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Public Service Motivation and Organisational Performance in Swiss Federal Government Published in: Ritz, A. 2009. “Public service motivation and organizational performance in Swiss Federal Government.” International Review of Administrative Sciences, 75(1): 53-78 Adrian Ritz* *Adrian Ritz is Assistant Professor for Public Administration at the Centre of Competence for Public Management at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Adrian Ritz, Prof Dr University of Bern Centre of Competence for Public Management Schanzeneckstrasse 1, PB 8573 3001 Bern Switzerland Phone: Fax: E-mail:
+41 31 631 53 13 +41 31 631 53 17
[email protected]
Abstract During the last 20 years public sector reforms focused on the increase of organisational performance mainly by implementing managerial tools and methods. The one-sided, output orientated reforms meet with criticism. In our study we focus on the links between employee attitudes, managerial measures, institutional factors and organisational performance. Therefore, three attitudinal constructs like public service motivation, organisational commitment and job satisfaction are analysed. The study empirically tests the effects of these dimensions on perceived performance in the federal administration of Switzerland. The analysed data of 13532 federal employees give insight into the importance of employee commitment to the public interest and the need for goal oriented management techniques. The results are discussed in light of previous studies. Points for practitioners Public administration research raises more and more criticism against New Public Management reforms. This study, however, shows that there is an important link between managerial techniques and the individual perception of organisational performance in administrative practice. There are a range of private management tools immigrating into the public sector. But for the tools to be effective, practitioners need to integrate them with consideration to the specific requirements of the employee’s commitment to the public interest. Keywords Efficiency, leadership, job satisfaction, management by objectives, organisational commitment, performance, public sector reform, public service motivation Article word count 8988
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Public Service Motivation and Organisational Performance in Swiss Federal Government 1. Introduction Over the past two or three decades, management reforms have once again challenged public administration; and with their demand for more performance-based public institutions, they have shaped both the academic discussion and the reforms in public organisations. Others call the present times as the “era of government by performance management” (Moynihan and Pandey, 2005: 421). The managerialistic reform measures change the institutional framework within public employees work. That raises important questions about public employees’ motivation and commitment in relationship to the proclaimed performance culture. Is there a fundamental change happening in the values of public employees? Do sophisticated performance and incentives regimes crowd out public service motivation (PSM) (Perry and Wise, 1990; Frey and Jegen, 2001)? Or do higher motivation and commitment of public employees raise the awareness for efficiency and effectiveness of public task fulfilling, as Moynihan and Pandey (2007: 41) argue: “PSM is important not just to motivation but also to productivity, improved management practices, accountability, and trust in government [...]”?
The latter issue is at the heart of this article. It adds highly relevant knowledge to the recent efforts towards understanding the role of public service motivation, commitment and performance in public administration research. The article is important, both theoretically and practically, because it helps explaining the area of conflict between management techniques and incentive systems as well as the public interest for managing government institutions. During recent years there has been increasing study into the question whether a specific motivation of public employees exists. Moreover, the theoretical works of James L. Perry have been supplemented by several empirical studies. Whereas up to now studies on the existence and causes of, respectively influencing factors on PSM have dominated, research on the effects of PSM will become more and more important (Brewer et al., 2000; Moynihan and Pandey, 2007; Camilleri, 2007). But research on PSM remains largely silent about the effects of PSM on performance and empirical work focusing this issue is rare (Kim, 2005; Bogh Andersen and Pallesen, 2008; Park and Rainey, 2008). “The relationship between public service motivation and performance is a matter of great interest to scholars and practitioners alike” (Brewer, 2008: 136). This article intends to close this gap: the study tests different hypotheses concerning the effects of PSM and other attitudinal or institutional dimensions on organisational performance. Prior - mostly theoretical - research is extended by empirical results from Switzerland and new perspectives on the relationship between motivation, leadership behaviour and performance.
3 The article is structured as follows: Section two discusses the construct of public service motivation (PSM). Section three examines the question to what extent individual-level factors like PSM and organisational commitment (OC) affect organisational performance. At this point, the article addresses the basic challenge of several authors (Perry and Wise, 1990; Brewer, 2008), which calls for a more in-depth study of the correlation between PSM and OC. In section four, the relationship between institutional, non-attitudinal factors and performance is investigated. Section five introduces the empirical part of the study by describing the methodology and dataset. In section six we then set forth the empirical part by testing the hypotheses of section three and four and discussing the results. The last section outlines the main results and their implications for practice.
