Public Service Motivation and Employee Change-Supportive Intention: Utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior

• Author: Hemin Ali Hassan,Ahmad Bayiz Ahmad,Bangcheng Liu,Xiaodong Zhang
• Date: 01 June 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0091026020934515
• Published date: 01 June 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026020934515

Public Personnel Management

2021, Vol. 50(2) 283 –304

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026020934515

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Article

Public Service Motivation and

Employee Change-Supportive

Intention: Utilizing the

Theory of Planned Behavior

Hemin Ali Hassan1,2 , Xiaodong Zhang1,

Ahmad Bayiz Ahmad2,3 , and Bangcheng Liu3

Abstract

Implementing change is considered as a difficult task for public organizations. Some

individual dispositional factors have been suggested to influence recipient responses

to change in public organizations. Past research has shown a link between public

service motivation (PSM) and employee positive responses to organizational

change. However, the psychological processes underlining this relationship are not

specified. Building on the PSM theory and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this

study examines the role of psychological variables (attitude, subjective norm, and

perceived behavioral control) in mediating the relationship between PSM and change-

supportive intention. A sample of 143 employees is collected from a public university

in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq that was going through a change initiative. The

results revealed that PSM predicts change-supportive intention, and the relationship

between PSM and change-supportive intention is mediated by change-related attitude

and subjective norm. The implications of the findings for theory and practice are

discussed.

Keywords

public service motivation, theory of planned behavior, public sector, Kurdistan

Region, organizational change

1University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB), China

2University of Raparin (UOR), Ranya, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

3Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), China

Corresponding Author:

Hemin Ali Hassan, Donlinks School of Economics and Management, University of Science and

Technology Beijing, 30 Xueyuan Rd., Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China.

Email: hemin.dmpf@yahoo.com

934515PPMXXX10.1177/0091026020934515Public Personnel ManagementHassan et al.

research-article2020

284 Public Personnel Management 50(2)

Introduction

Due to financial pressures and growing public demands on government performance,

public organizations constantly need to implement changes (Pollitt & Bouckaert,

2011). However, organizations face serious problems through change implementation

and often fail in achieving their intended change objectives (Beer & Nohria, 2000;

Smith, 2003). According to Beer and Nohria (2000), up to 70% of change efforts fail.

One main reason of organizational change failure is related to employee reactions to

change (Choi, 2011; van der Voet et al., 2017). Extant literature contends that while

reform policies and change programs are often initiated by elected or politically

appointed officials and executives (Ahmad et al., 2020a), the actual changes in public

organizations are implemented by middle and frontline managers as well as frontline

employees (i.e., change recipients; van der Voet, 2014; van der Voet et al., 2016a).

Consequently, organizations can only change through their employees (Paulsen et al.,

2005).

According to a recent literature review on change management in the public sector

(Kuipers et al., 2014), several factors have been identified to antecede recipient

responses to change, namely, individual dispositions, change content, context, pro-

cess, and leadership (Ahmad & Cheng, 2018; Oreg et al., 2011). An important indi-

vidual dispositional factor which is suggested to influence recipient responses to

change in public organizations is public service motivation (PSM; Wright et al., 2013).

PSM is defined as a “general, altruistic motivation to serve the interests of a commu-

nity of people, a state, a nation or humankind” (Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999, p. 20).

PSM has become one of the essential concepts of the public administration literature

due to many favorable outcomes to support public organizations (Vandenabeele,

2014). As an individual-level variable, PSM has been suggested to have an important

role during times of organizational change. Perry and Wise (1990), for instance, sug-

gested that PSM facilitates organizational change in the public sector because it is

positively related to organizational commitment and committed employees assist their

organizations to adjust to contingencies.

While previous research offers empirical insights into the relationship between

PSM and employee reactions to change (e.g., Wright et al., 2013), the underlying psy-

chological processes linking PSM with change-supportive intention (CSI) are not

specified. Hence, it is unclear how and to what extent psychological factors mediate

the relationship between PSM and employee behavioral intention to support organiza-

tional change. Furthermore, although research on public employee responses to orga-

nizational change is increasing, a recent literature review by Kuipers et al. (2014) on

managing organizational change in public organizations showed that most of the pub-

lications on change management are from the United States/Anglo-Saxons that could

be biased in terms of results (Kuipers et al., 2014). Thereby, not much research has

been conducted in non-Western, Islamic contexts (cf. Ahmad & Cheng, 2018).

In an attempt to address these concerns in the literature, this study aims to investi-

gate the underlining relationships between PSM and CSI in the Kurdistan Region of

Iraq’s public organizations, utilizing the established theory of planned behavior (TPB;