Sangmook Kim

Public service motivation and organizational citizenship behavior in Korea

Purpose – The main theme is to investigate whether the distinct classes of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) such as altruism and generalized compliance are shown in the Korean context, and whether public service motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment are predictors of OCB in Korean civil servants.Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to survey data of 1,584 civil servants in Korea to examine the relationships between the three predictors and the two dimensions of OCB.Findings – The results indicate the presence of the two dimensions of OCB in the Korean context, and support the relationships between public service motivation and OCB and the relationship between organizational commitment and OCB. However, the direct relationship between job satisfaction and OCB is not confirmed.Originality/value – This paper is the first to analyze the effect of public service motivation on OCB, and shows that public service motivation emerges as a more sig...

Revising Perry's Measurement Scale of Public Service Motivation

J. L. Perry (1996) identified a 24-item multidimensional scale to measure public service motivation (PSM). But the measurement scale of PSM is not fully examined. On the basis of Perrys items, S. Kim (in press) produced a 14-item scale of four factors, but the dimension of attraction to policy making (APM) in the second-order model is doubtful. The present study revises the questionable items of the APM dimension into more positive and relevant ones and tests whether the dimension of APM is valid. Two independent samples (n 1 = 690 and n 2 = 498) are used for the scale validation. The statistical analysis applied confirmatory factor analysis using Amos 7.0. The modification process, which generated a 12-item scale for four factors, produced a valid and reliable measure: the test results provided support for convergent validity as well as discriminant validity of the four-factor model, and the reliability coefficients of all subscales were good.

National Culture and Social Desirability Bias in Measuring Public Service Motivation

Much of what we know about public service motivation comes from self-report measures. However, self-report questionnaires are vulnerable to social desirability bias due to respondents’ tendencies to answer in a more socially acceptable way. This is a problem as social desirability bias threatens the validity of the measure. This study investigates whether characteristics of national culture influence social desirability bias during surveys on public service motivation. In particular, the impact of social desirability bias is analyzed with two concerns in mind: construct validity and inference validity of public service motivation measures. Experimental survey research (list experiment) is conducted to examine the magnitude of social desirability bias and its associations with national cultures in four countries: Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and the United States. The results show that respondents in both collectivistic countries (Japan and Korea) and individualistic countries (the Netherlands and the United States) are likely to over-report answers on items of public service motivation, although the magnitude and pattern of this bias is stronger and more consistent in collectivistic countries. This study also finds a strong possibility of a moderator effect in correlational analyses in collectivistic countries, but it is doubtful this effect is present in individualistic countries. Overall, we suggest that the effects of social desirability bias should be investigated in public service motivation research, and social desirability bias should be controlled for in future research.

National culture and public service motivation: investigating the relationship using Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions

Much research has focused on finding and explaining the antecedents, correlates, and outcomes of public service motivation (PSM), but little is known about the influence of national context on individuals’ PSM. Previous research suggests that national culture may exert an independent influence on individuals’ PSM. This article examines PSM as an individual-level variable that is related to national culture, which is represented by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (2005), I investigate the relationship between cultural dimensions and individuals’ PSM. This article demonstrates that masculinity and indulgence are positively related to individuals’ PSM, whereas individualism is negatively associated with individuals’ PSM. However, power distance and uncertainty avoidance have a non-significant relationship with PSM. This article provides partial support for the thesis that national culture is associated with individuals’ PSM, but future research is required to explicate the relationship of cultural characteristics to individuals’ PSM. Points for practitioners Culture influences certain types of behavior both directly and indirectly. The article suggests that cultural tendencies such as masculinity, indulgence, and collectivism have a significant positive influence on individuals’ PSM. Organizational education and socialization enhancing these cultural values are likely to foster employees’ PSM.

Social Desirability Bias in Measuring Public Service Motivation

ABSTRACT Public service motivation (PSM) is usually measured using self-report data, which suggests that PSM measures can be influenced by social desirability bias. This study investigates whether respondents tend to report an inflated view of their attitudes and orientations during surveys on PSM. Experimental survey research (list experiment) is conducted to analyze the magnitude of social desirability bias in PSM measurements and to examine the relationship between socio-demographic factors and social desirability bias in Korea. The results show evidence of social desirability responding bias, although the pattern of bias varies across socio-demographic subgroups. Respondents in their forties or fifties, conservatives, Protestants, and those without a religious affiliation show more bias than other subgroups. This finding implies that correlational analysis in PSM research may be prone to the moderating effect of social desirability bias. Research that does not recognize and compensate for this bias may produce unwarranted theoretical or practical conclusions.

Public Service Motivation, Organizational Social Capital, and Knowledge Sharing in the Korean Public Sector

ABSTRACT This article investigates whether public service motivation (PSM) and organizational social capital predict knowledge sharing in the public sector. The hypothesized relationships in the proposed model are verified with the online survey data of 506 public employees in Korea. The test results show that the two dimensions of PSM (attraction to public service and commitment to public values) and the trust component of organizational social capital are both positively related to knowledge sharing in the Korean public sector, and that the associability component of organizational social capital is indirectly associated with knowledge sharing through its influence on PSM. The article discusses the ways that PSM and organizational social capital may contribute to overcome the social dilemma of knowledge sharing in public organizations. It also suggests that there is need for further research on the individual dimensions of the PSM construct.

Ethnic Differences in Social Desirability Bias: Effects on the Analysis of Public Service Motivation

Public service motivation (PSM) research heavily relies on self-report measures that are often susceptible to social desirability bias (SDB). Cultural orientation is also correlated with SDB. This study explores the ethnic differences in socially desirable responding when measuring PSM and job satisfaction in a multicultural but individualistic society like the United States. It tests the magnitude and pattern of SDB in measurements of PSM in this society as a whole, as well as the influence of ethnicity on SDB. The results of our experimental survey research show that SDB is significantly correlated with PSM measures, as well as job satisfaction. We therefore expect a spurious effect to occur in the correlational analysis. This implies that the correlation between job satisfaction and PSM is at least partly spurious due to measurement artifacts. Alternative ways to measure PSM need to be explored to control SDB.

Comparison of a Multidimensional to a Unidimensional Measure of Public Service Motivation: Predicting Work Attitudes

ABSTRACT Significant research has been conducted to understand public service motivation (PSM) in the past decades using either multidimensional or unidimensional measures. This creates uncertainty in the review process about whether findings using one approach hold when other measures are used. PSM research faces the challenge of developing a better understanding of different PSM measures and the relationships between them. This paper compares a multidimensional to a unidimensional measure of PSM, assessing the predictive validity of PSM on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and person–organization fit. The empirical test shows that there is no significant difference in the predictive capacities of PSM on the work attitudes within the data set when using the different PSM measures. It provides some evidence that unidimensional and multidimensional measures of PSM are of comparable utility, at least within the data set used.

Developing an item pool and testing measurement invariance for measuring public service motivation in Korea

Abstract In a recent study, an international measure of public service motivation (PSM) failed to achieve measurement invariance across cultures and languages. However, since that research was able to confirm the four-dimensional structure of PSM, it can provide a starting point for studying PSM in a single country. This study aimed to develop an item pool for measuring PSM in Korea. Online survey data (n = 1800), collected from both the public and private sectors, were used to test measurement invariance to validate the use of the measure across genders and sectors. The results provide support for both the initial four-dimensional 29-item PSM model and the more concise 16-item PSM model, confirming that the dimensions have the same meaning and scaling across genders and sectors in Korea. This study may be the first to test the measurement equivalence of a PSM measure across different groups in a single country.