Who can do this Annotated Bibliography on Job Satisfaction?
deyxrikus
Article1.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026019878210
Public Personnel Management 2020, Vol. 49(4) 508 –531
© The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0091026019878210
journals.sagepub.com/home/ppm
Article
Veterans and Job Satisfaction in the U.S. Federal Government: The Importance of Role Clarity in the First Years of Civilian Employment
Andrew K. Tao1 and Jesse W. Campbell1
Abstract Veterans can face difficulties adjusting to civilian employment due to their experiences in highly structured and regimented military service organizations. This study focuses on factors that affect the job satisfaction of veterans employed in the civilian U.S. Federal Government. Drawing on sector imprinting theory, we propose that role clarity will have a stronger link with job satisfaction for government employees who have served in the military than for those who have not. Second, we argue that this difference will dissipate over time, with the importance of role clarity for veterans being strongest at the earliest stages of the transition to civilian employment. We present evidence for our theory from an analysis of the 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Finally, after discussing the limitations of our study, we suggest practical managerial tactics that can complement ambitious public sector veteran employment initiatives.
Keywords sector imprinting, military service, role clarity, job satisfaction, job tenure
Introduction
The United States has a long history of education and training programs designed to help veterans transition to civilian life (Schulker, 2017), perhaps most famously, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill. Continuing
1Incheon National University, South Korea
Corresponding Author: Jesse W. Campbell, Department of Public Administration, Incheon National University, 12-1 Songdo- dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 22012, South Korea. Email: [email protected]
878210PPMXXX10.1177/0091026019878210Public Personnel ManagementTao and Campbell research-article2019
Tao and Campbell 509
in this tradition, on November 9, 2009, President Obama signed Executive Order 13518, otherwise known as the Veterans Employment Initiative. The policy section of the order states, “Veterans have served and sacrificed in defense of our Nation. When they complete their service, we must do everything in our power to assist them in re- entering civilian life and finding employment” (Executive Order No. 13518, 2009, 3 C.F.R. 2010, p. 267). The initiative aimed to provide preferential treatment to veterans in the hiring process of the civilian federal government and had a substantive impact:
From 2009 through 2013 . . . there was a 7 percent increase in the number of veterans hired by the federal government, and veterans’ participation in the federal workforce jumped from about 26 percent to more than 30 percent. (American Foreign Service Association, 2015, p. 37)
However, finding employment is not the only challenge faced by veterans and the transition from military to civilian life can be turbulent in a number of ways. Military training and service change recruits physiologically and psychologically so that they fit into military culture (Elnitsky, Fisher, & Blevins, 2017; Swain, 2016), and some research suggests that aspects of these changes persist well beyond the period of active service (Jackson, Thoemmes, Jonkmann, Lüdtke, & Trautwein, 2012; Lieberman et al., 2016; Swain, 2016). The unique experiences of veterans have lasting effects and can contribute to a variety of poor civilian career outcomes following transition, for example, underemployment, earnings disadvantages, and an increased unemployment rate for veterans who served after 2001 (Schulker, 2017). Although providing employ- ment is important, a better understanding of how military service shapes outcomes within the post-service civilian workplace is necessary to help soldiers reach their full potential after being discharged.
This study straddles two areas of interest for public administration scholars and practitioners. First, studies on sector imprinting have shown that experience gained in a particular sector affects job perceptions and attitudes when entering into employ- ment in a different sector (Boardman, Bozeman, & Ponomariov, 2010; Chen, 2012; Johnson & Ng, 2016). However, extant literature has tended to focus on transition from the private to the public (or non-profit) sector and has not addressed these effects in the context of a military to civilian employment transition. This is a significant issue, however, as military and civilian organizations, though they are both public, are fundamentally different, and attitudes and behaviors acquired during active service may necessitate a significant period of adjustment when transitioning to employment in civilian agencies. Second, this study links prior military service to organizational phenomenon of central concern for public administration scholars, namely, job satis- faction and role clarity. Job satisfaction is among the more studied and important vari- ables for public administration researchers (Cantarelli, Belardinelli, & Belle, 2016), and prior research shows that clarity is a significant and consistent contributor to job satisfaction (S. R. Bray, Beauchamp, Eys, & Carron, 2005; Hassan, 2013; Stazyk, 2016). However, some management and psychology literature suggests that the need for clarity varies between individuals (S. R. Bray et al., 2005; Lyons, 1971; Miles &
510 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
Petty, 1975), and therefore role clarity may have a differential impact on job satisfac- tion based on this need. Clarity has been linked with positive outcomes for soldiers, including job satisfaction (Dupré & Day, 2007). In addition, Ahern et al. (2015) describe how a high level of structure in military service organizations is central to feelings of security and achievement, thereby suggesting that the distinctiveness of the structure of military organizations plays a role in soldiers’ desire for a higher level of clarity. We argue that, based on their service experience, veterans entering civilian public organizations may value role clarity more than the average employee, and that levels of role clarity may be a stronger predictor of job satisfaction for those with prior military service than for those who have not served.
However, while we may expect the effect of prior military service to be significant, we can also expect that, in the average case, its intensity will dissipate with time. Studies focusing on reintegration into civilian life emphasize its temporal dimension (Elnitsky et al., 2017), and we expect that the effects of prior military service on job perceptions will be most acute in their earliest stages, when the memories and habits of military life are freshest. As such, this study explores whether the decisive role of role clarity in job satisfaction for employees with prior military experience weakens after a period of adjustment. Answering this question has practical importance for human resource management strategies in the public sector, particularly in times of rapid change in the composition of the federal executive branch such as that brought by the Veterans Employment Initiative.
Below, we review the relevant literature on the psychological and behavioral impact of military service on service personnel before turning to its probable impact on job satisfaction. We test our hypotheses using data from the 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). Following a presentation of the results of the empirical analysis, we conclude with a discussion of its implications and limitations, as well as potential paths for future research.
Literature Review
Sector Imprinting: The Significant, Lasting Effects of Military Service
Prior research has shown that experience gained in a particular sector affects a per- son’s perception of workplace attributes and work-related attitudes when that person enters into employment in a different sector (Boardman et al., 2010; Chen, 2012; Light, 1999). While most research has examined the effect of private-sector work experience for public employees, we expect that the unique character and intensity of military service will have a significant effect on veterans that may affect their adjust- ment to civilian employment. Socialization processes in the military tend to be intense, and, although formally illegal, forms of “verbal harassment, insult, or ridicule” are known to occur (Gold & Friedman, 2000; Pershing, 2006, p. 481), and, depending on the type of service, personnel may also be separated from their families (Hourani, Williams, & Kress, 2006). Standard Basic Training itself leads to elevated levels of psychological stress (Martin, Williamson, Alfonso, & Ryan, 2006) and may be more
Tao and Campbell 511
intensive in specialized positions. For example, Cook, Novaco, and Sarason (1982) suggest that training for the Marine Corps is “an ideal setting for the study of stress and adaptation” (p. 410) and other specialized trainings, such as field training at Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape School (Harris, Hancock, & Harris, 2005) and Army Ranger Training (Lieberman, Castellani, & Young, 2009), are also associ- ated with a high level of stress, mood alterations, and cognitive impairment. The pres- sures of military service, moreover, are not limited to its initial phases: Using the 1995 Department of Defense survey on active-duty personnel, R. M. Bray, Camlin, Fairbank, Dunteman, and Wheeless (2001) show that military personnel across all pay grades (excluding recruits) in all four branches of the U.S. Armed Forces stationed both domestically as well as overseas “report a great deal or a fairly large amount of stress in their military work” (p. 405). Finally, while not all soldiers see combat, those who do can experience a wide range of short-, medium-, and long-term psychological con- sequences, some of which are severe (Grossman & Siddle, 2000).