2. Public Service Motivation The concept of PSM assumes that there are specific motives which are activated particularly by the features of public institutions. Motivation arises from the interplay between the person, or the person’s permanent motives, and the situation (Von Rosenstiel, 2007). Aspects of situations, such as the institutional framework per se, become incentives for the individual to the extent that they activate specific motives in the person and guide his or her behaviour in a specific direction. Perry and Wise (1990: 68) established the PSM concept and described PSM as “… an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and organisations”. Based upon this concept, Perry (1996) developed a measurement process which measures PSM directly using the four following categories: attraction to public policy-making, commitment to the public interest, compassion and self-sacrifice. Research on PSM can be classified into three basic categories: first, the exploration and explanation of the PSM construct; second, the distinction between employees’ PSM in the public and private sector; and third, the international comparison of the PSM construct. The exploration of PSM shows the existence of various aspects of PSM within one and the same individual (Brewer et al., 2000). Other studies are rather critical in their comments about the allocation of Perry’s motives to individuals (Alonso and Lewis, 2001; Gabris and Simo, 1995). Following Moynihan and Pandey (2007), organisational factors like the reduction of hierarchy, red tape and goal clarity have a positive effect on PSM. Concerning the sector specific differentiation of PSM, several studies confirm the hypothesis that public employees value monetary incentives less compared to private sector employees and furthermore show that PSM in public organisations is different from that in private organisations, specifically that it is stronger in public institutions and that job productivity of public service-motivated employees is higher than that of extrinsically oriented employees (Buelens and Van den Broeck, 2007; Houston, 2000; Crewson, 1997; Rainey, 1982; Rainey, 1979). However, Gabris und Simo (1995) are sceptical towards this hypothesis. Although they did not apply Perry’s PSM dimensions, they found no differences between the motives of employees in the public and private sectors. PSM includes different
4 values that exist not only in American administrations, but also characterise the ethos of public officials in various public service regimes and national cultures (Horton and Hondeghem, 2006; Meyer and Hammerschmid, 2006; Horton, 2008). More recent research examines additional value categories of PSM and points to the significance of institutional and cultural influences on the formation of PSM (Vandenabeele et al., 2006; Horton, 2006; Vandenabeele, 2007; Perry and Vandenabeele, 2008; Vandenabeele and Van der Walle, 2008). An important difference between Switzerland and other European countries like France, Germany, Austria or Italy is the non-existence of a public service corps. Life-long tenure does not exist for public employees except for judges. There is no special training for public officials as the “Ecole National d’Administration” in France or the University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer, Germany. Public administration education like MPA’s for regular students did not exist until 2006. These characteristics of Swiss administrative culture and the very decentralised and federal politico-administrative system show specific characteristics of Switzerland’s administrative systems and its educational base. But in light of the empirical results they don’t question the existence of Perry’s PSM dimension in the Swiss context.
