PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION AND DEMOCRACY

1. PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION AND DEMOCRACY Lois Recascino Wise Indiana University

2. 3 Flawed Assumptions about Public Service Motives • Public service motives are constant. • Public service motivation occurs in a vacuum. • Public service motives have no real significance for contemporary management.

3. 6 Propositions for Research 1: The salience of public service motives will vary over time. 2: The salience of public service motives will be significantly related to factors measuring organizational context and environmental factors impacting organizational performance. 3: The salience of public service motives is positively related to indicators of task performance quality and effectiveness.

4. Propositions for Research (con’t) 4: A person with strong public service motivation will be more likely than a person with weak public service motivation to invest time and resources into educating the public and more likely to forego short-term efficiency-based performance rewards. 5: A person with strong public service motivation will be more likely than a person with weak public service motivation to draw on personal values to resolve problems and issues in the performance of job tasks or in efforts to achieve organizational goals and objectives. 6: A person with strong public service motivation will be more likely than a person with weak public service motivation to become engaged in administrative tasks and to step outside the box to locate innovative solutions.

5. Main Argument • A government organization with a large share of individuals with strong public service motivation will be more likely to engage in the problem, educate the public in the issues, and introduce values into the decision process than an organization largely composed of people with weak public service motivation.

6. Efficiency is at odds with the slow task of engaging and educating the citizenry. Rule-following behavior is in tension with the tenets of moral responsibility and individual courage. Reliance on expert advice and knowledge is at odds with education and engagement. Fundamental tension between key tenets of administrative behavior and democratic values

7. Contextual factors influence the strength of public service motivation. • Factors within organizations and societies can have the effect of strengthening or weakening the prevalence of public service motivation and, in turn, the performance of acts that serve the public good and represent the public interest. • Organizational policies and practices may account for variations within the public sector in the strength of public service motives.

8. If managers do nothing to promote and reward people who display public service motives, we should not expect those motives to be important in the organizations they lead.

9. Without evidence that the administrative policies and management practices of a particular organization reward and promote public service motivation, we can not expect to find that public service motivation is the basis for behavior.

10. CONCLUSIONS: WHY PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVES MATTER • They provide the basis for activities that educate and empower the citizens. • They are the platform from which public servants bring values and engagement to their work. • They fortify public servants to overcome self-serving interests, moral inertia, and risk avoidance. • They anchor acts of judgment and discretion in a concern for the common good.