The effects of military training and employment are non-trivial and long-lasting, engendering deeply ingrained transformations of “self-image and identity” (Swain, 2016, p. 117) as well as personality changes, including a reduced level of agreeable- ness (Jackson et al., 2012).1 Soldiers recover from their experience differentially and in some cases do not recover entirely to pre-service levels (Lieberman et al., 2016). This experience has been linked with numerous post-service outcomes, especially dif- ficulties in making the transition to civilian life (Elnitsky et al., 2017). Military occu- pations have many equivalent civilian roles such as those in engineering and medical care, a point which has been emphasized in some military recruitment commercials. Nevertheless, these equivalences encompass a limited number of positions, and, for many, the skills and talents acquired during active service are often not appreciated outside of the service context, and years of service experience are not valued at the same premium as experience in civilian roles (MacLean, 2017).2 In ways we will dis- cuss, military organizations and civilian organizations are fundamentally different, and partly as a consequence of this, “veterans’ role expectations and behaviors may not be congruent with the role requirements in civilian organizations” (Stone & Stone, 2015, p. 75). In the next section, we discuss how military experience may be linked to factors affecting key indicators of employee well-being in public-sector organizations, such as job satisfaction, and moreover, how the factors underlying these may differ between the average employee and those with prior military experience.
Theoretical Framework: Prior Military Service, Role Clarity, and Job Satisfaction
With hundreds of studies exploring its antecedents and effects, job satisfaction is one of the most studied human resource variables in the public administration literature (Cantarelli et al., 2016). Job satisfaction reflects a consistency between what employ- ees want from their jobs and what they receive, and is conceptualized in the public administration literature as the strength of the positive feelings experienced based on an evaluation of this consistency (Chordiya, Sabharwal, & Goodman, 2017; K. Yang
512 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
& Kassekert, 2010; X. Yang & Wang, 2013). The importance of the construct is based on the empirical links that have been established between it and numerous individual- and organization-level outcomes of interest for public administration scholars and practitioners, for instance, turnover intention, absenteeism, and organizational citizen- ship behavior (Cantarelli et al., 2016).
Role clarity has consistently been found to be a predictor of job satisfaction in pub- lic-sector organizations. In their meta-analysis on a sample of 99 peer-reviewed studies, among other correlates, Cantarelli et al. (2016) show that individual-level job or role clarity is positively and strongly correlated with job satisfaction in 24 separate studies. Role clarity, in the context of this article, refers to the strength of the employee’s per- ception that they possess sufficient information about their specific job task, the expec- tations associated with it, and the manner in which it contributes to the mission of their organization (Pandey & Wright, 2006; Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman, 1970). Clarity has been shown to be positively associated with work satisfaction in organizational work groups (Hassan, 2013). Similarly, focusing on the group level, Bray et al. (2005) show that the satisfaction of athletes participating in team sports is correlated with role clar- ity. At the organization level, Stazyk (2016) has shown that organizational goal clarity correlates with employee job satisfaction, and Kalgin, Podolskiy, Parfenteva, and Campbell (2018) suggest that goal clarifying managerial behaviors, such as the imple- mentation of performance management, increase job satisfaction.
However, while role clarity is likely to be an important driver of job satisfaction for the average employee, the need for clarity differs among individuals (S. R. Bray et al., 2005; Lyons, 1971; Miles & Petty, 1975), and we expect that veterans may place a greater premium on clarity than non-veterans. Transitioning to civilian life and finding a satisfying career are “among the most pressing obstacles facing new veterans,” despite an array of public as well as private initiatives to improve veterans’ civilian labor market outcomes (Schulker, 2017, p. 695). Because “. . .veterans and nonveter- ans are very different populations,” the former can have difficulties utilizing skills gained in the military in civilian roles (Schulker, 2017, p. 697). One potential reason for this is the “skills mismatch” studied by MacLean (2017). However, a second source of frustration, which is relevant to this study, may be the relative distinctness of mili- tary and civilian public-sector organizations. First, positions in the military tend to be highly structured, with a certain level of clarity in terms of decisions and standard operating procedures (Ahern et al., 2015). In contrast, public organizations have noto- riously difficult to define goals that can translate into significant levels of role ambigu- ity for employees (Pandey & Wright, 2006; Rainey & Jung, 2015; Stazyk, Pandey, & Wright, 2011). In a series of interviews with veterans returning from active service, Ahern et al. (2015) note that the military environment is often described in “black and white” (p. 5) terms, or as “a setting in which orders are given and obeyed.” Transitioning to civilian life is accompanied by the necessity of making decisions in a wide range of areas that previously were not within the purview of the individual (Ahern et al., 2015), and the structure of military life provides soldiers with a clear framework against which to measure performance and has a number of additional psychological benefits. For example, Dupré and Day (2007) show that clarity directly, and indirectly
Tao and Campbell 513
through job satisfaction, leads to improved health symptoms for military personnel. Similarly, Lang, Thomas, Bliese, and Adler (2007) show that role clarity has a signifi- cant negative relationship with psychological strain and moreover is particularly important to the degree that job demands are high. These studies suggest that not only is role clarity valued in military life, it is connected in important ways to antecedents of well-being and job satisfaction for military personnel.
Based on the results of past studies, we predict that role clarity will be a significant predictor of job satisfaction in the average case. In terms of the effect of prior military service on job satisfaction, we have two expectations. First, due to the well-docu- mented difficulties adjusting to civilian life described in the literature, prior military service is likely to be related to lower levels of job satisfaction. Specifically, sector imprinting studies have shown that experience gained in a particular sector affects job perceptions and attitudes when entering into employment in a different sector. Veterans, conditioned by prior military training and service experiences, find themselves in unfamiliar job environments when reintegrating into civilian organizations. The ser- vice experience of veterans is likely to shape job expectations to an extent, and, because job satisfaction is at least partly a function of the coincidence between expec- tations and experience, the incongruence between the expectations of veterans and the realities of civilian public-sector employment may negatively affect satisfaction. In the same vein, precisely due to the highly structured nature of military life, with its unambiguous chain of command, comprehensive and paternalistic institutions, and concrete performance expectations (Ahern et al., 2015), veterans may place a pre- mium on role clarity relative to employees without a service past. For service person- nel, clarity is directly linked to job satisfaction and other associated phenomenon (Dupré & Day, 2007; Lang et al., 2007), a link we may expect to persist beyond active service. Therefore, we suggest that role clarity is likely to be a more operative factor in the production of job satisfaction for employees with prior military service than for those whose careers have been spent exclusively in civilian positions.
Hypothesis 1: Role clarity is positively related to job satisfaction. Hypothesis 2: Prior military service experience is negatively related to job satisfaction. Hypothesis 3: The negative effect of prior military service on job satisfaction is positively moderated by role clarity.
The Diminishing Effect of Role Clarity for Veterans Over Time
Surveying and analyzing 117 peer-reviewed articles on veterans’ reintegration, Elnitsky et al. (2017) note that the terms, reintegration, transition, and so on, convey a notion of a time period or process of adjustment into civilian life following military service. This suggests that the impact of prior military service experience, over a period of time, may fade when veterans go through reintegration, unlearning their prior experiences and/or adapting to their new civilian employment environments. Put simply, reintegration is “a process of change over time” “rather than a steady state”
514 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
(Elnitsky et al., 2017, p. 10). Research on reintegration mostly focuses on veterans’ short-term post-deployment experiences, for example, 1 year for Plach and Sells (2013) and 3 and 6 months for Wilcox et al. (2015), and Jackson et al. (2012) show that the level of agreeableness over a 6-year period for recruits continuing on in military service returns at a slower rate than for those who exit their military career. To sum up, regardless of whether they are positive or detrimental, military training and active service experiences have a lasting impact on veterans. However, this impact should diminish over time, likely over a period of years (Jackson et al., 2012). As such, while the extent and duration of this process are empirical questions, we expect that the impact of prior military service on veterans entering the federal workforce is stron- gest at the earliest stages of their tenure, which is also the case for private-sector man- agers entering the public sector (Boardman et al., 2010). As reintegration proceeds, so too will a process of convergence with non-veterans on important dimensions of orga- nizational experience.
