610 forum
Symposium Introduction
James L. Perry is Distinguished
Professor Emeritus at the School of
Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana
University, Bloomington, and Distinguished
Visiting Professor at University of Hong
Kong. He is editor in chief of Public
Administration Review.
E-mail: perry@indiana.edu
Wouter Vandenabeele is assistant
professor at the Utrecht University School
of Governance, The Netherlands, and a
visiting scholar in the Public Governance
Institute at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Belgium. His research interests concern
motivation-related variables, in particular
public service motivation, and their role in
strategic human resources management in
the public sector.
E-mail: w.v.vandenabeele@uu.nl
692 Public Administration Review • September | October 2015
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 75, Iss. 5, pp. 692–699. © 2015 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.12430.
International diffusion of research on public service motivation. The formal study of public service motivation has been undertaken by scholars in countries around the world. Based on our tracking of research and correspondence with investigators in different parts of the world, original survey data about public service motivation have been collected in more than two dozen countries.1 Use of secondary data to study public service motivation means that research has been conducted involving at least 43 countries (Ritz, Brewer, and Neumann 2013; Vandenabeele, Brewer, and Ritz 2014).
Another aspect of the research that can easily go unnoticed is its longevity. Twenty-fi ve years have passed since “Th e Motivational Bases of Public Service” was published. Research on public service motivation began to generate noticeable attention soon after articles about the measurement (Perry 1996) and antecedents (Perry 1997) of public service motivation appeared. Given the relatively brief periods of ascent and descent of research topics in our fi eld, the more than two decades of attention that scholars have given to public service motivation is noteworthy.
Concept distinctive to public administration. One reason that has been voiced explaining the popularity of public service motivation is that it represents a distinctive feature of public administration. Many of the concepts and ideas we study in public adminis- tration have their origins in other fi elds. We study power (Durant 2015; Long 1949), but we certainly did not invent the concept. We also study many other individual psychological concepts—among them job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior—but they also
Abstract: Th is article takes stock of public service motivation research to identify achievements, challenges, and an agenda for research to build on progress made since 1990. After enumerating achievements and challenges, the authors take stock of progress on extant proposals to strengthen research. In addition, several new proposals are off ered, among them conducting more research on the disaggregated construct, developing grounded theory of public service motivation to understand contextual variations across cultures and political institutions, and improving current measures to better capture loyalty to governance regime as an institutional dimension of the public service motivation construct.
Public Service Motivation Research: Achievements, Challenges, and Future Directions
James L. Perry Indiana University, Bloomington
University of Hong Kong
Wouter Vandenabeele Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Although the coauthors of “Th e Motivational Bases of Public Service” had, at best, modest expectations about its infl uence when it was fi rst published (Perry and Wise 1990), the research that fl owed from the article has far exceeded expectations. Th e development and growth process has not been lin- ear, however, with development coming in three waves of quite diff erent levels and paces of activity (Brewer, Ritz, and Vandenabeele 2012; Perry 2014).
Th e goals of this article are twofold. Th e fi rst is to take stock of the state of research since “Th e Motivational Bases of Public Service” appeared in the 50th-anni- versary volume of Public Administration Review. Th e second goal is to off er an agenda for future research. Th e agenda is derived, in part, from a symposium of fi ve articles accompanying this lead essay. Th e fi ve articles off er thoughtful critiques, new horizons, and insights about the application of public service moti- vation research.
Taking Stock of Achievements and Challenges Taking stock is a double-edged sword, involving both achievements with respect to a research agenda and challenges associated with shortfalls and gaps. We begin by discussing achievements and then turn to challenges.
Achievements We briefl y touch on three achievements associ- ated with the maturity of public service motivation research. Th ey are (1) international diff usion of research on public service motivation, (2) concept distinctive to public administration, and (3) recogni- tion in fi elds outside public administration.
