Strength in numbers? Understanding the effect of team-level PSM on team effectiveness

Abstract

To date, public service motivation (PSM) has been investigated only as an individual-level phenomenon. We argue that, in order better to understand team effectiveness in public organizations, it is essential that team characteristics are also taken into consideration. This study provides a key contribution to public management research by exploring the relationship between PSM and team effectiveness at the group level. Specifically, we introduce the concepts of team-level PSM, which describes the average level of PSM within a team, and PSM differentiation, which refers to the variance in PSM that exists across different members of a team. The data used for this study are based on a two-wave survey of 122 teams of public sector employees in Switzerland. Findings show that team-level PSM is indirectly related to team effectiveness through the process of team identification and that this relationship is strengthened when there is less variability in PSM within the team. The implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to acknowledge Muriel Baertschi for helping with the data collection and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Breaugh

Jessica Breaugh is a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany. Her research focuses on public management, with an emphasis on employee outcomes, work motivation, engagement, public service motivation as well as a recent focus on leadership and public management interventions in collaborative endeavors in government digitalization processes. She has worked as a public service practitioner for the Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments, with the most research position as an advisor in the area of human resources management. Her latest research related to public service motivation is published in Public Management Review and Public Personnel Management. Email: [email protected]

Kerstin Alfes

Kerstin Alfes holds a chair in Organization and Human Resource Management at ESCP Business School, Berlin. Her research interests include strategic human resource management, employee engagement, and overqualification. She has written on these topics in journals such as Human Resource Management; the International Journal of Human Resource Management; European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology; Gender, Work & Organization; and the International Public Management Journal. Email: [email protected]

Adrian Ritz

Adrian Ritz is a professor of public management at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His research interests focus on public management, leadership, motivation, and performance in public organizations. He has published in various scholarly journals, and his German coauthored book Public Management has been published in its sixth edition. Email: [email protected]