Hypothesis 4: The positive moderating effect of job clarity on the relationship between prior military service and job satisfaction is strongest in the early stage of tenure.
Data and Method
Data Set
This study uses data from the 2013 FEVS of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The FEVS is an annual survey that uses a “stratified sampling approach to produce survey results that are representative of the entire federal executive branch workforce as well as of employees within individual agencies” and has been conducted (previ- ously under a different name) since 2002 (Fernandez, Resh, Moldogaziev, & Oberfield, 2015, p. 382). The annual FEVS captures respondents’ assessments on 84 questions divided into seven groups relating to work experience, work unit, agency, supervisor, leadership, satisfaction, and work/life issues as well as respondents’ demographic spe- cifics. The 2013 FEVS has a sample size of 376,577 responses.
While the hypotheses of this study are presumed to be of a time invariant quality, the 2013 FEVS nevertheless is a reasonable data set to test them with given its coinci- dence with the State Department’s assertion that the Veteran Employment Initiative had been a success from 2009 to 2013 (American Foreign Service Association, 2015). That is, from the signing of the Veterans Employment Initiative in November 2009 to the resultant initial impact of the full implementation of the policy in 2013, civilian employment in the entire federal workforce having prior military service experience grew to more than 30% (American Foreign Service Association, 2015). Therefore, the 2013 version of the FEVS was chosen as it was expected to have not only a sufficiently high percentage of military respondents but also a substantial number of employees who had recently entered the federal service with military experience, in addition to those whose service experience is more temporally remote, characteristics which are
Tao and Campbell 515
necessary for hypotheses testing. As the descriptive statistics presented below show, this is indeed the case.
Measurements
Among studies that utilize the FEVS, job satisfaction is measured in different ways. Some use a single-item, “Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job?” to measure job satisfaction (Bae & Kim, 2016; Fernandez & Moldogaziev, 2015). Others add an additional item: “Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your organization?” to construct a two-item composite measure (Jong, 2016; Pitts, 2009). In the sample of their meta-analysis on job satisfaction, Cantarelli et al. (2016) find that about one fourth of the studies uses a single-item and the rest use multiple-item measures, and some work suggests that multi-item measurements tend to produce a more conservative and accurate estimate of overall job satisfaction (Oshagbemi, 1999). As such, we follow Pitts (2009) and Jong (2016) and use the average of two items to measure job satisfaction. Answers to the two items are reported on a 5-point scale and range from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied.” The Cronbach’s alpha for these two items is .87, suggesting a sufficient level of reliability.
Prior military service experience is measured based on a response to the question: “Have you ever served on Active Duty in the US Armed Forces (Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps or Navy)?” Among the sample of 376,577, there are 27,992 missing values and 96,194 positive responses for this question (that is, about 28% of respondents report having prior military service experience). The strengths and weak- nesses of this measurement are discussed in the final section of this article.
Studies on role clear (or ambiguity) often draw upon Rizzo et al.’s (1970) defini- tion, which states that roles may be seen as clear to the extent that information both about behavioral expectations and outcomes are available, thus making clarity a func- tion of informational adequacy (Pandey & Wright, 2006; Zheng, Thundiyil, Klinger, & Hinrichs, 2016). To construct our measure of role clarity, we follow others who have used the FEVS for this purpose (Caillier, 2014; Campbell, 2016; Jong, 2016) and use three items that capture the perceived quality of information about job and role expec- tations. The items are as follows:
I have enough information to do my job well. I know what is expected of me on the job. I know how my work relates to the agency’s goals and priorities.
Like the remaining variables used in this study, the items are answered on a 5-point scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Cronbach’s alpha for these three items is .77.
Organizational tenure is measured based on responses to the question: “How long have you been with the Federal Government (excluding military service)?” Of the 350,413 valid responses, 83,706 (24%) report “5 or fewer years,” 109,510 (31%)
516 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
report “6 to 14 years,” and 157,187 (45%) report “15 or more years.” Although a con- tinuous variable for tenure would allow for a more granular estimation of the potential diminishing effect of prior military service on the relationship between role clarity and job satisfaction, by treating this variable as both continuous and categorical, we are able to test the hypothesis that the moderating effect of prior military service on role clarity diminishes over time, as well as estimate its relative strength across three periods.
We control for several alternative drivers of job satisfaction uncovered in the empirical literature. In their meta-analysis on a sample of 99 studies, Cantarelli et al. (2016) show that job satisfaction is positively and strongly correlated with intrinsic motivation (seven studies) as well as pay satisfaction (11 studies). Intrinsic motivation is derived from satisfaction with the work itself (Deci, 1971), and some have sug- gested that public-sector work offers unique sources of satisfaction derived from ser- vice to the public (Kim & Vandenabeele, 2010; S. M. Park & Rainey, 2008; Perry & Wise, 1990). We measure intrinsic motivation, which we expect to be positively related to overall job satisfaction, using two items:
My work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment. I like the kind of work I do.
Cronbach’s alpha for these two items is .79. Pay satisfaction is closely related to overall job satisfaction (Campbell & Im, 2019;
Chordiya et al., 2017) and is often used as a control variable in job satisfaction studies, for example, by Fernandez and Moldogaziev (2015) and Bae and Kim (2016). In con- trast to intrinsic motivation, pay satisfaction is associated with sufficient extrinsic motivation to work. Studies note that sensitivity to external incentives can vary among public employees (Campbell & Im, 2019; Liu & Tang, 2011), and it is unlikely that employees will report satisfaction with their jobs if this critical hygiene factor is found wanting. We measure pay satisfaction using the item, “Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your pay?” The question is answered on a scale response from 1 = “very dissatisfied” to 5 = “very satisfied.”
Next, the character and quality of the physical space in which employees execute their tasks has been found to be a significant predictor of job satisfaction and well- being at work (Cantarelli et al., 2016; Newsham et al., 2009; Veitch, Charles, Farley, & Newsham, 2007; Vischer, 2007). To capture workplace environment quality, we include the item, “Physical conditions (for example, noise level, temperature, lighting, cleanliness in the workplace) allow employees to perform their jobs well.” We expect work environment quality to be positively related to job satisfaction.
Finally, S. Park and Kim (2017) argue that perceived organizational performance may raise expectations of rewards and positively affect job satisfaction, and higher levels of perceived organizational performance are linked to organizational identifica- tion (Carmeli, Gilat, & Waldman, 2007) which in turn drives job satisfaction and rel- evant employee behaviors (Van Dick et al., 2004). While cross-sectional studies have modeled perceived organizational performance as an outcome of job satisfaction (for
Tao and Campbell 517
instance, Kim, 2005), others have suggested that the causal linkage may run in the other direction. For example, in an important study, Schneider, Hanges, Smith, and Salvaggio (2003) find that organizational performance more consistently predicts job satisfaction than the reverse. Accordingly, we expect that perceived organizational performance will positively predict job satisfaction, and measure the construct using the item, “My agency is successful at accomplishing its mission.”
Finally, individual differences may contribute to job satisfaction (Cantarelli et al., 2016). We therefore control for a number of these characteristics, including pay cate- gory, supervisory status, sex, age, minority status, and disability status. We also note that every multivariate model uses a set of dummy variables to control for agency membership.
Results
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
Table 1 contains summary statistics for the sample used in the principal analysis presented below. Respondents report a level of job satisfaction above the scale midpoint. Respondents also report a high level of role clarity at 3.9 on the 5-point scale. As stated above, about 28% of the sample (96,194 respondents) reports having former military service experi- ence. Of these, about 30% (28,729 respondents) reports a federal tenure of less than 5 years. This subset of the sample makes up approximately 7.6% of all respondents.
The final column of the table shows correlations between each of the variables and job satisfaction. We note that, likely due to the large sample size, each of these correla- tions save for long tenure is statistically significant at p < .001, and we therefore focus on the raw coefficients. In line with Hypothesis 1, role clarity is strongly correlated with the dependent variable (r = .66), which is the strongest correlation among all variables. Prior military service is correlated negatively with the dependent variable, although the magnitude of the relationship is small (r = –.02). This small relationship, although highly statistically significant due to the large sample size, raises questions about its substantive significance, which is a topic we will return to in the “Summary and Discussion” section of this study.