Public Service Motivation Research: Achievements, Challenges, and Future Directions 693
Scholars in organizational behavior and human resource man- agement have integrated the concept into their research, too. Carpenter, Doverspike, and Miguel (2012) found that public sector motivation has utility in predicting employment interests beyond the general personality factor of agreeableness. Adam Grant (2007) has helped connect public service motivation to prosocial motiva- tion and job design research and, in collaboration with Bradley Wright (Wright and Grant 2010), suggested stronger designs for future research. Psychologists Hubert Annen, Philippe Goldammer, and Tibor Szvircsev Tresch (2015) used research and theory about public service motivation to explain the strength of ties between
organizational citizenship behavior and service in the Swiss military. In an article in the sym- posium in this issue, Arnold Bakker (2015), a distinguished work and organizational psy- chology scholar, articulates how public service motivation is both a dependent variable and a moderating variable in the job demands– resources model of work engagement.
Finally, closer to public administration’s roots, political science has given the concept atten- tion. Public service motivation has played
prominently in analysis of principal–agent behavior (Gailmard 2010; Miller and Whitford 2007). David Houston, a political scientist at the University of Tennessee, has contributed several notable studies (Houston 2000, 2011; Houston and Cartwright 2007), including one (Houston 2006) that investigated the relation- ship between public service motivation and the prosocial behavior of public and private employees outside the workplace. David Lewis (2010) reviewed research from political science related to the public service motivation literature for insights about opportunities and pitfalls for public service motivation research. Th ese examples illustrate the credibility public service motivation has gained as a construct in fi elds outside public administration.
Challenges Although research on public service motivation has fl ourished since Perry and Wise published their article in 1990, the arena also confronts challenges. Several challenges are discussed in depth in an article by Barry Bozeman and Xuhong Su (2015) that appears in this symposium. We would like to call attention to two challenges with which we directly identify in our roles as scholars and editors.
Problems of quality and quality control. The fi rst challenge is not novel. The popularity of the public service motivation construct—and its survey-based measurement—has brought many people into the empirical conversation. Bozeman and Su observe that “[t]he very popularity of PSM contributes to problems of its conceptualization” (2015, X). A particular consequence is overuse of cross-sectional surveys because they offer “easy data.” This weakness in the research has begun to be remedied by more self-consciousness about the limitations of cross-sectional survey research, infusions of quality stud- ies from scholars outside public administration, and the rising applica- tion of experimental methods and longitudinal research (Bellé 2013, 2014; Brænder and Andersen 2013; Kjeldsen and Jacobsen 2013).
An aspect of the quality control issue involves defi nitions. Some scholars have been critical of the proliferation of defi nitions of
originated from other fi elds. Public service motivation—together with a handful of other concepts such as red tape, publicness, and representative bureaucracy—is one of the few concepts native to public administration and public management (Meier 2015; Moynihan, Vandenabeele, and Blom-Hanson 2013).
Th e resonance of public service motivation is not surprising because the concept touches the core of public service. Much of what we defi ne as public service motivation can be traced to ideas at the heart of the public arena throughout history (Horton 2008).
Recognition in fi elds outside public administration. The fact that public service motivation is one of the few concepts that has its origins in public administration connects to another noteworthy facet of the research— that it has managed to get recognition in fi elds outside public administration. Some- what unexpectedly, public service motivation has gotten the most attention in economics. Economists have pursued several different but related lines of research that refer to public service motivation.
One of the ways in which public service motivation has played into research by economists is as a specifi cation of altruism, the willing- ness of individuals to engage in sacrifi cial behaviors for the good of others without reciprocal benefi ts for themselves. Patrick Francois used public service motivation to refer to providing “eff ort out of concern for the impact of that eff ort on a valued social service” (2000, 275). In his research on public servant motivation and policy design, Julian Le Grand, after reviewing the relevant literature, including research on public service motivation, concluded that “it is hard to dispute the view that altruistic motivations are prevalent among the providers of public services” (2003, 35).
Economic research on labor market sorting has also referred to public administration research on public service motivation. Studies based on samples of health care workers (Gregg et al. 2011), highly educated workers, workers in developing countries (Dur and Zoutenbier 2014), or more general samples (Delfgaauw and Dur 2007, 2008) all included public service motivation as a variable in explaining self-selection on the labor market and sector choice. Likewise, Georgellis, Iossa, and Tabvuma (2011) used data from the fi rst 14 waves of the British Household Panel Survey covering the period from 1991 to 2004. Th ey concluded that a signifi cant share of individuals move to the public sector because of the higher likelihood of fulfi lling their public service motivation. Th us, public service motivation has played a signifi cant role in this line of sector- sorting research among economists.
