Frédéric Varone

Motivating Employees of the Public Sector: Does Public Service Motivation Matter?

ABSTRACT This article analyzes if, and to what extent, the public service motivation (PSM) construct has an added value to explain work motivation in the public sector. In order to address the specificity of PSM when studying work motivation, the theoretical model underlying this empirical study compares PSM with two other explanatory factors: material incentives, such as performance-related pay, and team relations and support, such as recognition by superiors. This theoretical model is then tested with data collected in a national survey of 3,754 civil servants at the Swiss municipal level. Results of a structural equations model clearly show the relevance of PSM. They also provide evidence for the importance of socio-relational motivating factors, whereas material incentives play an anecdotal role.

Policy with or without parties? A comparative analysis of policy priorities and policy change in Belgium, 1991 to 2000

Abstract This paper confronts two models of policy: the party model states that policy-making is an orderly process initiated by parties implementing their party programme and carrying out their electoral promises; the external pressure model contends that policy change is a non-orderly process but rather a disjoint process coming in large bursts that are difficult to predict. Drawing upon eight policy agendas in Belgium covering the period from 1991 to 2000 we put both models to the test. Policy measures are operationalized via the budget and legislation. We found that budgets are as good as disconnected from any other policy agenda in Belgium. Legislation and the evolving legislative attention for issues in Belgium can be traced back to some extent to parties and external pressure at the same time. In terms of static policy priorities, we found that the party model indicators, party programmes and government agreements, are fairly good predictors of the legislative attention an issue will receive during the governmental term. Regarding dynamic policy change from year to year, we found that the external pressure indicators – parliamentary pressure, media coverage and street protest – performed much better and were able to grasp some variance in issue emphasis in legislation.

Putting public service motivation into context: a balance between universalism and particularism

Research on Public Service Motivation (PSM) has increased enormously in the last 20 years. Besides the analysis of the antecedents of PSM and its impact on organizations and individuals, many open questions about the nature of PSM itself still remain. This article argues that the theoretical construct of PSM should be contextualized by integrating the political and administrative contexts of public servants when investigating their specific attitudes towards working in a public environment. It also challenges the efficacy of the classic four-dimensional structure of PSM when it is applied to a specific context. The findings of a confirmatory factor analysis from a dataset of 3754 employees of 279 Swiss municipalities support the appropriateness of contextualizing parts of the PSM construct. They also support the addition of an extra dimension called, according to previous research, Swiss democratic governance. With regard to our results, there is a need for further PSM research to set a definite measure of PSM, particularly in regard to the international diffusion of empirical research on PSM. Points for practitioners This study shows that public service motivation is a relevant construct for practitioners and may be used to better assess whether public agents are motivated by values or not. Nevertheless, it stresses also that the measurement of PSM must be adapted to the institutional context as well. Public managers interested in understanding better the degree to which their employees are motivated by public values must be aware that the measurement of this PSM construct has to be contextualized. In other words, PSM is also a function of the institutional environment in which organizations operate.

Stress Perception in Public Organisations Expanding the Job Demands–Job Resources Model by Including Public Service Motivation

Although stress has been a longstanding issue in organizations and management studies, it has never been studied in relation to Public Service Motivation. This article therefore aims to integrate PSM into the job demands–job resources model of stress to determine whether PSM might contribute to stress in public organizations. Drawing on original data from a questionnaire in a Swiss municipality, this study unsurprisingly shows that “red tape” is an antecedent of stress perception, whereas satisfaction with organizational support, positive feedback, and recognition significantly decrease the level of perceived stress. Astonishingly, the empirical results show that PSM is positively and significantly related to stress perception. By increasing individuals’ expectations toward their jobs, PSM might thus contribute to increased pressure on public agents. Ultimately, this article investigates the “dark side” of PSM, which has been neglected by the literature thus far.

HRM Practices, Intrinsic Motivators, and Organizational Performance in the Public Sector

This article aims to determine the impact of human resource management (HRM) practices on public service motivation (PSM) and organizational performance. Based on a survey of Swiss cantonal public employees (N = 3,131), this study shows that several HRM practices may be considered as organizational antecedents of PSM and strong predictors of perceived organizational performance. Fairness, job enrichment, individual appraisal, and professional development are HRM practices that are positively and significantly associated with PSM and perceived organizational performance. Moreover, these results suggest that HRM practices are stronger predictors than either PSM or organizational commitment when explaining the individual perception of organizational performance.

