Public Service Motivation: Global Knowledge, Regional Perspective

Abstract

Public service motivation (PSM) has become firmly established as a core concept of study within public administration in the last three decades (Mussagulova & Van der Wal, 2021; Ritz et al., 2016). Emerging as a counterpoint to the dominant view of self-interested and extrinsically motivated bureaucrats advanced by rational choice theorists, Perry and Wise (1990, p. 368) defined PSM as “an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and organizations”. The PSM measurement scale subsequently developed by Perry (1996) has been tested and refined in hundreds of studies. Scholars have examined the contents of PSM and its antecedents and consequences, using a range of methods from surveys and interviews to experimental designs. The practical significance of PSM research has also been recognised in administrative reform and strategic HR efforts as an impetus for performance, job satisfaction, and well-being (Mussagulova & Van der Wal, 2021; Perry, 2021). In the past decade, PSM scholarship has expanded and diversified. Scholars have employed an interdisciplinary approach, using theoretical lenses such as selfdetermination theory (SDT), job demands-resources theory, and prosocial motivation theory, among others. In addition, methodological approaches have broadened from an almost exclusive focus on cross-sectional surveys to include more experimental designs, qualitative efforts, and structured literature reviews (Perry, 2021; Ritz et al., 2016). Although the field was long dominated by scholars from the US and Western Europe, research is increasingly coming from non-Western settings. In 2015 and 2021, two systematic reviews of non-Western PSM scholarship assessed the state of the field and proposed a research agenda (Mussagulova & Van der Wal, 2021; Van der Wal, 2015). The agenda contained three key areas: (1) cultural values and societal disposition, (2) distribution and interplay between different types of motivators, and (3) relations between PSM, public service ethos, and institutions in developing political economies. These review articles called for a more critical employment of contextual variables as to produce new conceptual elements of PSM; e.g., the relationship between PSM and institutions; as well as more quasi-experimental and experimental designs to establish causality. In this spirit, this special issue on PSM aims to advance global knowledge by showcasing scholarship in the Asia Pacific region that employs under-utilised perspectives and methods. Indeed, two themes emerge from the four articles included in this special issue. The first theme is the institutional nature of PSM. The second theme is the experimental