Th e research on public service motivation has also been cited in eco- nomic research on motivation. Th ese studies include Dal Bó, Finan, and Rossi (2013) and Banuri and Keefer (2013), which investigated the interplay among motivation, pay, and work as attractions to public service. Th ese studies were among the fi rst to investigate public service motivation in conjunction with other incentives (Perry 2014), an important direction for future research that we will discuss later in this article.
Th e fact that public service motivation is one of the few
concepts that has its origins in public administration connects to another noteworthy facet of the research—that it has man- aged to get recognition in fi elds outside public administration.
694 Public Administration Review • September | October 2015
and the scale’s overall statistical properties are robust. Th e instru- ment is also noteworthy in that it is the product of collaboration among scholars from 12 countries.
Scholars have also made strides in pursuing experimental and quasi- experimental research designs, as proposed by Wright and Grant (2010). Mogens Jin Pedersen’s (2015) experimental study, which is reported in this symposium, is part of a growing body of experi- mental and quasi-experimental studies (Bellé 2013, 2014; Brænder and Andersen 2013; Kjeldsen and Jacobsen 2013; Moynihan 2013) published since 2010.
Another recent proposal is for more research about the motivational dynamics of multiple incentives, that is, the infl uence of public service motivation in conjunction with incentives such as monetary compensation and job security (Perry 2014). As we noted earlier, some research about multiple incentives has appeared recently in economics (Banuri and Keefer 2013; Dal Bó, Finan, and Rossi 2013). Multi-incentive studies involving public service motivation have also appeared in the Review of Public Personnel Administration (Lee and Choi 2013; Taylor and Taylor 2010). In his contribution
to this symposium, Bakker (2015) draws a connection between work engagement and public service motives as incentives working in tandem to produce important organiza- tional outcomes. Likewise, Pedersen (2015) illustrates empirically how public service motivation can be studied in conjunction with other types of motives, specifi cally, introjected regulation. Given the evolution of research about public service motivation, the time is ripe for multi-incentive studies.
Paarlberg and Lavigna posed the question, “How can new public service motivation research translate into more eff ective manage- ment practices?” (2010, 710), acknowledging that research designed to transform practice is underdeveloped. Progress on this front has been modest. Four of the contributions to this symposium are attentive to the question of improving management practices. Fabian Homberg, Dermot McCarthy, and Vurain Tabvuma’s (2015) meta-analysis of the relationship between public service motiva- tion and job satisfaction reveals a direct relationship between the two variables. Th ey conclude that when public service–motivated individuals are given more opportunities to serve the public, they report higher levels of job satisfaction. Bakker (2015) develops a variety of generalizations showing that public service motivation can be instrumental in coping with organizational stressors and that public service motivation facilitates employee engagement. Pedersen’s (2015) survey experiment investigates prospects for activating an individual’s public service motivation with a low- intensity intervention. His results are promising, suggesting that an employee’s existing public service motivation can be activated by managers with relatively low investments. Th e article by Ahmed Mohammed Sayed Mostafa, Julian Seymour Gould-Williams, and Paul Bottomley (2015) addresses the role of public service motiva- tion in the human resources value chain, relating it to high-perfor- mance human resource practices. Th eir fi ndings indicate that public service motivation is an important mediating variable in the process of value creation, in particular regarding the attitudes that drive
public service motivation (for an elaboration of this point, see Bozeman and Su 2015). Although defi nitions and their nuances have increased, what we should infer from the proliferation of defi - nitions is subject to interpretation. Regardless of the proliferation of defi nitions, the defi nition used in Perry, Hondeghem, and Wise (2010) is reasonably close to the defi nition originally used in Perry and Wise (1990). Th e proliferation of defi nitions and their nuances could be interpreted as instability, uncertainty, or imprecision. We believe that many of the defi nitional adjustments refl ect learning, which is certainly understandable given the new territory scholars have been exploring collectively and independently. At the same time, we believe that equating public service motivation with gen- eral altruism (Rainey and Steinbauer 1999) is mistaken, although the two concepts are certainly related. We will return to address public service motivation and altruism research later in this article.