Principal Analysis
Table 2 shows the results of the principal analysis. Because values of the dependent variable are the mean of multiple questions, we follow the convention in the public administration literature to treat it as continuous and therefore use the common ordi- nary least squares regression estimator. Also, because interaction terms are created using the product of variables which are themselves included in the model, such terms tend to be highly collinear, thereby making their interpretation less intuitive. Therefore, before creating the interaction terms, role clarity, prior military service, and tenure were centered (Dalal & Zickar, 2012). We note again that all models control for the agency of the respondent.
518 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
Models 1, 2, and 3 in Table 2 test the four hypotheses of this study. In Model 1, role clarity is positively related to job satisfaction, and prior military service is nega- tively related, statistics that are consistent with our first two hypotheses. Model 2 tests the hypothesis that the effect of role clarity will be a stronger predictor of job satisfaction for those with prior military service. The positive, statistically signifi- cant coefficient of the interaction term is consistent with this assertion. In other words, prior military service positively moderates the effect of role clarity on job satisfaction. Stated from the opposite perspective, this statistic suggests that role clarity is a stronger contributor for employees with prior military experience than for those who have not served.
Model 3 tests the three-way interaction effect between role clarity, prior military service, and tenure. The coefficient of the three-way interaction effect is negative and statistically significant at p < .01. This means that the interaction between role clarity and prior military service appears to weaken as tenure lengthens, which is consistent with the hypothesis that the imprinting of job preferences for clarity is strongest in the first years of employment in the public sector (Hypothesis 4).3
To examine in more detail the dissipation of the moderation effect, the sample was divided based on the three tenure categories. Model 4 shows the relationship between independent variables on job satisfaction for those with five years or less federal gov- ernment experience. The results show that the moderating effect of prior military ser- vice on job satisfaction is positive and statistically significant. However, for Models 5
Table 1. Summary Statistics.
M SD Minimum– maximum r with DV
Job satisfaction 3.55 1.04 1-5 — Role clarity 3.89 0.80 1-5 .66 Military service 0.28 0.45 0-1 –.02 Tenure 2.21 0.80 1-3 –.02 Short tenure 0.24 0.43 0-1 .04 Long tenure 0.45 0.50 0-1 .00 Intrinsic motivation 3.96 0.93 1-5 .65 Pay satisfaction 3.34 1.21 1-5 .45 Work environment quality 3.68 1.14 1-5 .36 Organizational performance 3.85 0.92 1-5 .62 Pay category 1.78 0.75 1-3 .03 Supervisor status 0.20 0.40 0-1 .08 Female 0.48 0.50 0-1 .01 Age 2.42 0.98 1-4 .04 Minority 0.34 0.47 0-1 .02 Disability 0.13 0.34 0-1 –.05
Note. DV = dependent variable. All correlations significant at p < .05 or less.
519
T a b
le 2
. Pr
in ci
pa l A
na ly
si s.
M o de
l M
o de
l 1 M
o de
l 2 M
o de
l 3 M
o de
l 4 M
o de
l 5 M
o de
l 6
T es
t H
yp o th
es es
1 -2
H yp
o th
es is
3 H
yp o th
es is
4 Sh
o rt
t en
ur e
M id
-c ar
ee r
Lo ng
t en
ur e
R C
.2 40
** *
(. 00
2) .2
40 **
* (. 00
2) .2
39 **
* (. 00
2) .2
18 **
* (. 00
4) .2
43 **
* (. 00
4) .2
48 **
* (. 00
3) M
ili ta
ry s
er vi
ce –.
02 1*
** (
.0 03
) –.
02 1*
** (
.0 03
) –.
02 1*
** (
.0 03
) –.
02 5*
** (
.0 05
) –.
02 4*
** (
.0 05
) –.
01 4*
** (
.0 05
) R
C ×
M ili
ta ry
S er
vi ce
.0 04
** *
(. 00
3) .0
04 **
* (. 00
3) .0
11 **
* (. 00
6) .0
03 (
.0 05
) .0
02 (
.0 05
) R
C ×
M ili
ta ry
S er
vi ce
× T
en ur
e –.
00 3*
* (. 00
4)
T en
ur e
–. 04
2* **
( .0
02 )
–. 04
1* **
( .0
02 )
–. 04
2* **
( .0
02 )
In
tr in
si c
m o ti va
ti o n
.3 08
** *
(. 00
2) .3
08 **
* (. 00
2) .3
08 **
* (. 00
2) .3
41 **
* (. 00
3) .3
02 **
* (. 00
3) .2
95 **
* (. 00
3) Pa
y sa
ti sf
ac ti o n
.2 14
** *
(. 00
1) .2
14 **
* (. 00
1) .2
14 **
* (. 00
1) .2
07 **
* (. 00
2) .2
16 **
* (. 00
2) .2
17 **
* (. 00
2) W
o rk
e nv
ir o nm
en t
qu al
it y
.0 49
** *
(. 00
1) .0
49 **
* (. 00
1) .0
49 **
* (. 00
1) .0
50 **
* (. 00
2) .0
50 **
* (. 00
2) .0
46 **
* (. 00
2) O
rg an
iz at
io na
l p er
fo rm
an ce
.2 63
** *
(. 00
2) .2
63 **
* (. 00
2) .2
63 **
* (. 00
2) .2
67 **
* (. 00
3) .2
63 **
* (. 00
3) .2
61 **
* (. 00
2) Pa
y ca
te go
ry .0
00 (
.0 02
) .0
00 (
.0 02
) .0
00 (
.0 02
) .0
07 **
( .0
03 )
–. 00
2 (. 00
3) –.
00 1
(. 00
3) Su
pe rv
is o r
st at
us –.
00 8*
** (
.0 03
) –.
00 8*
** (
.0 03
) –.
00 8*
** (
.0 03
) –.
01 1*
** (
.0 08
) –.
00 5*
( .0
05 )
–. 00
8* **
( .0
04 )
Fe m
al e
–. 01
2* **
( .0
02 )
–. 01
2* **
( .0
02 )
–. 01
2* **
( .0
02 )
–. 01
3* **
( .0
05 )
–. 01
2* **
( .0
04 )
–. 01
2* **
( .0
04 )
A ge
.0 26
** *
(. 00
1) .0
25 **
* (. 00
1) .0
26 **
* (. 00
1) .0
22 **
* (. 00
3) .0
23 **
* (. 00
2) .0
19 **
* (. 00
2) M
in o ri
ty .0
09 **
* (. 00
2) .0
09 **
* (. 00
2) .0
09 **
* (. 00
2) .0
03 (
.0 05
) .0
08 **
* (. 00
4) .0
12 **
* (. 00
4) D
is ab
ili ty
–. 01
2* **
( .0
04 )
–. 01
2* **
( .0
04 )
–. 01
2* **
( .0
04 )
–. 01
1* **
( .0
07 )
–. 01
5* **
( .0
06 )
–. 01
0* **
( .0
06 )
R 2
.6 39
.6 39
.6 39
.6 45
.6 38
.6 37
A dj
us te
d R
2 .6
39 .6
39 .6
39 .6
44 .6
38 .6
36 n
30 7,
51 2
30 7,
51 2
30 7,
51 2
74 ,8
12 96
,0 84
13 6,
61 6
N ot
e. S
ta nd
ar d
er ro
rs a
re s
ho w
n in
p ar
en th
es es
. A ll
m o de
ls c
o nt
ro l f
o r
ag en
cy e
ffe ct
s. R
C =
r o le
c la
ri ty
. *p
< .0
5. *
*p <
.0 1.
* **
p <
.0 01
.