3. Motivation, Attitudes and Performance For the present study, the correlation between PSM, OC and the performance of public organisations is of particular interest. Work motivation is often categorised into the two types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, showing that different incentives have a distinct impact on employee motivation. Whereas intrinsic motivation is nurtured by rewards as the activity itself, the source of extrinsic motivation are external controlling variables as explicit rewards (e. g. money, threat) (Herzberg, 1966; Cameron and Pierce, 2002). From a perspective of self-determination theory intrinsic motivation gets increased in more autonomous work situations and results in more positive attitudinal and behavioural outcomes (Deci and Ryan, 1985; Ryan and Connel, 1989). Against this background Frey’s (1997) work on motivation leads to the argumentation that external rewards crowd out intrinsic motivation and reduce the individual’s work effort because of incentives which are in conflict with the employee’s moral, values and choices. Vice versa, external rewards can help crowd in intrinsic motivation when supporting the employee’s choices and values. From this point of view PSM acts upon those external rewards like job characteristics that result in increased intrinsic motivation to perform (e.g., autonomy, task identity and perceived task significance) (Perry and Wise, 1990; Moynihan, 2008; Paarlberg et al., 2008). Hence we assume a positive relationship between PSM and performance. Empirical research occasionally shows moderate positive links between PSM and individual performance, but the evidence remains mixed (Brewer and Selden, 2000; Kim, 2005; Bogh Andersen and Pallesen, 2008; Park and Rainey, 2008). While some authors determine individual performance using interviewee information obtained from the last performance appraisal (Camilleri, 2006; Brewer et al., 2000; Naff and Crum, 1999) or by means of salary levels and promotions as productivity measurement
5 (Alonso and Lewis, 2001), others apply efficiency and effectiveness measures determining organisational performance (Brewer and Selden, 2000; Kim, 2005; Park and Rainey, 2008). Elsewhere, the importance of self-set goals is used to explain the reason for different performance levels (Locke and Latham, 1990), or the readiness to identify and bond with an organisation in terms of OC serves as a predictor for performance behaviour (Crewson, 1997). Very rare are more objective performance measure as for example quantitative output data like in the work of Bogh Andersen and Pallesen (2008).To measure organisational performance is one of the greatest challenges in public management research because of the multifaceted characteristics of public service performance as part of a plural society and different actors who have their own subjective performance criteria (Brewer and Selden, 2000; Kim, 2005; Boyne et al., 2007). Furthermore, output and outcome of public institutions are not easy to measure, since indicators are frequently insufficient or cannot be measured due to a lack of data. Boyne (2002a; 2003) and Andrews et al. (2005) use seven dimensions of public service performance based on the “3Es’ model” and the “input-output-outcome model” of organisational performance for their analysis. These dimensions include the quantity and quality of outputs, efficiency, equity, outcomes, value for money and consumer satisfaction. Even though not explicitly mentioned, these models comprehend the dimension of administrative processes which become especially relevant in the context of complex services and when measuring outputs and outcomes gets difficult (Ouchi, 1979; Eisenhardt, 1985). Against the backdrop of so-called High Performance Organisations (Popovich, 1998; Becker et al., 2001), which exhibit a better ratio between performance and their associated resources when compared to other organisations, Rainey and Steinbauer (1999) and Brewer and Selden (2000) develop different dimensions of organisational performance in public institutions. Brewer and Selden (2000) proposed a perceptual measure of organisational performance combining the individual, programme and organisational level of performance. On the one hand, they distinguish between two organisational performance perspectives, namely, internal and external; on the other hand, performance variables in public institutions must be reinforced on a broader basis, and for this Brewer and Selden use efficiency, effectiveness and fairness. Accordingly, all three performances variables can be oriented internally or externally. Using Korean data, Kim (2005) demonstrates that PSM has a positive influence on these performance variables, even if it is less positive than job satisfaction, affective commitment and organisational citizenship. In the following discussion, internal efficiency will be used as the performance variable. The above mentioned theoretical link between motivation and performance as well as the results from the studies related to the influence of PSM on performance variables leads to our first hypothesis: H1: The higher the public service motivation, the higher the organisation’s internal efficiency. The argument that attitudes like commitment and job satisfaction are related to performance has a long history. It has been proposed that work satisfaction strengthens organisational performance. Organisations that alienate workers will be less effective and efficient and dissatisfied employees usually work
