Relational Job Characteristics and Prosocial Motivation: A Longitudinal Study of Youth Care Professionals

• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X19862852
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X19862852

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2021, Vol. 41(1) 57 –77

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X19862852

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Article

Relational Job Characteristics

and Prosocial Motivation: A

Longitudinal Study of Youth

Care Professionals

Joris van der Voet1 and Bram Steijn2

Abstract

This study examines how changes in relational job characteristics relate to the

prosocial motivation of public professionals. Drawing on relational job design theory,

changes in job contact and job impact are hypothesized to covary with prosocial

motivation. With a unique longitudinal design, we study youth care professionals in

The Netherlands, who are embedded in a reform aimed at decentralizing youth care

to bring professionals closer to their clients. Quantitative data were collected through

a three-wave survey prior to the reform implementation and at, respectively, 1 and 2

years after its implementation. The results indicate that changing levels of job contact

and job impact are related to changes in prosocial motivation. The study contributes

to academic debates regarding the dynamic nature of prosocial motivation and our

findings provide longitudinal evidence for relational job design theory.

Keywords

public service motivation, prosocial motivation, job characteristics, relational job

characteristics

Prosocial motivation is a motivational force that drives effort based on meaning and

purpose. Grant (2008a) defines prosocial motivation as “the desire to expend effort to

benefit other people” (p. 49) or “the desire to benef‌it others or expend effort out of

concern for others” (Bolino & Grant, 2016, p. 604). The notion that prosocial motiva-

tional dispositions are especially present in public sector workers is reflected in the

1Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

2Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Joris van der Voet, Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, Turfmark 99, 2511 DP, The

Hague, The Netherlands.

Email: j.van.der.voet@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

862852ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X19862852Review of Public Personnel Administrationvan der Voet and Steijn

research-article2019

58 Review of Public Personnel Administration 41(1)

public management literature, although most studies use the public service motivation

(PSM) concept to refer to these dispositions (Ritz, Brewer, & Neumann, 2016; Wright

& Grant, 2010). Contemporary scholarly inquiry has questioned to what extent proso-

cial motivation should be seen as a relatively stable disposition or whether it is dynamic

and changeable over time. In this respect, several authors have argued how environ-

mental and organizational factors may contribute to changes in prosocial motivation

over time (Moynihan & Pandey, 2007; Perry, 1997). A limitation of much of the exist-

ing evidence is that most studies are based on cross-sectional rather than longitudinal

research designs (Wright & Grant, 2010). Nevertheless, more recent longitudinal

research suggests that prosocial motivations are to some extent dynamic in the face of

workplace experiences and external shocks (Brænder & Andersen, 2013; Kjeldsen &

Jacobsen, 2013; Oberfield, 2014) but that prosocial motivation appears to be relatively

stable in the long run (Vogel & Kroll, 2016).

In seeking to uncover what factors may be related to prosocial motivation, scholars

have highlighted a number of factors associated with the design of jobs. Specifically,

relational job design theory states that public sector jobs may contain a number of

characteristics that contribute to the cultivation of prosocial motivation (Grant, 2007,

2012). A distinction is made between two relational job characteristics: job contact

with beneficiaries and job impact on beneficiaries (Grant, 2008a). Contact with bene-

ficiaries enables employees to better understand the perspective and needs of clients,

and provides employees with feedback about client experiences. Impact on beneficia-

ries means that employees can observe the difference their job makes for others and

thus makes employees feel that their work is significant and important (Grant, 2008a;

Steijn & van der Voet, 2019; Taylor, 2014). Particularly in a public sector context,

these factors are of importance as employees are believed to have a strong need to

make a prosocial difference but may simultaneously lack the possibilities to connect

with beneficiaries and observe the impact of their work (Grant, 2008c).

Our study contributes to the literature on prosocial motivation and relational job

characteristics because (quasi-)experimental work has only examined how relational

job characteristics can be used to activate prosocial motivation in the short term to

increase work effort and task performance (Bellé, 2014; Grant, 2012). Other studies

have examined prosocial motivations over time as a consequence of organizational

experiences but do not explicitly consider variables that may explain changes in moti-

vation over time (Brænder & Andersen, 2013; Vogel & Kroll, 2016). We explicitly

assess relational job characteristics as a mechanism that may account for variability in

prosocial motivation over time. In doing so, we thus provide a longitudinal test of

relational job design theory (Grant, 2007), which has not been done before. For the

purpose of this study, we draw on panel data that were collected in three yearly mea-

surements in the context of an ongoing youth care reform in The Netherlands. Our

main research question is as follows:

Research Question: To what extent are changes in relational job characteristics

related to prosocial motivation of youth care professionals?