520 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
and 6, which test for the moderation effect among those at a mid- and advanced-career stage, the coefficient is no longer statistically significant. Again, this suggests that the differential impact of role clarity in the production of job satisfaction between those with and without prior military service is operative only in the earlier stages of an employee’s federal career. We also note, however, that the negative relationship between prior military service itself and job satisfaction (i.e., Hypothesis 2) remains significant for each group. We provide a detailed discussion of these results in the final section of the study.
Empirical Extension: Role Clarifying Organizational Practices as Substitutes for Role Clarity
The results of the previous section are consistent with the theoretical position devel- oped earlier in this article. However, role clarity is a high-order concept that captures the state of mind of employees. Accordingly, although our analysis is interesting theo- retically, it offers little in terms of practical implications for managers of public orga- nizations that must deal with newly hired veterans. In addition, the large sample size of the FEVS raises questions about whether the relationships uncovered in our empiri- cal analysis are based on actual phenomena rather than spurious correlations. Importantly, coefficients for prior military service and the various interaction terms are small, and, while statistically significant, we note that there is no difference in the adjusted R2 values across Models 1, 2, and 3, suggesting that the explanatory power of the interactions is likewise small. While we return to the question of the practical sig- nificance of the study in the “Summary and Discussion” section, in this section we undertake an empirical extension of the model to managerially tractable organiza- tional practices that are related to role clarity and that can partially address these points. To this end, we describe four additional variables below, all of which relate to the informational quality of the work context and are highly correlated with role clar- ity. These factors should be understood as situationally grounded, managerially trac- table antecedents of the role clarity state of mind. Although scholars sometimes use antecedent phenomena in cases where measurements of the actual concepts of interest are not available (for instance, using turnover intention in place of actual turnover; Cho & Lewis, 2012) and proxies when they are hard to measure (e.g., perceived cor- ruption as a measure of government capacity; Bäck & Hadenius, 2008), our purpose here differs slightly from these approaches. Rather, in our empirical extension, we seek to establish the practical value of the theory by indicating some potential strate- gies for managers to affect motivational change, and also offer some evidence that the key empirical result, that is, of the importance of role clarity for veterans returning to civilian government employment in the early stages of their transition, is not simply a spurious result due to a large data set.
Role clarity is the construct of principal interest in this study. However, the level of role clarity in a given organizational context is a function of several antecedent factors, many of which are tractable from the point of view of management. One factor that has
Tao and Campbell 521
long been associated with high levels of role clarity is the communication climate of the organization (Rizzo et al., 1970). Campbell and Im (2015) point out that commu- nication in bureaucratic organizations flows along several different channels, and demonstrate how trust in the organization is dependent jointly on interaction quality with senior leaders, supervisors, and work group members (numerous studies provide additional empirical support for this position; Brunetto, Farr-Wharton, & Shacklock, 2011; Deeter-Schmelz, 1997). Other studies also suggest that both vertical collabora- tion (i.e., collaboration between individuals and their superiors) and horizontal col- laboration (between work group members of a similar rank)—a key component of which is communication intensity—may also influence organizational performance (Whitford, Lee, Yun, & Jung, 2010) and, in an example pertinent to the present study, role ambiguity (Campbell, 2016). In addition to informal communication, however, job expectations in contemporary public-sector organizations are often expressed in performance agreements, and the quality of performance appraisal an individual expe- riences may also contribute to their sense of clarity about their work (Campbell, 2018; Kalgin et al., 2018). Ayers’s (2015) work implies that high-quality performance appraisal programs may help employees better understand their unique contributions to the organization (and, ultimately, enhance the performance of it), and Cäker and Siverbo (2018) link “performance measurement system inconsistency” directly to reduced role clarity. As such, to extend our empirical analysis beyond role clarity itself to the conditions that facilitate it, we use two factors, communication climate (evi- denced by communication quality with management, supervisors, and peers) and per- formance appraisal quality.
Management communication quality is measured using the question, “How satis- fied are you with the information you receive from management on what’s going on in your organization?” and is, like the other three questions described next, measured on a 5-point scale similar to that of the other variables used in this study. Supervisors play different roles than high-level managers and focus more on the concrete context of job execution, and the quality of the advice they provide has been linked to role clarity in the public sector (Hassan, 2013). We measure supervisor communication quality using the item, “My supervisor/team leader provides me with constructive suggestions to improve my job performance.” Finally, work group members, given the large degree of overlap between their responsibilities, often have insights about how to deal with specific job challenges, a factor emphasized by the organizational citizenship behavior literature (Campbell, 2018; Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie, 1997). We measure work group communication quality using the item, “Employees in my work unit share job knowledge with each other.” Management, supervisor and work group communi- cation quality are correlated with role clarity at .580, .511, and .421 (all of which at p < .001), respectively. Finally, performance appraisal quality is measured using the item, “In my most recent performance appraisal, I understood what I had to do to be rated at different performance levels (for example, Fully Successful, Outstanding).” Performance appraisal quality is correlated with role clarity at .460 (p < .001).
Each of the four models in Table 3 focuses on a different situationally grounded antecedent of role clarity. We note that each of these models controls for all factors
522
T a b
le 3
. Em
pi ri
ca l E
xt en
si o n.
M o de
7 M
o de
l 8 M
o de
l 9 M
o de
l 1 0
M S
–. 01
7* **
( .0
03 )
–. 01
8* **
( .0
03 )
–. 01
9* **
( .0
03 )
–. 02
5* **
( .0
03 )
T en
ur e
–. 03
2* **
( .0
02 )
–. 03
4* **
( .0
02 )
–. 04
0* **
( .0
02 )
–. 03
9* **
( .0
02 )
M an
ag em
en t
co m
m un
ic at
io n
.3 28
** *
(. 00
1)
M an
ag em
en t
C o m
m un
ic at
io n ×
M S
.0 14
** *
(. 00
2)
M an
ag em
en t
C o m
m un
ic at
io n ×
M S ×
T en
ur e
–. 00
4* **
( .0
03 )
Su
pe rv
is o r
co m
m un
ic at
io n
.2 19
** *
(. 00
1)
Su pe
rv is
o r
C o m
m un
ic at
io n ×
M S
.0 10
** *
(. 00
2)
Su pe
rv is
o r
C o m
m un
ic at
io n ×
M S ×
T en
ur e
–. 00
6* **
( .0
03 )
W
o rk
u ni
t co
m m
un ic
at io
n .1
14 **
* (. 00
1)
W o rk
U ni
t C
o m
m un
ic at
io n ×
M S
.0 04
** *
(. 00
3)
W o rk
U ni
t C
o m
m un
ic at
io n ×
M S ×
T en
ur e
–. 00
4* **
( .0
03 )
Pe
rf o rm
an ce
a gr
ee m
en t
cl ar
it y
.1 38
** *
(. 00
1) Pe
rf o rm
an ce
A gr
ee m
en t
C la
ri ty
× M
S .0
06 **
* (. 00
2) Pe
rf o rm
an ce
A gr
ee m
en t
C la
ri ty
× M
S ×
T en
ur e
–. 00
4* **
( .0
03 )
R 2
.6 84
.6 50
.6 24
.6 30
A dj
us te
d R
2 .6
84 .6
50 .6
24 .6
30 n
29 7,
20 2
29 5,
75 1
29 6,
41 9
29 1,
16 7
N ot
e. S
ta nd
ar d
er ro
rs a
re s
ho w
n in
p ar
en th
es es
. A ll
m o de
ls c
o nt
ai n
co nt
ro l v
ar ia
bl es
a s
w el
l a s
in te
ra ct
io ns
b et
w ee
n m
ili ta
ry s
er vi
ce a
nd t
en ur
e, a
s w
el l a
s th
e re
le va
nt d
ir ec
t ef
fe ct
a nd
t en
ur e.
M S =
m ili
ta ry
s er
vi ce
. **
*p <
.0 01
.
