Two sides of the same coin: how does civil servants’ public service motivation affect work-family conflict?

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study explores the double-edged effect of PSM on work-family conflict (WFC). Through a three-wave survey involving 228 Chinese civil servants, the findings show that PSM is positively related to WFC via workload; PSM is negatively related to WFC via positive emotion; the resource-loss path via workload is stronger when the perceived organizational caring ethic is low, and the resource-gain path via positive emotions is stronger when the perceived caring ethic is high. This study highlights the importance of considering both the positive and negative effects of PSM on WFC.

KEYWORDS:

• Public service motivation
• workload
• positive emotions
• work-family conflict
• perceived caring ethical climate

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 72074091), Key Project of National Social Science Foundation of China (NO. 20AAZD019), Singapore Ministry of Education Tier-1 Grant (RG61/16), and self-determined research funds of CCNU from the colleges’ basic research and operation of MOE (NO. 19TD009).