Yoon Jik Cho

Turnover Intention and Turnover Behavior: Implications for Retaining Federal Employees

As the retirement wave of Baby Boomers approaches, retaining newly hired, mid-career, and retirement-eligible employees will be nearly as crucial as hiring top-quality new people. Using two large data sets on federal employees, we focus on whether human resource management (HRM) practices can affect turnover intention and whether they matter equally at all stages of the federal career. First, however, we test how well turnover intention predicts behavior using a 1% sample of the Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) and the 2005 Merit Principles Survey (MPS). Although turnover intention and behavior are correlated, they respond differently enough to demographic factors to suggest the need for caution in extrapolating the apparent impact of HRM practices from turnover intention to behavior.

Intrinsic Motivation and Employee Attitudes Role of Managerial Trustworthiness, Goal Directedness, and Extrinsic Reward Expectancy

Motivation scholars have argued that intrinsic motivation is an important driver of employee attitudes. This research tests the influence of intrinsic motivation on employee attitudes and explores three factors conditioning the effects of intrinsic motivation: managerial trustworthiness, goal directedness, and extrinsic reward expectancy. The analysis demonstrates that intrinsic motivation is substantively associated with both employee satisfaction and turnover intention. It also reveals that the three conditional factors interact with intrinsic motivation. Managerial trustworthiness and goal directedness increase the leverage of intrinsic motivation on employee satisfaction, whereas extrinsic rewards expectancy decreases the leverage. With respect to turnover intention, the factors directly influence it rather than affect it indirectly through intrinsic motivation. The implications of the results for theory and managerial strategies for employee motivation are discussed.

Does Organizational Justice Matter in the Federal Workplace

The theory of organizational justice has been supported by numerous empirical studies in the private sector. Although public administration scholars have investigated the fairness issue in pay and promotions, the main focus was confined to specific groups such as females and racial minorities. This research seeks to fill the gap by providing some generalizable findings. We investigate the justice issue by considering both individual- and organizational-level factors. By employing hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), the research examines whether the three dimensions of organizational justice—distributive, procedural, and informational justice—and several organizational-level factors affect four outcomes, including expectancy for career development, employee satisfaction, loyalty to senior leadership, and cooperation. The analysis confirms that the three dimensions of organizational justice are substantially associated with those employee attitudes, although organizational-level factors have little impact on them.

Performance Management and Trust in Supervisors

This article investigates the effect of performance management and explores one factor—trust in one’s supervisor—as a critical facilitator of it. Although improving performance is a prominent issue in public management and the term, performance management, is in heavy use in the public sector, systematic investigations on the subject are relatively rare. Defining performance management as a human resource management tool, this research empirically tests the associations between performance management and two outcomes: perceived work-unit performance and perceived agency performance. In addition, it examines the role of trust as a facilitator of the successful implementation of performance management. Using the Merit Principles Survey 2005, we test the ideas. Ordered logit regression analyses confirm that performance management promotes perceived performance of both work-unit and agency, and the leverages are further increased under a high level of trust in supervisors.

Perceived Trustworthiness of Supervisors, Employee Satisfaction and Cooperation

Abstract This study examines the value of trustworthiness of supervisors within US federal agencies. Although public administration scholars have paid attention to trust as a managerial resource, more empirical evidence is still needed. The authors test whether perceived trustworthiness of supervisors works as a valuable managerial resource within federal agencies. Following Mayer et al. (1995), this study assumes trustworthiness as a multi-dimensional concept composed of ability, benevolence and integrity. Drawing on data from a large-scale survey of US federal employees, the research first tests whether these factors constitute the elements of supervisory trustworthiness of federal agencies by second-order confirmatory factor analysis. Then, using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, the research examines whether trustworthiness has positive associations with employee satisfaction and cooperation within work units. The analyses confirm that the three factors constitute trustworthiness as Mayer et al. (1995) suggest and that supervisory trustworthiness is substantially associated with the two outcomes.

Managerial Practices, Trust in Leadership, and Performance: Case of the Georgia Department of Transportation

This research explores relationships among managerial practices, trust in leadership, teamwork, and organizational performance. It seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge of trust research by exploring several antecedents and outcomes. Based on the social exchange theory, the research examines whether managerial practices are associated with trust in leadership. Trust in leadership, then, is expected to improve teamwork and organizational performance by several leadership theories. Using data from an employee survey conducted for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) in 2010, we test the ideas by structural equation model analysis. Three kinds of trust in leadership—trust in department leadership, trust in leadership team, and trust in supervisor—are investigated. The analysis confirms that several managerial practices are substantially associated with the three kinds of trust, which in turn affects teamwork and organizational performance. Trust in department leadership is directly related to performance, whereas trust in leadership team and trust in supervisor are more likely to affect performance through teamwork.