6 less hard and fulfil their task to less satisfaction than frustrated ones (Etzioni, 1964; Gross & Etzioni, 1985). Human relations and human resource approaches argue that satisfied employees are productive employees (Likert, 1961; Mayo, 1933; McGregor, 1960). Positive attitudes can be achieved through maintaining a positive social organisational environment, such as by providing good communication, autonomy, participation, and mutual trust (Argyris, 1964; Likert, 1961). Employee satisfaction and sentiments influence the development of routine patterns of interaction. Through daily associations with others, employees develop relationships at work that fall into routine patterns, patterns that prescribe behavioural expectations and influence behaviours. Positive attitudes result in patterns that are directed toward achieving the organisation's objectives (Roethlisberger, 1959). Attitudes like satisfaction or commitment of employees are important factors in determining their behaviour and responses at work, and it is through these behaviours and responses that organisational performance can be achieved. OC as the second attitudinal dimension of this study is characterised by the individual’s bonding, identification and dedicated commitment to the organisation (Mowday et al., 1979a, 1979b; Mowday et al., 1982). Meyer und Allen (1991) have developed the most widely disseminated OC concept, which makes a distinction between affective, continuous and normative OC. OC has a positive correlation to job satisfaction, motivation and attendance as well as a negative one to fluctuation, tendencies to fluctuation and absenteeism (Mowday et al., 1979a; Mowday et al., 1982; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990b, 1990a). Affective and normative commitment have a positive correlation to performance behaviour, while continuous commitment results in insignificant or negative links in this regard (Meyer et al., 1989). The correlation between OC and effective performance is only weakly substantiated. The research findings show that OC’s direct influence on job performance is only slight (Mowday et al., 1982; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990b). Romzek (1990) concluded that there is a positive relationship between OC and performance behaviour, since employees with strong OC are more committed to organisational goals and exhibit a greater willingness to work hard. This indicates a positive correlation between OC and extra-role behaviour, proactivity, and furthermore organisational citizenship behaviour, all of which contribute positively to the performance of an organisation (Matiaske and Weller, 2003). We are therefore led to deduce our next hypothesis: H2: The greater the organisational commitment, the higher the internal efficiency. Against the backdrop of social exchange theories (March and Simon, 1958), the correlation between PSM and OC is based on the assumption that, the more personality traits and motives correspond with organisational conditions and incentives, the more OC increases (Knoke and Wright-Isak, 1982). Various studies conclude that, given similarly high job motivation for employees in the public and private sectors, the former − namely, public sector employees − compensate for lower extrinsic incentives with intrinsic incentives in terms of contributions made to the super ordinate goals of public institutions (Frank, 2004; Baldwin, 1984; Rainey, 1979). We therefore conclude that employees in public institutions, who ascribe more weight to the public interest and to serving the government and society
7 than they do to the limited economic incentives existing in public administration, should exhibit greater OC (Crewson, 1997; Perry and Wise, 1990). The correlation examined in this article considers PSM to be an antecedent to OC (Castaing, 2006; Perry and Wise, 1990; Steers, 1975). Perry and Wise (1990) operate on the premise that the greater the PSM, the more likely a person will be committed to a public programme. “[S]ome public employees may be motivated by a commitment to a public program because of personal identification with a program. In many instances, however, commitment to a program may emanate from a genuine conviction about its social importance” (Perry and Wise, 1990: 369). According to the literature on personenvironment- and person-organisation-fit (Muchinsky and Monahan, 1987; Kristof, 1996) employees having strong norms about performing public service are likely to be committed to their organisations (Steijn and Leisink, 2006; Taylor, 2008). The third hypothesis is derived from this: H3: Employees with higher public service motivation exhibit greater organisational commitment. Job satisfaction as last attitudinal dimension indicates the extent to which employees like their jobs. It is shaped by comparing the incentives offered by the work and the work environment, as well as by individual motives. Job satisfaction therefore includes how an employee feels about his or her job and aspects of the job (Locke, 1976). It has a positive correlation with various individual concepts of employee motivation, for example, job involvement, organisational citizenship behaviour, organisational commitment and also job performance (Judge et al., 2001; Bateman and Strasser, 1984). To some extent, public administration employees are characterised as being less satisfied with their work when compared to persons working in the private sector (Rainey, 1989). Overall, however, based upon empirical results (Judge et al., 2001; Yousef, 2000), one can assume that job satisfaction generally affects performance in a positive way, which allows us to deduce the following hypothesis: H4: The greater the job satisfaction, the greater the internal efficiency. From an economic perspective the analysis of motivational and attitudinal measures at the individual level and performance at the organisational level as undertaken by Brewer and Selden (2000) and Kim (2005) is questioned. The analysis of individual-level factors and their impact on organisational performance needs more explanation in respect to intervening variables (e. g. institutional variables). And the aggregation of individual-level measures for attitudes into an organisational measure makes the causal attribution between attitudes and organisational performance difficult. However, from an organisational behaviourist perspective “[t]he individual is the fundamental building block and the fundamental determinant of effectiveness” (Cummings, 1983). Organisations and individuals are interdependent and therefore the perception of individuals about organisational performance may not be independent of the “real” performance (Brewer and Selden, 2000; Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003 ).