Tao and Campbell 523
included in Model 3 in Table 2, agency membership, as well as the two additional but theoretically irrelevant interactions necessary to test for the three-way interaction effect. The results are consistent across all four models as well as consistent with Model 3 in Table 2. Each situational antecedent has a positive effect on job satisfaction and, second, has a positive interaction effect with prior military service. As in the case with role clarity, these statistics mean that each situational antecedent is positively related to job satisfaction in the average case but matters more for veterans than for non-veterans. Finally, three-way interaction effects are also included in each model. Again, the three-way interaction is, in each case, negative and statistically significant, suggesting that the two-way interaction between the situational antecedent and prior military service becomes less potent as tenure advances, with the coefficient for the situational antecedent converging with that of non-veterans. Put differently, these sta- tistics suggest that, with regard to the effect of role clarity and its situational anteced- ents on job satisfaction, veterans tend to become similar with their civilian counterparts over time.
Summary and Discussion
Securing stable employment is undoubtedly a crucial component of a successful tran- sition from military to civilian life. However, while efforts on the part of the federal government in this regard are welcome, if such efforts do not take into account the unique needs and perspectives of veterans that are themselves a product of their ser- vice experience, simple employment statistics may fail to provide a complete picture of the success of such policies. While the service experience can be expected to differ between individuals, nevertheless, the empirical literature demonstrates that military service is often associated with significant, long-lasting, and negative outcomes fol- lowing discharge (Jackson et al., 2012; Lieberman et al., 2016; Swain, 2016). This article contributes to a research program in this direction. Our results suggest that, on average, prior military service may be associated with a set of unique needs and that these needs can change over time. However, somewhat discouragingly, and consistent with existing research, our results also suggest that the negative effect of prior service on job satisfaction persists over time. Although our study represents a relatively unique inquiry into the conditions affecting job satisfaction among veterans, our results are suggestive and imply a number of potential research paths, which, if followed, may lead to insights with significant practical implications for public managers tasked with facilitating the transition of veterans into the civilian public workforce and helping them reach their potential.
However, before discussing the contributions and implications of this study in any detail, it is necessary to take stock of the limitations of our research, which are non- trivial, in order that the study does not meet with either unjustified enthusiasm or skepticism. First and foremost, our research proposed a set of general hypotheses about the nature of the work experience of veterans transitioning to civilian jobs in the public sector. As we argue in the “Data and Method” section, the 2013 version of the FEVS, which consists of data collected at the tail end of a major and largely successful
524 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
government initiative to increase veteran employment in the federal government, is an appropriate data set with which to test our hypotheses. However, the data itself has two significant limitations. First, the relationship between our key independent variable, namely, role clarity, as well as the dependent variable, job satisfaction, was estimated using data collected from the same source. While this has been common practice in empirical studies of public organizations, in recent years, a number of scholars have raised concerns about the accuracy of individual estimates of objective workplace conditions, suggesting that, in some cases, these may be biased in various ways and their correlations with other constructs artificially inflated or attenuated (Jakobsen & Jensen, 2015; Meier & O’Toole, 2013). While some have taken issue with this per- spective, pointing out the limited basis of evidence on which these concerns rely and providing counterevidence (George & Pandey, 2017), nevertheless, it is unwise to dismiss concerns of measurement bias casually, and future studies can address this concern by using data sourced from multiple informants. Second, while our measure- ment of another key variable, prior military service, is clear, it is also crude, as it fails to capture potentially salient differences such as length and type of service (and the skill development associated with these), as well as whether the respondent has seen active combat. Importantly, the measure also fails to indicate whether the respondent has any private-sector experience, which has been the main focus of sector imprinting studies until now. Finally, this variable obviously fails to control for the selection effect of choosing to pursue a military career in the first place. These factors may be relevant to the effect size of the relationships in this study. Because the service experi- ence varies greatly between individuals, future studies should use a more detailed measurement of military service to study its effects on civilian employment.
Next, one virtue of the FEVS is its very large sample size, which allows a certain level of generalizability to the federal workforce as a whole as well as the opportunity for future versions of the study to take a more ambitious approach to data collection (Fernandez et al., 2015). However, the large sample size is a double-edged sword in our case. Because the hypotheses of this study are grounded in a plausible theoretical framework, and moreover, the theory appears to extend to various situational anteced- ents of role clarity, we do not have a strong reason to suspect that the statistically sig- nificant relationships produced by our analysis are spurious and arise from random noise rather than actual empirical relationships. This being said, the coefficients for both the negative effect of prior military service on job satisfaction and the various interaction effects are small, and, therefore, the statistically significant relationships may not imply relationships of substantive significance. For instance, the –.02 coeffi- cient capturing the effect of prior military service in Model 1 is much smaller than that of role clarity (.24), which leaves the substantive significance of the former in ques- tion. However, we note that this is for the average case, which implies that while for some, prior military service may not be an operative factor in job satisfaction, for oth- ers its effect may be more considerable. In such cases, we would also expect the coef- ficient for the various interaction terms to be of a greater magnitude. On the other hand, while our analysis suggests that prior military service is reliably related to lower levels of job satisfaction, it is not the primary factor, and veterans have a great deal in
Tao and Campbell 525
common with their non-veteran coworkers in terms of factors driving satisfaction. As such, from a practical perspective, our study implies a somewhat subtle course of action for managers: While the veteran status of their subordinates should not be ignored, it should not, in the average case, be the primary focus, and actions that may be of particular benefit to veterans will also benefit non-veterans.
Finally, although the careful sampling technique and the large sample size of the FEVS provide a level of confidence about the generalizability of our results to the American federal government as a whole, we can expect the relationship between prior military service and subsequent public-sector employment to vary substantially in contexts that do not resemble that of the United States. To take one example, mili- tary service in South Korea is mandatory for all healthy male adults, and moreover the culture of public-sector organizations (and perhaps organizations in general) is more formal and hierarchical than in the United States (Im, Campbell, & Cha, 2013). Undoubtedly, these factors are likely to be relevant to the hypotheses of the present study, if not preclude their testing altogether. This consideration highlights the contex- tual boundaries of the theory presented in this study and the consequent need for a comparative approach to sector imprinting.
Despite these limitations, we feel that this study makes several contributions to the literature. First, the New Public Management (Hood, 1991) approach to the adminis- tration of public organizations makes strong assumptions about the portability of pri- vate-sector management techniques as well as the motivations of employees. However, several studies have shown that sector switching has significant effects on the job perceptions of the switcher (Boardman et al., 2010; Chen, 2012; Light, 1999). When entering public organizations after a private-sector career, the individual may experi- ence a level of culture shock that affects their work performance. However, until now, the sector imprinting literature has focused on private- to public-sector switching and has not considered the significant impact that prior military service may have on new public-sector employees. Exploring this potential is important given both the scope of public policies aimed at increasing veteran employment in the federal service and the distinctiveness of military service organizations and the long-lasting effects that ser- vice has on soldiers. This study raises this question and provides some empirical evi- dence for a theoretical framework in which it may be studied.
However, although we find that role clarity positively moderates the negative effect of prior military service on the job satisfaction of veterans at an early career stage, the FEVS was not designed with our hypotheses tests in mind, and moreover, we may conjecture a number of additional factors for future research to look into as potential moderating effects of the experience of prior military service. Among these are vari- ables related to organizational structure, such as the level of centralization of the orga- nization, as well as additional leadership factors beyond communication quality. On the other hand, while questions about the similarities and differences between public- and private-sector organizations have been a central research question among public administration scholars (Boyne, 2002; Rainey & Bozeman, 2000), the differences between public-sector organizations and military service organizations have received
526 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
much less attention. To bring to light the constructs relevant to military to public-sec- tor switching, therefore, a careful examination of the dimensions along which these distinct organizational contexts differ may first be necessary.