Determinants of Whistleblowing Within Government Agencies

Since Miceli and Near’s seminal work, scholars and practitioners have sought to identify determinants of whistleblowing behaviors. For example, Miceli, Near, Rehg, and Van Scotter argued that proactive personality, less co-worker invalidation, and leverage in the specific situation lead to whistleblowing. Nevertheless, the decision to whistleblow is a complicated process, and relevant factors are still under exploration. This research seeks to answer the question “What factors influence whistleblowing intention within government agencies?” Investigating U.S. federal employees, this research tests the effects of several factors as determinants of whistleblowing, including perceived personal costs, public service motivation (PSM), education on whistleblowing, organizational support, and organizational protection. In examining the relationships among the variables, this research explores the mediating role of perceived personal costs. Using 2010 Merit Principles Survey data, this research conducts structural equation model analysis. The analysis result demonstrates that personal costs decrease whistleblowing intention, whereas PSM and education on whistleblowing increase the intention. Organizational support and protection contribute to enhancing whistleblowing intention by reducing perceived personal costs.

Human Resource Management Practices and Trust in Public Organizations

Abstract Trust has been acknowledged as a valuable managerial resource within organizations. Working as a lubricant of organizational functioning, trust reduces opportunistic behaviours while it increases voluntary compliance to organizational norms and rules as well as enhancing individual and organizational performance. Considering the importance of trust, it is worthwhile to explore what factors may help build trust within organizations. This research investigates whether perceptions of several human resource management (HRM) practices are associated with trust in government organizations. According to social exchange theory, HRM practices signal managements commitment to employees which in turn leads to greater trust in the organization. Using data from an employee survey conducted for the Georgia Department of Transportation in 2007, this research tests how employee perceptions of HRM practices are related to trust in three distinct levels of management in a large department of state government: trust in department leadership, trust in ones leadership team, and trust in ones supervisor. Binary logit analyses suggest that perceptions of HRM practices focusing on autonomy, compensation, communication, performance appraisal, and career development are associated with trust in public organizations. According to the result, those practices present variation in their leverage on trust in leadership at different levels.

The Four Major Rivers Restoration Project of South Korea An Assessment of Its Process, Program, and Political Dimensions

This article analyzes the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project, which was the most important component of South Koreas national Green Growth Policy. It is difficult to provide a definitive evaluation of the project because the expected outcomes will emerge only in the long term. In spite of this difficulty, this research seeks to provide an evaluation based on early outcomes of the project. This evaluation reveals that the project has not achieved its intended purpose yet, but it has some achievements in preventing flooding, minimizing water scarcity, improving water quality, and revitalizing local economies. In exploring the causes of current outcomes, this study highlights the factors that affect policy outcomes, which include process, program, and political dimensions. Each dimension has some factors that negatively affect the project. If the government wants to achieve the original purpose of the project, relevant reforms are due.

Improving Performance: Does Performance-Oriented Management Really Matter?

The last two decades have witnessed the emergence of “performance-oriented management” (POM) as a major approach to public management reform in the United States. POM refers to management practices that share a common assumption that effective goal setting, and proper design and implementation of performance management systems are the key to high performance. Despite the prominence of POM in the practice of public management today, very little large-N empirical research has investigated the effectiveness of POM as a management reform strategy. This study seeks to fill this void by drawing on the Merit Principles Survey 2000 data to test whether POM actually ensures the results envisioned by its advocates. The regression results show that the two core elements of POM goal setting, and performance management design and implementation are positively associated with performance dimensions such as productivity and quality of work, providing support for the idea that POM can be a performance driver in governmental settings. This study also examines whether the effect of POM is mitigated by the presence of intensive external political influences as POM skeptics suggest. The results are mixed: the effect of goal setting on performance was found to be smaller in federal agencies with high political salience than in federal agencies with low political salience; on the other hand, the effect of performance management design and implementation was not significantly different across the two groups. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the issue of administrative reform and the research on governmental performance.