Simultaneously too much and too little emphasis on measurement. Another of our concerns is that we have spent too much effort on measurement and, simultaneously, too little. On the too-little side of the ledger, we are struck by how long a revised version of the public service motivation scale has been in coming. The scale, which appeared in 1996 (Perry 1996), has limitations, as several scholars have illustrated (Kim and Vandenabeele 2010; Wright 2008). What surprises us is that the limitations have not spawned more serious attention to resolving them. This attests to the diffi culty of scale creation, to the adequacy of the original scale despite its fl aws, and to the availability of reasonable substitutes for much of our research (Wright, Christensen, and Pandey 2013). An international group of scholars recently sought to improve the replicability and invariance of the scale across institutional environments (Kim et al. 2013), but the effort was not entirely successful. The diffi cult march toward a universal measure therefore continues.
On the too-much side of the ledger with respect to our collective eff orts on measurement is the amount of attention we have given to measurement overall. A recent systematic review of public service motivation research (Ritz, Brewer, and Neumann 2013) indicated that many publications in the last decade focused on “(further) development of measurement instruments” or pursued a line of research defi ned as “international comparison of the construct.” Although there are no exact numbers, our inference is that we have expended a substantial amount of eff ort on measurement, perhaps too much with too little to show for the eff ort expended.
Future Directions for Public Service Motivation Research Several scholars have off ered useful proposals about next steps for advancing public service motivation research (Kim and Vandenabeele 2010; Moynihan et al. 2013; Paarlberg and Lavigna 2010; Perry 2014; Perry, Hondeghem, and Wise 2010; Vandenabeele, Brewer, and Ritz 2014; Wright and Grant 2010). Some of the proposals have already produced results. Kim and Vandenabeele’s (2010) proposal for the development of an interna- tional scale has resulted in a new instrument that improves on Perry (1996) in several ways. Th e most notable of the improvements is that the scale is shorter, the compassion subscale is more reliable,
Public service motivation can be studied in conjunction with
other types of motives, spe- cifi cally, introjected regulation. Given the evolution of research about public service motivation,
the time is ripe for multi- incentive studies.
Public Service Motivation Research: Achievements, Challenges, and Future Directions 695
they leave open the question of whether the scale used is measuring public service motivation or something else.
A second reason for research that unbundles the construct is to bring attention to dimen- sions of public service motivation that are important in their own right. Th e scholar- ship on public service motivation worldwide, as noted earlier, is gratifying, but it may be desirable to see more balance between the whole—that is, public service motiva- tion—and the parts, for example, compassion
and self-sacrifi ce. Research on the development and evolution of empathy and compassion in public bureaucracy, for instance, could help us better understand phenomena such as the alleged decline of public service motivation (Moynihan and Pandey 2007). In addi- tion, more research about compassion, self-sacrifi ce, and other com- monly understood motives could make the results of the research less technical, addressing an issue raised by Bozeman and Su in this symposium.
A third reason is to increase prospects for more exchanges with other fi elds and disci- plines. Th is rationale for conducting more disaggregated research acknowledges that the theoretical and empirical landscape has changed vastly since 1990, when rational choice models dominated. Several of the dimensions of public service motivation are the objects of research in other fi elds. Compassion, for example, which is referred
to in some fi elds as “caring” or the “ethic of care” (Wilhelm and Bekkers 2010), is studied in psychology, social psychology, and soci- ology. A related concept that we are likely to pursue if we conduct more research on caring as a distinct motivation is empathy, which has been widely studied (Batson 1994).
Another dimension from the public service motivation dimensions that has currency in other fi elds is self-sacrifi ce, which has long been associated with altruism (Perry 1996).2 As a well-known concept, it deserves to be studied in public administration disaggregated from the more encompassing construct that we have come to call public service motivation. An additional reason for studying self-sacrifi ce unbundled from the other dimensions of public service motivation is the distinctions that are sometimes made among diff erent types of altruism (Andreoni 1990; Le Grand 2003). Given these distinctions and the underlying nature of altruism, our knowledge of altruism, particularly in public service, could be advanced by studying it as a discrete phenomenon.
Th e disaggregated approach that we propose may have salutary consequences for our ability to interpret research fi ndings, not only for survey-dependent, nonexperimental research designs but also for other research designs. Doing robustness checks by testing the indi- vidual dimensions and not only the aggregate construct would aid in interpreting the actual mechanisms behind specifi c relationships.
performance—organizational citizenship behaviors and aff ective commitment relationships.