8 4. Institutional Factors and Performance In addition to the influence of PSM, OC and job satisfaction on internal efficiency, in our model, we examine the relationship between goal orientation on the organisational level, leadership behaviour of supervisors and internal efficiency. Both goal dimension and leadership are very frequently called performance predictors. Further institutional factors include the size of administrative units and the extent of managerial reform. Against the backdrop of goal-setting theory (Locke and Latham, 1990), Perry et al. (2006) as well as Wright (2004; 2007) studied the influence of mission, organisational goals and goal conflicts on job motivation and determined that employees in public institutions exhibit higher job motivation if their tasks are clearly comprehensible, challenging, important and achievable. By being able to reinforce task-related goals, the mission and organisational goals thus have a positive effect upon job motivation. According to Locke and Latham (1990), employees pursue with more commitment those goals that, from their perspective, are connected to more important goals and are achievable for them. Rainey and Steinbauer (1999) see the effectiveness and performance of government agencies as being influenced by the three factors “task”, “mission” and “public service”. And according to Latham et al. (1988), preset goals and mutually developed goals are equally effective with regard to improving performance. We therefore deduce the hypothesis: H5: The higher the goal dimension in relation to organisational goals, the greater the internal efficiency. The leadership behaviour of supervisors considerably influences the motivation and behaviour of the employees (Judge et al., 2004; Burns, 1978). In the public sector, leadership behaviour is also considered to be an important factor influencing organisational change, job satisfaction and organisational performance (Park and Rainey, 2008; Kim, 2005; Meyer and O’Toole, 2002; Thompson, 2000; Hennessey, 1998), although Brewer and Selden (2000) could document only a weak influence on organisational performance in their study. Particularly research on transformational leadership behaviour was able to show that, in contrast to transactional leadership, extra performance can be attained by the expansion and inspiration of individual goals (Bass and Avolio, 1990). Park and Rainey (2008) showed that transformation-oriented leadership as well as the interaction of transformation-oriented leadership and public service-oriented motivation have positive relations to perceived performance. Also leadership behaviour in the sense of consideration and initiating structure shows a strong relation with employee performance and satisfaction. Several studies show that consideration and initiating structure are positively related to productivity and satisfaction (Miles and Petty, 1977; House, 1971; House et al., 1971). In the light of path-goal-theory (House, 1996) “it is the leader’s responsibility to align worker and organisational goals and then ensure that the employee’s path to goal attainment is clear” (Van Wart, 2005: 318). Supportive and participative leadership behaviour that strengthens leadership consideration motivates subordinates to contribute to successful task completion and helps to clarify
9 processes to attain individual and organisational goals. Therefore, we assume that leadership behaviour of supervisors in the sense of consideration, initiating structure and participation has a positive effect upon internal efficiency like reduction of costs, simplification of processes and decisionmaking. From this, we deduce the following hypothesis: H6: The more pronounced the leadership behaviour of the supervisor, the greater the internal efficiency. Institutional dimensions are often seen as a main influence on organisational performance. There exists a richness of work concerning issues like the comparison between public and private institutions (Boyne, 2002b), centralisation and concentration of power (Pollitt, 2005), formalisation and reliance on rules (Pandey and Scott, 2002), and like hierarchy, complexity and size (Kalleberg et al., 1996). The size of organisation is one important correlate in analysing organisational performance. Transaction costs and economies of scale lead to different arguments in favour of small or large organisations; examples are strengthened responsiveness through fragmentation or amalgamation of local municipalities to improve administrative performance (Boyne, 2003; Boyne et al., 2003). On the one hand, larger organisations are often structurally more complex than smaller ones and are therefore typically bureaucracy-driven (Parkinson, 1957). On the other hand, after a certain point larger organisations tend to have less administrative overhead and could therefore be more efficient. Even if the effects of size on the performance of public organisations are not clear, we follow the general criticism against bureaucracy and low performance of large public institutions. Because larger organisations show greater horizontal and vertical complexity, we deduce the hypothesis that time of decision-making and simplification of processes are in a negative relationship to size: H7: The larger an organisation, the lower the internal efficiency. A second institutional dimension analysed in this study raises the question regarding the influence of institutional reform on performance. As written at the beginning, so-called New Public Management reforms are implemented around the globe and show a great variety of type. The reforms at the federal level of Switzerland go in line with the typical managerial modernisation programmes of Western European administrations. Performance contracts and global budgets based on product groups combined with indicators and standards, accrual accounting and performance oriented reporting measures, management by objectives and performance pay systems characterise the federal reform programme, which is named “Führen mit Leistungsauftrag und Globalbudget FLAG” (steering by performance contract and global budget) (Ritz, 2003). The programme includes 24 administrative units at the federal level, from which the first started the programme in 1997. For these units the managerial room for manoeuvre is higher compared to the other units because of more flexibility in use of resource and financial management (e. g. possibility to raise revenues through commercialised services). All of the reform units need to implement a full strategic planning process with an integrated reporting system based on performance indicators from the top level to every individual employee. Deducing from the
10 whole “NPM-philosophy” which does not characterise a converging reform trajectory (Pollitt, 2007), but which follows the same underlying principles of neo-institutional economics and public choice theory (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004; Gruening, 2001), our last hypothesis is: H8: Administrative units which took part in the New Public Management reform programme show higher internal efficiency. In addition to these two dimensions, the following demographic and organisational features are also included as independent variables in the analysis: gender, age, leadership position, wage class, tenure, size and native language in the federal administration.
