that person–environment fit (P-E)—the fit between person and

work environment in values or needs (Edwards & Shipp, 2007; Kristof-Brown,

Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005)—matters for the relationship between PSM and work

outcomes (Bright, 2007; Leisink & Steijn, 2009; Taylor, 2008; Wright & Pandey,

2008). It may thus be essential whether employees actually perceive their job to have

a high societal impact potential (SIP; that is, they perceive their jobs as providing

opportunities to make a meaningful contribution to society). This study begins to fill

the gap in the literature by including the SIP of a job. This subjective (PSM-) fit can be

seen as a needs–supply equilibrium, a specific type of person–job fit (Kristof-Brown

et al., 2005). We expect that the PSM–performance relationship will be strongest when

SIP is high.

Regarding our second contribution, there are theoretical as well as methodological

reasons for supplementing existing individual-level, cross-sectional analyses of the

PSM–performance relationship with a study over time at the organizational level.