Based on this quick inventory, scholars are making progress in addressing recent propos- als to improve the validity and utility of pub- lic service motivation research. In addition to extant proposals, we would like to off er three additional proposals that we believe will pay dividends. We could off er other recommenda- tions, but we believe the three presented here are instrumental for advancing research at this juncture of its evolution. Th ey are (1) pursue focused research that disaggregates and unbundles the public service motivation con- struct; (2) study how public service motivation is manifest, on the ground, in diff erent regimes; and (3) improve current measures to better capture commitment to governance regime as an institutional dimension.
Pursue Research That Disaggregates and Unbundles Public Service Motivation We need to conduct more research about the individual dimensions of the public service motivation construct. Disaggregating the bun- dle of public service motivation dimensions may seem like heresy, but we are not propos- ing to abandon the unifi ed construct, simply to augment it appropriately. Th e idea is not entirely new because it has been articulated previously (Perry and Hondeghem 2008). It is a direct way to address Bozeman and Su’s (2015) call in this symposium for more attention to strengthening concepts, particularly in conjunction with related concepts. In fact, there are many good reasons for pursuing this research strategy as a complement to what we have been doing for the better part of the last two decades. Let us touch on three of the reasons.
Th e fi rst reason involves simplifying challenges associated with the reliability and validity of measures. Simplifying the measure- ment challenges is desirable in both single and multicountry stud- ies, but it may be especially useful in cross-national research. Th e multicountry study by Kim et al. (2013) suggested diff erences in meanings of the scale across countries that could emanate from several sources. Learning more about each dimension of the scale within a country and comparatively between countries could help not only for understanding the distinct dimensions but also for deciphering diff erences in public service motivation as a general construct.
A closely related facet of this measurement issue is the propensity for investigators to pick and choose from among the four dimensions of public service motivation (Kim et al. 2013; Perry 1996) but to call the construct public service motivation regardless of the number of dimensions retained or the fi delity of the instrument to its original construction. Th e rationales for dropping a dimension from the scale are often compelling (Ritz 2011), but
Scholars are making progress in addressing recent proposals to improve the validity and util-
ity of public service motivation research.
Research on the development and evolution of empathy and compassion in public bureau- cracy, for instance, could help us better understand phenom- ena such as the alleged decline of public service motivation.
Disaggregating the bundle of public service motivation dimensions may seem like
heresy, but we are not propos- ing to abandon the unifi ed
construct, simply to augment it appropriately.
696 Public Administration Review • September | October 2015
was intended to tap a respondent’s relationship with the governance system in which the respondent operated. Among the aspects of the relationship were (1) the extent of an individual’s loyalty to the governance system; (2) the individual’s belief that the system was legitimate; and (3) the individual valued the system.
Th e attraction to public policy making scale that emerged had several limitations.3 One was the clustering of reverse-worded items on the scale. Th e second was the face validity of the items, which appear to speak to alienation from politics more strongly than affi n-
ity for policy making. We do not believe that a scale that addresses alienation from politics and politicians is unrelated to public service motivation—after all, dislike of the political process and politicians is probably not a desir- able disposition for public servants, but we believe that a subscale with a broader, positive scope is more desirable.
We believe a dimension that captures an individual’s disposition toward the governance regime ought to be part of a global measure of public service motivation. In addition to our proposal, Adrian Ritz (2011) suggested ways to improve the attraction to public policy making dimension, providing along the way a strong ration- ale for the dimension.
Other contributions to the literature on public service reinforce the original conception. For example, in their inventory of public values, Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007) identifi ed “regime loyalty” as one of the public values in the constellation of values associated with the behavior of public servants. Th ey also emphasized the connection of regime loyalty and other values associated with it to integrity, which comports with the original notion that this dimen- sion captured an individual’s loyalty to the institutions by which public decisions are made and executed.
Scholars’ mixed acceptance of the attraction to public policy making dimension may be a prima facie case that this dimension cannot be operationalized universally but instead is peculiar to specifi c political systems or political institutions. In fact, given the original intent of this dimension to tap into an individual’s fi delity to governance regimes embedded in American political institutions, future research could seek to use this dimension to capture “local” institutions. In the long run, country- or regime-specifi c (e.g., parliamentary versus presidential governance systems) commitment to the governance regime subscales could be bundled with universal subscales, such as self-sacrifi ce and compassion, to create an integrated public service motivation construct.