This being said, this study is compelling to the extent that it sheds light on an unexplored area of public sector human resource management that has significant practical consequences. While it may be true that veterans need additional training based on their “skill mismatch” with the needs of civilian positions (MacLean, 2017), our empirical extension suggests additional ways that managers may actively address the negative effects of prior military service on employee well-being and performance. In particular, public organizations have notoriously ambiguous goals that may differ substantially from those in many military organizations. Our results suggest that vertical communication quality, that is, clarification about not only agency-level goals by managers but also task-specific goals by supervisors, can play a positive role in helping veterans acclimate to their new positions. Clarity of perfor- mance agreements and standards of evaluation also appear to play a significant role in this way. Again, while our analysis suggests that these factors are significant antecedents of job satisfaction for the average employee, they may be of particular relevance to veterans, especially at the outset of their civilian career. In any case, our analysis suggests that high-level policy initiatives aimed at increasing the number of veterans working in the civilian federal government should be complemented by managerial tactics that facilitate the transition of veterans into civilian roles.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea Grant from the Korean Government (NRF-2017S1A3A2065838).
ORCID iD
Andrew K. Tao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1274-0837
Notes
1. “Agreeableness” is related to efficacy in the social sphere and is generally “manifested in such traits as cooperation and empathy, selflessness, and identification with others” (Graziano & Eisenberg, 1997, p. 795).
2. MacLean (2017) suggests that there are several mechanisms at play here, including that “People tend to enlist in the armed forces at the same age as they would enroll in college; thus, service-members may get fewer years of schooling than they would have otherwise” (p. 231). Importantly, however, the results of the analysis suggest that this “skills mis- match” is significant whether or not the soldier has seen active combat.
Tao and Campbell 527
3. We note that this model also controls for the interactions between prior military service, short tenure, and role clarity.
References
Ahern, J., Worthen, M., Masters, J., Lippman, S. A., Ozer, E. J., & Moos, R. (2015). The challenges of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans’ transition from military to civilian life and approaches to reconnection. PLoS ONE, 10, e0128599.
American Foreign Service Association. (2015). Executive Order 13518: Veterans employment initiative. The Foreign Service Journal, 92, 37-38.
Ayers, R. S. (2015). Aligning individual and organizational performance: Goal alignment in fed- eral government agency performance appraisal programs. Public Personnel Management, 44, 169-191.
Bäck, H., & Hadenius, A. (2008). Democracy and state capacity: Exploring a J-shaped relation- ship. Governance, 21(1), 1-24.
Bae, K. B., & Kim, D. (2016). The impact of decoupling of telework on job satisfaction in U.S. federal agencies: Does gender matter? American Review of Public Administration, 46, 356- 371.
Boardman, C., Bozeman, B., & Ponomariov, B. (2010). Private sector imprinting: An examina- tion of the impacts of private sector job experience on public manager’s work attitudes. Public Administration Review, 70(1), 50-59.
Boyne, G. A. (2002). Public and private management: What’s the difference? Journal of Management Studies, 39(1), 97-122.
Bray, R. M., Camlin, C. S., Fairbank, J. A., Dunteman, G. H., & Wheeless, S. C. (2001). The effects of stress on job functioning of military men and women. Armed Forces and Society, 27, 397-417.
Bray, S. R., Beauchamp, M. R., Eys, M. A., & Carron, A. V. (2005). Does the need for role clarity moderate the relationship between role ambiguity and athlete satisfaction? Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 306-318.
Brunetto, Y., Farr-Wharton, R., & Shacklock, K. (2011). Supervisor-subordinate communi- cation relationships, role ambiguity, autonomy and affective commitment for nurses. Contemporary Nurse, 39, 227-239.
Caillier, J. G. (2014). Do role clarity and job satisfaction mediate the relationship between tele- work and work effort? International Journal of Public Administration, 37, 193-201.
Cäker, M., & Siverbo, S. (2018). Effects of performance measurement system inconsistency on managers’ role clarity and well-being. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 34, 256-266.
Campbell, J. W. (2016). A collaboration-based model of work motivation and role ambiguity in public organizations. Public Performance & Management Review, 39, 655-675.
Campbell, J. W. (2018). Workgroup accord and change-oriented behavior in public service organizations: Mediating and contextual factors. Journal of Management & Organization. Advance online publication. doi:10.1017/jmo.2018.42
Campbell, J. W., & Im, T. (2015). Identification and trust in public organizations: A communi- cative approach. Public Management Review, 17, 1065-1084.
Campbell, J. W., & Im, T. (2019). Exchange ideology, performance pay, and pay satisfaction: Evidence from South Korean Central Government. Public Personnel Management, 48, 584-607. doi:10.1177/0091026019832632
Cantarelli, P., Belardinelli, P., & Belle, N. (2016). A meta-analysis of job satisfaction correlates in the public administration literature. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 36, 115- 144.
528 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
Carmeli, A., Gilat, G., & Waldman, D. A. (2007). The role of perceived organizational per- formance in organizational identification, adjustment and job performance. Journal of Management Studies, 44, 972-992.
Chen, C. A. (2012). Sector imprinting: Exploring its impacts on managers’ perceived formal- ized personnel rules, perceived red tape, and current job tenure. American Review of Public Administration, 42, 320-340.
Cho, Y. J., & Lewis, G. B. (2012). Turnover intention and turnover behavior: Implications for retaining federal employees. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 32(1), 4-23.
Chordiya, R., Sabharwal, M., & Goodman, D. (2017). Affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction: A cross-national comparative study. Public Administration, 95, 178- 195.
Cook, T. M., Novaco, R. W., & Sarason, I. G. (1982). Military recruit training as an environ- mental context affecting expectancies for control of reinforcement. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 6, 409-428.
Dalal, D. K., & Zickar, M. J. (2012). Some common myths about centering predictor variables in moderated multiple regression and polynomial regression. Organizational Research Methods, 15, 339-362.
Deci, E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18, 105-115.
Deeter-Schmelz, D. R. (1997). Applying teams to logistics processes: Information acquisition and the impact of team role clarity and norms. Journal of Business Logistics, 18, 159-178.
Dupré, K. E., & Day, A. L. (2007). The effects of supportive management and job quality on the turnover intentions and health of military personnel. Human Resource Management, 46, 185-201.
Elnitsky, C. A., Fisher, M. P., & Blevins, C. L. (2017). Military service member and veteran reintegration: A conceptual analysis, unified definition, and key domains. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 369.
Executive Order No. 13518. (November 9, 2009) Employment of veterans in the federal gov- ernment. Code of Federal Regulations, 2010(Title 3), 267-271.
Fernandez, S., & Moldogaziev, T. (2015). Employee empowerment and job satisfaction in the U.S. federal bureaucracy: A self-determination theory perspective. American Review of Public Administration, 45, 375-401.
Fernandez, S., Resh, W. G., Moldogaziev, T., & Oberfield, Z. W. (2015). Assessing the past and promise of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey for public management research: A research synthesis. Public Administration Review, 75, 382-394.
George, B., & Pandey, S. K. (2017). We know the Yin—But where is the Yang? Toward a balanced approach on common source bias in public administration scholarship. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 37, 245-270.
Gold, M. A., & Friedman, S. B. (2000). Cadet basic training: An ethnographic study of stress and coping. Military Medicine, 165, 147-152.
Graziano, W. G., & Eisenberg, N. (1997). Agreeableness: A dimension of personality. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (pp. 795-824). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
Grossman, D., & Siddle, B. K. (2000). Psychological effects of combat. Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, 3, 139-150.
Harris, W. C., Hancock, P. A., & Harris, S. C. (2005). Information processing changes follow- ing extended stress. Military Psychology, 17, 115-128.
Tao and Campbell 529
Hassan, S. (2013). The importance of role clarification in workgroups: Effects on perceived role clarity, work satisfaction, and turnover rates. Public Administration Review, 73, 716-725.
Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69(1), 3-19. Hourani, L. L., Williams, T. V., & Kress, A. M. (2006). Stress, mental health, and job per-
formance among active duty military personnel: Findings from the 2002 Department of Defense Health-Related Behaviors Survey. Military Medicine, 171, 849-856.
Im, T., Campbell, J. W., & Cha, S. (2013). Revisiting Confucian bureaucracy: Roots of the Korean government’s culture and competitiveness. Public Administration and Development, 33, 286-296.