5. Data and Method The data of this study were collected within the framework of the 2007 employee survey of the Swiss federal administration. The survey was planned as a random survey, although complete surveys were carried out in numerous administrative units due to the small number of employees in these units. All seven ministries of the Swiss federal administration took part in the survey. Based upon the responses and the statistical indices of the 2005 personnel survey, one representative random sampling per unit was taken, which was additionally examined according to the representative distribution of sociodemographic features (language, sex, age, wage class). A total of 26,774 persons were given the questionnaire, which corresponds to approximately threefourths of the federal personnel. The response rate was 51% of those surveyed (13,532 responses), whereby the response quota in the seven ministries ranged from 46 to 62 percent. The survey, which was generally administered as an internet-based questionnaire, was performed in German, French and Italian. Employees without internet access were provided with paper questionnaires. Dimensions and Items The survey included 94 items, which were given to all participants, plus 9 socio-demographic variables. 25 items were used for the current study (see Appendix). The individual items were developed collaboratively with the project leaders of the human resources office of the federal administration and selected managers. Two workshops were held with the conference of the human resources delegates of the federal administration and there were 10 manager interviews with partially structured interview topics. On the one hand, this procedure made it possible to adapt the recommended topic areas and variables to the situation of the federal administration. On the other hand, the used scales were restricted to a certain amount of items. For this reason we couldn’t use the fully developed original scales for certain dimensions (e. g. OC, PSM).
11 The PSM items were developed on the basis of two dimensions: “Attraction to Public Policy-Making” and “Commitment to the Public Interest” (Perry, 1996). The items for the first dimension were formulated in a positive way in contrast to the reversed wording of Perry. The OC items were developed using the scale of Meyer and Allen (1991), whereby the two dimensions “affective commitment” and “continuous commitment” have been used. The last attitudinal measure was a general item for overall job satisfaction. The items for measuring leadership behaviour by the supervisor exhibit a similarity to individual dimensions of transformational leadership behaviour (Bass and Avolio, 1990), employee consideration, direction and support (House, 1996). But they were largely developed in collaboration with the project leaders of the Swiss federal administration. The items for measuring goal orientation emerged against the backdrop of studies on high performance organisations (Becker et al., 2001; Corporate Leadership Council, 2002) and of effective government organisations respectively (Brewer and Selden, 2000; Rainey and Steinbauer, 1999). The independent control variable size is based on the number of full time equivalents of each of the 74 administrative units. In our study we measured the dependent variable performance with an index based on three adapted items of internal efficiency with a strong focus on procedural efficiency (Brewer and Selden, 2000; Kim, 2005). These are related to cost reduction, process simplification and timely decision-making in the surveyed administrative units. These self reported measures show some limitations of our study. A measurement concept with multiple dimensions and perspectives from different actors (e. g. consumer satisfaction) and more “objective” or at least external performance measures created by government authorities would be more reliable (Walker and Boyne, 2006). However, the used three-item performance measure of internal efficiency has some strength for the given situation in Swiss federal government. First, in comparison to a general single-item performance measure (e. g. Pandey et al., 2007) the used measure isn’t an abstract concept of perceived performance. Rather it is clearly focused on procedural efficiency and relies to the respondent’s daily work respectively their organisational unit. Second, external performance measures don’t exist at the federal administration and because of the strong reform focus on internal modernisation the measure of internal efficiency should be at least one solid indicator for organisational performance. Third, whenever performance gets measured, it is an abstraction of something else (Pandey et al., 2007). “[O]rganizational performance is a sociallyconstructed concept and all measures of performance are subjective. [...] This is why perceptual measures are appropriate.” (Brewer, 2006: 36; Wall et al., 2004). Furthermore, several studies show that objective measured performance correlate positively with measures of perceived performance (Delaney and Huselid, 1996; Bommer et al., 1995; Powell 1992). The use of perceptual measures is a passable way especially for institutions where no objective performance data are available as in public administrations or non-profit organisations (Delaney and Huselid, 1996). All of these items were surveyed on a 6-point Likert scale, with 1 being the lowest and 6 being the highest rating.