We observed earlier that the international scale of Kim et al. (2013) represents an improvement on the original instrument (Perry 1996). Th e proposal for further research to better identify a loyalty to the governance regime dimension of public service motivation refl ects an area in which measurement improvements are still needed. “Attraction to public service” in Kim et al. (2013), which replaces “attraction to public policy making” (Perry 1996), is less compel- ling theoretically than a subscale rooted in the logics associated with loyalty to governance regimes. Th us, we believe that continued attention to strengthening this dimension is merited.
Pedersen’s (2015) approach in his contribution to the symposium illustrates how to proceed in the case of an experimental design. In addition, research on discrete concepts such as compassion, self- sacrifi ce, and altruism will help further diff erentiate public service motivation from related concepts, as called for by Bozeman and Su (2015). At this stage in the development of the public service motivation subfi eld, more attention to research that disaggregates the construct strikes us as compelling.
Study How Public Service Motivation Is Manifest, on the Ground, in Different Regimes Th e call for more grounded theory addresses a need to develop a more robust body of qualitative evidence about the nature of the motives of public servants. Th e rapid develop- ment of quantitative research about public service motivation has left us with a dearth of direct, formal studies of the phenomena. Now is the time to remedy this defi ciency in our knowledge base.
We have workable models and exemplars for what this qualita- tive research might look like. Let us discuss a couple of them. One line of research in public administration that draws on qualitative methods, particularly the rich traditions of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967), is the series of studies by Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael Musheno (2000, 2003, 2012). A similar approach applied to studying the motives of public servants strikes us as appropriate and likely to pay dividends. Th e narratives and stories that would emerge from such research could provide a strong foundation for a richer understanding of the motives of those who serve the public. In this symposium, Bakker (2015) makes a complementary point by advocating the use of diary stud- ies for providing further data to understand the nature of loss and gain cycles.
Another exemplar is Anne Colby and William Damon’s Some Do Care (1992), which includes extended narratives of 23 contempo- rary moral exemplars working for the good of others. Th eir method- ology has its roots in their training as developmental psychologists. From the narratives, Colby and Damon were able to extract interest- ing patterns of moral commitments, personality, and continuity and change. Even if Colby and Damon’s narratives cannot be mined for insights about public service motivation, their research methods, together with those used by Maynard-Moody and Musheno, merit consideration for future qualitative research.
Improve Current Measures to Better Capture Commitment to Governance Regime A challenge in developing the original public service motiva- tion scale (Perry 1996) was adequately articulating the dimension associated with attraction to public policy making. Th e subscale that became “attraction to public policy making” began as an eff ort to create an institutional dimension that tapped an individual’s commitment to the way the institutions in the governance system in which he or she was located did business (Perry 1996; Perry and Wise 1990). Th e dimension had its roots as much in the way good public service could be understood as it did any abstract or theoretical understanding of institutional context. Th is dimension
A dimension that captures an individual’s disposition toward the governance regime ought to be part of a global measure of
public service motivation.
Public Service Motivation Research: Achievements, Challenges, and Future Directions 697
human resource practices can be magnifi ed. At the same time, because the relationship is only partially mediated, high-perfor- mance practices have direct eff ects that are worth pursuing even in the absence of high public service motivation employees.
Authors’ Note Th is is a revised version of a keynote address delivered by the fi rst author at the International Institute of Administrative Sciences conference “One Step Beyond—Refi ning Public Service Motivation Th eory and Research Methods,” Utrecht University School of Governance, November 14, 2013, Utrecht, Th e Netherlands. Th e conference was organized by the second author, who contributed signifi cantly to the revised article.
Notes 1. Countries in which we are aware that original research has been conducted
include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, People’s Republic of China, Scotland, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
2. We prefer “self-sacrifi ce” as the label for this subscale as opposed to “altruism,” for several reasons. Self-sacrifi ce conveys meaning that is more intuitive. It also implies a more variable quality than altruism, which is sometimes associated only with high-end self-sacrifi ce.
