On the construct of public service motivation among civil servants

Guide(s)

Prasad, L

Department

Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management

Area

Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management

University

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Place

Bangalore

Publication Date

3-31-2019

Year Awarded

March 2019

Year Completed

March 2019

Year Registered

June 2011

Abstract

Public Service Motivation (PSM) entails belief, emotions, and values that tend to make one inclined to protect the interests of the society at large. Despite 25-year of research on PSM across the world, doubts remain about the construct per se and its measurement. In the research reported in this dissertation, the author conceptualizes PSM as tendency to place societal interests above other considerations and willingness to sacrifice for society in delivery of the services and presents evidence against the widely used 4-dimensional scale but for his new unidimensional scale. In Study 1, civil servants (N = 314) working in various departments of the Government of India (GOI) anonymously responded to the 4-dimensional scale (Kim et al., 2012). Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs) of the responses failed to support a 4-, 3-, or 2-factor structural model and there were concerns of convergent and divergent validities. Study 2 (N = 154) tested a 6-item unidimensional PSM scale developed as per the author’s conceptualization of PSM as societal interest and sacrifice for society. Results of reliability and validity seemed promising. Study 3 (N = 450) tested the convergent and divergent validities of the PSM construct by correlating scores on the 6-item unidimensional measure with those of other existing measures of similar (altruism, work passion) and dissimilar (materialism) constructs. While evidence for convergent and discriminant validities seemed encouraging for the new measure, low reliability of the measure of altruism and high correlation between PSM and altruism left the relation between PSM and altruism rather ambiguous. In the fourth and the final experimental study, participants (N =256), varying in PSM read a vignette in which a public servant had acted in way that either helped an individual citizen or safeguarded the societal interests and judged whether the act of that decision maker, was driven by PSM or altruism. As hypothesized, participants scoring high, compared to those scoring low, on the PSM scale made sharper distinction between altruism and PSM. That is, the distinction between altruism and PSM was unclear among low scorers but sharp among high scorers. These four studies are the first attempts to study PSM in the Indian context and collectively offer PSM as a unidimensional construct, present a 6-item scale, and show that PSM is distinguishable from altruism by only those high in PSM. While this research presents convincing evidence for construct validity of PSM, it leaves the challenge of establishing its criterion-related validity (i.e., concurrent and predictive) for the future.

Pagination

143p.

Copyright

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Document Type

Dissertation

DAC Chairperson

Prasad, L

DAC Members

Singh, Ramadar; Ramesh, G

Type of Degree

Ph.D.

Relation

DIS-IIMB-FPM-P19-03

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