Public Service Motivation and Interpersonal Citizenship Behavior in Public Organizations: Testing a Preliminary Model

ABSTRACT

A good deal of research has demonstrated how public service motivation (PSM) facilitates desirable organizational attitudes and behaviors such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work effort. Other research has demonstrated that PSM predicts higher levels of social capital and altruistic behavior in society. Between these two strands of PSM research, there is a gap in knowledge about whether PSM matters to citizenship behavior internal to the organization. This article tests the direct and indirect relationship between individual levels of PSM and interpersonal citizenship behavior using a structural equation model. We also account for the effect of organizational environment by incorporating a measure of co-worker support. We find that PSM has a direct and positive effect on interpersonal citizenship behavior in public organizations, even when accounting for the significant role of co-worker support.

Notes

Cronbach's alpha in parentheses.

*p < 0.05.

Interpersonal citizenship behavior—helping behavior directed towards co-workers—takes place within the organizational context and can therefore be expected to serve organizational goals most of the time. However, such behaviors can also run counter to organizational goals especially when employees see a conflict between values and principles they hold dear and organizational rules and procedures (Graham 1986). Perhaps the best illustration of such behavior is provided in Elizabeth Morrison's (2006) study of pro-social rule breaking.

On the other hand, some scholars (e.g., Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler 2000) make the case that organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization, rather than co-workers, is the most salient. Although this is a valuable counterpoint, it is important to note that most helping behavior directed towards co-workers occurs within an organizational context and therefore is often seen as a way to invest in the organization and profession (Chen, Hui, and Sego 1998) that not only benefits the employee but also her co-workers and organization (Perlow and Weeks 2002).

The fourth dimension, attraction to policy making, was omitted because it represents a rational or self-interested motive that is less value or mission specific.

Of Meyer and Allen's (1997) three organizational commitment dimensions, only affective commitment was included because its similarity to other common commitment conceptualizations (e.g., Mowday et al. 1979). Of the other two dimensions, continuance was excluded because it represents a commitment outcome while normative commitment was excluded because its strong correlation with affective commitment has led many scholars to question the need for both (Ko, Price, and Mueller 1997; Morrow 1983; Price 1997).

In addition to the five variables and seven paths hypothesized above, we also ran the model controlling for the effects of gender, education, tenure in organization and income in order to isolate the influence of public service motivation on mission valence and organizational citizenship behavior. A nested chi square test comparing the original model to the control model suggested that the demographic variables did not contribute to the explanatory power of the overall model (χ_d = 77.47, df = 63). While public service motivation was found to have significant positive relationships with education and income, none of the controls had a statistically significant effect on mission valence or organizational citizenship behavior and their inclusion did not alter the strength or significance of the path coefficients of the study variables reported in Figure 1.

If the model is retested after constraining the path between co-worker support and ICB to zero, organizational commitment is found to have a statistically significant (p < 0.05) positive effect on ICB. This does not rule out, however, the possibility that organizational commitment could have a significant effect on OCB even after controlling for co-worker support if a more comprehensive measure of OCB was used.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sanjay K. Pandey

Sanjay K. Pandey ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Kansas. His research and teaching interests are in public management and health policy.

Bradley E. Wright

Bradley E. Wright ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His research has focused on how employee attitudes and behavior are influenced by characteristics of the organizational work environment.

Donald P. Moynihan

Donald P. Moynihan ([email protected]) is Associate Professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research and teaching interests include performance management, homeland security, citizen participation and public budgeting. His book, The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform, is available from Georgetown University Press.