3. Th e three items for the attraction to public policy making subscale are (1) “I don’t care much for politicians”; (2) “Th e give-and-take of public policy making doesn’t appeal to me”; and (3) “Politics is a dirty word.”
4. Homberg, McCarthy, and Tabvuma’s (2015) study is the second reported meta- analysis associated with public service motivation. Th e fi rst was Warren and Chen (2013), which focused on research involving performance.
References Andreoni, James. 1990. Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Th eory
of Warm-Glow Giving. Economic Journal 100(401): 464–77. Annen, Hubert, Philippe Goldammer, and Tibor Szvircsev Tresch. 2015.
Longitudinal Eff ects of OCB on Cadre Selection and Pursuing a Career as Militia Cadre in the Swiss Armed Forces. Military Psychology 27(1): 9–21.
Bakker, Arnold B. 2015. A Job Demands–Resources Approach to Public Service Motivation. Public Administration Review 75(5): 723–32.
Banuri, Sheheryar, and Phillip Keefer. 2013. Intrinsic Motivation, Eff ort and the Call to Public Service. Policy Research Working Paper no. 6729, World Bank. http:// elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/pdf/10.1596/1813-9450-6729 [accessed June 23, 2015].
Batson, C. Daniel. 1994. Why Act for the Public Good? Four Answers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 20(5): 603–10.
Bellé, Nicola. 2013. Experimental Evidence on the Relationship between Public Service Motivation and Job Performance. Public Administration Review 73(1): 143–53.
———. 2014. Leading to Make a Diff erence: A Field Experiment on the Performance Eff ects of Transformational Leadership, Perceived Social Impact, and Public Service Motivation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Th eory 24(1): 109–36.
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Conclusion Our broad stock taking argues that we have made signifi cant strides in research on public service motivation since 1990. At the same time, we confront new challenges and have unanswered questions to which we should turn our attention. We have highlighted extant proposals and made several new proposals to further the research in directions that we think will be benefi cial for understanding public service motivation.
Th e symposium provides answers for some of the questions that have been raised and showcases methods and research directions that are important for future research. Bozeman and Su (2015) lead with a critical perspective that identifi es the need to sharpen con- cepts and diff erentiate them from related concepts. Th ey propose two specifi c research programs that would help fl esh out details that will make research about public service motivation more robust.
Two of the contributions to the symposium employ research methods that will need to be used increasingly in future research. Homberg, McCarthy, and Tabvuma’s (2015) application of meta- analysis to the public service motivation–job satisfaction rela- tionship illustrates a method that could be used more widely to synthesize and integrate prior research.4 Pedersen’s (2015) survey experiment on activation of public service motivation illustrates the importance of experimental methods for future research, reinforcing both Bozeman and Su’s (2015) call for more laboratory experiments and Wright and Grant’s (2010) general call for greater use of experi- mental and quasi-experimental research designs.
In addition to illustrating a class of methods important for future research, Pedersen’s (2015) contribution also calls attention to self-determination theory as a basis for understanding the dynam- ics associated with public service motivation. Although previous research has linked public service motivation and self-determination theory (Perry and Vandenabeele 2008; Vandenabeele 2014), Pedersen’s study illustrates the long-term value of building a middle- range theory of public service motivation in conjunction with research on self-determination theory.
Bakker’s (2015) contribution opens a major new vista for public service motivation research by integrating it with job demands– resources theory. Bakker’s model summarizes a series of lessons that can be drawn from research on employee work engagement. More importantly, he illustrates that public service motivation and work engagement act in concert to infl uence employee performance. His model has signifi cant utility as both a practical and theoretical tool.
As we observed earlier in this article, Bakker’s article is one of several in the symposium with strong implications for applying public ser- vice motivation research. Th e symposium concludes with an article by Mostafa, Gould-Williams, and Bottomley (2015) showing that public service motivation partially mediates the infl uence of high- performance human resource practices on aff ective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors. Like Pedersen and Bakker’s contributions to the symposium, Mostafa, Gould-Williams, and Bottomley’s study has signifi cant practical implications. Th e fi nd- ing that public service motivation is a mediator suggests dynamic relationships that indicate how the infl uence of high-performance
698 Public Administration Review • September | October 2015
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