Institutional correlates of public service motivation: family, religion, and high school education

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence of the extent to which social institutions play a role in the development of public service motivation (PSM). This study investigates institutional factors affecting first-year undergraduate students’ PSM, focusing on family, religion, and high school education in Korea. It uses two-wave survey data collected from first-year undergraduate students at a public university in Korea (n = 202). The test results show that parental teaching and participation in extracurricular activities (creative experiential learning activities) are positively associated with overall PSM and most of its individual dimensions, and religion is positively associated with the dimension of commitment to public values. This study provides support for the process theory holding that PSM is influenced by social institutions throughout an individual’s childhood and adolescence. The implications and limitations of this study are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Public service motivation
• social institutions
• family
• religion
• high school education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://kosis.kr/statHtml/statHtml.do?orgId=101&tblId=DT_1PM1502 (Accessed on 2 July 2021).

2. To verify statistical discrimination between parental modelling and parental teaching, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted. The results of the EFA showed that the five items provided the two factors, while the results of the CFA indicated that the two-factor structure is acceptable.

3. https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=1208 (Accessed on 2 July 2021).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020S1A5A2A01044653).

Notes on contributors

Taehee Kim

Taehee Kim is assistant professor of public administration at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea.

Kiwhan Kim

Kiwhan Kim is professor of public administration at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea.

Sangmook Kim

Sangmook Kim is professor of public administration at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea.