Job characteristics and public service motivation among highly-qualified public employees

ABSTRACT

Employees’ complaints about the routinisation of jobs and a decrease in their autonomy have been cited as major reasons for employee turnover in government organisations. This study analyzes the relationship between job characteristics and public service motivation (PSM) to shed light on this issue. Employing an online survey completed by employees from Turkish Regional Development Agencies, we examined the effect of job characteristics on the PSM of highly-skilled employees. The results show that employees’ PSM is fostered when they use high-quality skills in implementing their duties. Autonomy, an employee’s self-direction to decide the methods and timing of work, is another important factor affecting PSM. We found that job redesign would foster PSM of highly-qualified employees.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkish public administration
• public service motivation
• job characteristics
• autonomy
• skill variety

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Baris Kiyak

Baris Kiyak, Ph.D., has obtained his doctorate from the programme of Political Science and Public Administration at the Institute of Social Sciences at Pamukkale University, Turkiye. His main interests include strategic planning, job design, and public sector motivation.

Naci Karkin

Naci Karkin is a Senior Research Associate at the Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-eGOV), United Nations University, Guimarães, Portugal. His main research interests include e-government, social media, e-participation, ICT4D, and public policy making. Dr. Karkin has many publications in the ICTs and public administration field, book chapters published by Springer, IGI Global, and Edward Elgar, and has articles published in International Journal of Information Management, Government Information Quarterly, Information Technologies for Development, Information Polity.