Jackson, J. J., Thoemmes, F., Jonkmann, K., Lüdtke, O., & Trautwein, U. (2012). Military train- ing and personality trait development: Does the military make the man, or does the man make the military? Psychological Science, 23, 270-277.
Jakobsen, M., & Jensen, R. (2015). Common method bias in public management studies. International Public Management Journal, 18(1), 3-30.
Johnson, J. M., & Ng, E. S. (2016). Money talks or Millennials walk: The effect of compensation on nonprofit Millennial workers sector-switching intentions. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 36, 283-305.
Jong, J. (2016). The role of performance feedback and job autonomy in mitigating the negative effect of role ambiguity on employee satisfaction. Public Performance & Management Review, 39, 814-834.
Kalgin, A., Podolskiy, D., Parfenteva, D., & Campbell, J. W. (2018). Performance management and job-goal alignment: A conditional process model of turnover intention in the public sector. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 31(1), 65-80.
Kim, S. (2005). Individual-level factors and organizational performance in government organi- zations. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 15, 245-261.
Kim, S., & Vandenabeele, W. (2010). A strategy for building public service motivation research internationally. Public Administration Review, 70, 701-709.
Lang, J., Thomas, J. L., Bliese, P. D., & Adler, A. B. (2007). Job demands and job performance: The mediating effect of psychological and physical strain and the moderating effect of role clarity. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 116-124.
Lieberman, H. R., Castellani, J. W., & Young, A. J. (2009). Cognitive function and mood dur- ing acute cold stress after extended military training and recovery. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 80, 629-636.
Lieberman, H. R., Farina, E. K., Caldwell, J., Williams, K. W., Thompson, L. A., Niro, P. J., . . . McClung, J. P. (2016). Cognitive function, stress hormones, heart rate and nutritional status during simulated captivity in military survival training. Physiology & Behavior, 165, 86-97.
Light, P. C. (1999). The new public service. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Liu, B.-C., & Tang, L.-P. (2011). Does the love of money moderate the relationship between
public service motivation and job satisfaction? The case of Chinese professionals in the public sector. Public Administration Review, 71, 718-727.
Lyons, T. F. (1971). Role clarity, need for clarity, satisfaction, tension, and withdrawal. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 6(1), 99-110.
MacLean, A. (2017). Skills mismatch? Military service, combat occupations, and civilian earn- ings. Sociological Perspectives, 60, 229-250.
Martin, P. D., Williamson, D. A., Alfonso, A. J., & Ryan, D. H. (2006). Psychological adjust- ment during army basic training. Military Medicine, 171, 157-160.
Meier, K. J., & O’Toole, L. J. (2013). Subjective organizational performance and measurement error: Common source bias and spurious relationships. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23, 429-456.
530 Public Personnel Management 49(4)
Miles, R. H., & Petty, M. M. (1975). Relationships between role clarity, need for clarity, and job tension and satisfaction for supervisory and nonsupervisory roles. Academy of Management Journal, 18, 877-883.
Newsham, G., Brand, J., Donnelly, C., Veitch, J., Aries, M., & Charles, K. (2009). Linking indoor environment conditions to job satisfaction: A field study. Building Research and Information, 37, 129-147.
Oshagbemi, T. (1999). Overall job satisfaction: How good are single versus multiple-item mea- sures? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 14, 388-403.
Pandey, S. K., & Wright, B. E. (2006). Connecting the dots in public management: Political environment, organizational goal ambiguity, and the public manager’s role ambiguity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16, 511-532.
Park, S., & Kim, S. (2017). The linkage between work unit performance perceptions of U.S. federal employees and their job satisfaction: An expectancy theory. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 52, 77-93.
Park, S. M., & Rainey, H. G. (2008). Leadership and public service motivation in U.S. federal agencies. International Public Management Journal, 11, 109-142.
Perry, J. L., & Wise, L. R. (1990). The motivational bases of public service. Public Administration Review, 50, 367-373.
Pershing, J. L. (2006). Men and women’s experiences with hazing in a male-dominated elite military institution. Men and Masculinities, 8, 470-492.
Pitts, D. (2009). Diversity management, job satisfaction, and performance: Evidence from U.S. federal agencies. Public Administration Review, 69, 328-338.
Plach, H. L., & Sells, C. H. (2013). Occupational performance needs of young veterans. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 67(1), 73-81.
Podsakoff, P. M., Ahearne, M., & MacKenzie, S. B. (1997). Organizational citizenship behavior and the quantity and quality of work group performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 262-270.
Rainey, H. G., & Bozeman, B. (2000). Comparing public and private organizations: Empirical research and the power of the a priori. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 10, 447-469.
Rainey, H. G., & Jung, C. S. (2015). A conceptual framework for analysis of goal ambiguity in public organizations. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 25(1), 71-99.
Rizzo, J. R., House, R. J., & Lirtzman, S. I. (1970). Role conflict and ambiguity in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 15, 150-163.
Schneider, B., Hanges, P. J., Smith, D. B., & Salvaggio, A. N. (2003). Which comes first: Employee attitudes or organizational financial and market performance? The Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 836-851.
Schulker, D. (2017). The recent occupation and industry employment patterns of American veterans. Armed Forces and Society, 43, 695-710.
Stazyk, E. C. (2016). The prevalence of reinvention reforms in local governments and their rela- tionship with organizational goal clarity and employee job satisfaction. Public Performance & Management Review, 39, 701-727.
Stazyk, E. C., Pandey, S. K., & Wright, B. E. (2011). Understanding affective organiza- tional commitment: The importance of institutional context. American Review of Public Administration, 41, 603-624.
Stone, C., & Stone, D. L. (2015). Factors affecting hiring decisions about veterans. Human Resource Management Review, 25(1), 68-79.
Swain, J. (2016). The effect of Phase One training on young recruits’ personal and professional development in the British army. Journal of Youth Studies, 19, 117-132.
Tao and Campbell 531
Van Dick, R., Christ, O., Stellmacher, J., Wagner, U., Ahlswede, O., Grubba, C., . . . Tissington, P. A. (2004). Should I stay or should I go? Explaining turnover intentions with organiza- tional identification and job satisfaction. British Journal of Management, 15, 351-360.
Veitch, J. A., Charles, K. E., Farley, K. M. J., & Newsham, G. R. (2007). A model of satis- faction with open-plan office conditions: COPE field findings. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27, 177-189.
Vischer, J. C. (2007). The effects of the physical environment on job performance: Towards a theoretical model of workspace stress. Stress and Health, 23, 175-184.
Whitford, A. B., Lee, S.-Y., Yun, T., & Jung, C. S. (2010). Collaborative behavior and the per- formance of government agencies. International Public Management Journal, 13, 321-349.
Wilcox, S. L., Oh, H., Redmond, S. A., Chicas, J., Hassan, A. M., Lee, P.-J., & Ell, K. (2015). A scope of the problem: Post-deployment reintegration challenges in a National Guard Unit. Work, 50(1), 73-83.
Yang, K., & Kassekert, A. (2010). Linking management reform with employee job satisfaction: Evidence from federal agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 20, 413-436.
Yang, X., & Wang, W. (2013). Exploring the determinants of job satisfaction of civil servants in Beijing, China. Public Personnel Management, 42, 566-587.
Zheng, X., Thundiyil, T. G., Klinger, R., & Hinrichs, A. T. (2016). Curvilinear relationships between role clarity and supervisor satisfaction. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31, 110-126.
Author Biographies
Andrew K. Tao ([email protected]) is a PhD student in the Department of Public Administration at Incheon National University in South Korea. Mr Tao’s research interests include public finance, comparative public administration, and citizen trust in government.
Jesse W. Campbell ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration at Incheon National University in South Korea. His research focuses on corre- lates of organizational and employee effectiveness in the public sector. An additional stream of research explores issues with unique relevance to the East Asian (and particularly Korean) administrative context.
Copyright of Public Personnel Management is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
