Person-Environment Fit and Public Service Motivation

Abstract

This article incorporates insights from Person-Environment Fit theories to the discussion about the effect of Public Service Motivation (PSM) on vocational outcome variables. Analysis of a large Dutch dataset shows that workers with a PSM fit are more satisfied and less inclined to leave their job and the organization they work for than workers without such a fit. This is in accordance with the main hypothesis. Other results underline the importance of the PSM concept as they show that public sector workers have a higher level of PSM than private sector workers. Moreover, private sector workers with high levels of PSM are inclined to look for a job in the public sector, which is in accordance with a main propositions of the PSM framework. The article finishes with a discussion on theoretical and methodological issues raised by the analysis and puts forward some suggestions for further research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank the editors of this volume and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

N = 6229; R² = 0.07; *p < 0.01.

N = 1947; Nagelkerke R² = 0.19; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05; ns: not significant.

N = 4116; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05; R² = 0.06 (step 1); R² = 0.06 (step 2).

N = 4027; Nagelkerke R² = 0.12; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05.

It seems less logical to apply the concept of PSM fit with respect to person-group or person-supervisor fit.

We are grateful to the Ministry of the Interior for allowing us to use this dataset.

The Ministry also provided weighting coefficients for use with the survey results (based on gender, educational level, and age). However, in this article, we only report the results of an analysis of the unweighted data as we already control for the variables included in the weighting procedure. As a check, we repeated the analyses using weighted values but the results were very similar.

For example, the content of the work, the workload, and career opportunities.

One can discuss whether or not the dependent variable PSM can be treated as a linear variable. We therefore also performed an ordinal regression analysis (PLUM in SPSS). As the results of this analysis were similar, we present here only the results of the OLS regression.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bram Steijn

Bram Steijn ([email protected]) is professor of HRM in the public sector at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. At this university he also received his Ph.D in sociology. His current research focuses on public sector motivation, the relation between professionals and managers in public organizations, as well as the importance of trust in governance networks.