Polity, Politics and Policy. Evaluation in Belgium

This article examines the institutionalization of policy evaluation in Belgium. In comparison to other western democracies, policy evaluation is an underdeveloped tool of Belgian public governance. Among the explanatory factors of the laggard situation of Belgium, we focus on the all-pervasive phenomenon of partitocracy, on the relative weakness of Parliament vis-à-vis the government, and on the federalization process that is characteristic of the recent institutional evolution of the country. These three peculiarities of the Belgian polity and politics jeopardize the development of a mature evaluation culture. Finally, the empirical evidence for the Belgian case also calls into question several of the theoretical hypotheses that have been formulated to explain the diffusion of policy evaluation in various democracies.

Institutional vulnerability to social constructions - Federalism, target populations, and policy designs for assisted reproductive technology in six democracies

This article contributes to efforts to integrate power-based, institutionalist, and constructivist perspectives on policy making. Using an analysis of policy designs for assisted reproductive technology, the authors argue that jurisdictional federations are more vulnerable to social constructions based on widely held perceptions of social groups than functional federations and, to a lesser extent, unitary states. In fact, policy makers in jurisdictional federations tend to rely on communicative discourses aimed at convincing a wide public, whereas those in functional federations need coordinative discourses to obtain the support of actors who play key roles in decision making. Where coordinative discourses prevail over communicative discourses, policy makers will more likely target advantaged groups with restrictive policies.

Europeanization of the French electricity policy: four paradoxes

Abstract The European liberalization of the electricity sector led to four paradoxes in France. First, the transposition of European directives into French law has induced a clarification of the public service mandate; previously, its vague definition largely contributed to its quasi-sacrosanct status. Second, while the initial European impulse was to break down national monopolies, we observe that French groups still control the French market, currently Electricité de France and, probably, Suez-Gaz de France in the near future. Third, the partial privatization of these two French operators is one of the key transformations of the electricity sector; this indirect impact of the European liberalization process is rather paradoxical as the EU has no legal power to regulate the ownership of market operators. Finally, while the current regulatory framework of the French electricity sector has formally changed, the same political and administrative French élites are still in control of the new regulatory agencies. In sum, we conclude that the liberalization of the French electricity sector may result in a fully accomplished French industrial policy.

Institutional Regimes for Natural Resources: An Innovative Theoretical Framework for Sustainability (2007)

There are few terms that are used in such an inflated manner as the word “sustainability”. Politicians, businesspeople, scientists and all kinds of advertisers consider themselves, their proposals, their articles and their beliefs to be more sustainable than the ones of their competitors. Listerning to them, one gets the impression that our world is the most sustainable one imaginable. Looking at reality, in most situations the exact opposite is true. Globalization accelerates all kinds of industrial, domestic and urban metabolisms and increasingly unbundled market mechanisms are becoming a serious threat for the survival of the reproductive capacities of our common natural resources. With the advancement of globalization and market liberalization, the need for solid institutional mechanisms capable of guaranteeing the survival of normally local and/or regional natural resources has tremendously increased in the last twenty years. Traditional environmental protection policies are incapable of doing this job. Like many other scholars and politicians, we believe that fundamental changes in the way we manage our common natural resources are inevitable if we claim to fight against the “plundering of our common wealth” (Bollier 2002).

From Leadership to Citizenship Behavior in Public Organizations When Values Matter

After decades of management reforms in the public sector, questions on the impact of leadership behavior in public organizations have been attracting increasing attention. This article investigates the relationship between transformational leadership behavior and organizational citizenship behavior as one major extra-role outcome of transformational leadership. Referring to a growing body of research that shows the importance of public service values and employee identification in public administration research, we include public service motivation and organizational goal clarification as mediating variables in our analysis. Structural equation modeling is applied as the method of analysis for a sample of 569 public managers at the local level of Switzerland. The findings of our study support the assumed indirect relationship between leadership and employee behavior and emphasize the relevance of public service values when analyzing leadership behavior in public sector organizations.