Since public service motivation (PSM) arose from the literature on public/private differences and explaining what motivates workers in government, job sector and PSM intertwine. Many have examined how PSM relates to job sector and have even used job sector as a proxy for PSM, but are job sector and PSM interchangeable? More specifically, does sector or PSM drive individuals to prosocial behaviour? We use volunteering to decompose the relative contribution of employment sector and PSM to engaging in prosocial behaviours. We find nearly the entire cross-sector gap in prosocial behaviours is driven by differing average levels of PSM and observables.
With the rise of third‐party government, the lines between the sectors have blurred as has accountability. Public service delivery failures can erode government legitimacy and trust, but who do citizens blame when something goes wrong? To answer this question, we employ an experiment to see whether citizens hold local governments and private contractors equally accountable for service delivery failure. We also examine how they expect the employees to be held accountable. Results demonstrate that blame is attributed to those providing the service directly. However, the introduction of a budget shortfall lessens the blame assigned to the contractor, and implicates the city even when the service is provided indirectly through a contract. Finally, citizens are less in favour of terminating the employment of both public and contract employees under budget shortfalls. Findings suggest that if citizens are given information about the context and who is in control of the service, they attribute blame accordingly.
Practitioners, policymakers, and scholars across fields and disciplines seek to understand factors that shape public opinion and public service values, especially in today's polarized context. Yet we know little about how the two relate. Research on public service motivation (PSM), a drive to help others grounded in public institutions, has grown to examine career decisions and behaviors within and outside the workplace, but does the influence of PSM extend to individual values? Using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study surrounding the 2016 US presidential election, we first examine the antecedents of PSM; how do individual characteristics as well as socioeconomic and sociocultural factors influence levels of PSM? Second, we describe the role PSM plays in shaping public opinion on policy preferences, budget priorities, and political behaviors. Findings have implications for both understanding who has PSM as well as how PSM shapes public preferences, attitudes, and behaviors.
There has long been concern that shortages sometimes develop and persist in specific occupations, leading to inefficiencies in the U.S. economy. This book will help readers understand why occupational shortages arise, how to know a shortage when it is present, and to assess strategies to alleviate the shortage. As the authors show, many economists, including several U.S. Nobel Prize winners, have studied occupational shortages, and this volume builds on their work.
