A view into managers’ subjective experiences of public service motivation and work engagement: a qualitative study

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the underlying factors which may foster or attenuate public managers’ public service motivation (PSM) and on the processes through which it affects their work engagement. A qualitative analysis of interviews with senior staffers in public-service organizations revealed multilayered subjective experiences of PSM and work engagement. The findings which emerged from the interviews suggest five factors behind PSM: The nature of task; Reaching beyond the self; Career development opportunities; The burden of red tape, and; Identification with the beneficiaries. Growing from these, analysis further suggests that PSM fosters emotional engagement and engagement in micro-community and in macro-community.

KEYWORDS:

• Public service motivation
• work engagement
• qualitative study
• public sector organizations

Disclosure statement

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

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2020.1740304

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hedva Vinarski Peretz

Hedva Vinarski Peretz, Ph.D is a faculty member at the department of political science and health system management at the Academic Yezreel Valley College and head of the practice Public Sector Internal and External Audit. Also, she is an adjunct lecturer at the department of public policy, Tel Aviv University. She previously held visiting scholar at the Center for Collaboration Science: Creativity and Innovation in Organizations – at the Department of Psychology at University of Nebraska, USA (2014) and research fellow at the School of Business and Economics - International Business, Strategy and Innovation Research Group at Loughborough University, UK (2013).