12 Measurement The more complex dimensions of the study (PSM, OC, goal orientation, leadership behaviour, internal efficiency) were reduced using confirmatory factor analysis. The factors are extracted by principal component analysis using varimax Kaiser normalisation as rotation method. The respective scale reliability coefficients are listed in Table 1 and are comparable with other studies (Kim, 2005). PSM has a scale reliability coefficient of 0.898 for the dimension attraction to public policy-making and 0.756 for commitment to the public interest. The Lambda values lie between 0.76 and 0.94, exhibiting support for the discriminant validity of the measures used. Organisational commitment was measured by the two dimensions of affective commitment (α=0.804; Lambda between 0.73 and 0.90) and continuous commitment (single item). The leadership behaviour by the supervisor shows a scale reliability coefficient of 0.933 with Lambda values from 0.82 to 0.89. Organisational goal orientation (α=0.886) has Lambda values from 0.81 to 0.89. The dimension of internal efficiency has an Alpha value of 0.829 and Lambda remains between 0.85 and 0.88. The descriptive statistics for all variables are shown in Table 1. 106 of 120 bivariate correlations are significant at least at the 5% level. The prevalence of significant correlations can have different causes. On the one hand, the one-sided methodology using a self-report questionnaire at a specific time can result in a mono-method bias, since correlations arise due to hidden, systematic features that support the measured variables (Spector, 1994). On the other hand, above all, the large-scale effect may well lose its impact, since the scope of this study’s sample was large enough to identify statistically significant correlations with only 0.5 percent divided variance (Diekmann, 2002). In light of what are nevertheless deep correlations − apart from six values above 0.5, all values lie between 0 and 0.5 − the variables, however, can be considered sufficiently differentiated. The model tested within the framework of this study met the requirements of the ordinary least squares regression analysis.1 For this, the estimated values for each independent variable were calculated in relation to internal efficiency.
13 Table 1: Bivariate correlations and reliabilities Interitem correlations (Item No.) i
i
N
Mean
SD
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
1
Internal efficiency
13326
3.48
1.11
(.829)
2
Attraction to public policy making
13400
4.09
1.25
0.05**
(.898)
3
Commitment to the public interest
13250
4.06
1.01
0.24**
0.41**
(.756)
4
Affective commitment
13413
4.80
0.90
0.38**
0.17**
0.41**
(.804)
5
Continuous commitment
13296
2.47
1.49
-0.21**
-0.04**
-0.08**
-0.21**
6
Leadership behavior
13271
4.32
1.19
0.44**
0.04**
0.15**
0.31**
-0.25**
(.933)
7
Goal orientation
13026
4.39
0.97
0.59**
0.10**
0.25**
0.41**
-0.25**
0.62**
(.886)
8
Job satisfaction
13336
4.13
1.27
0.51**
0.00
0.20**
0.40**
-0.33**
0.56**
0.56**
9
Gendera
13291
1.73
0.44
-0.05**
0.07**
0.03**
0.06**
0.09**
0.02*
-0.03**
-0.05**
10
Ageb
13256
3.86
1.06
-0.03**
0.12**
0.09**
0.08**
0.17**
-0.06**
-0.00
-0.05**
0.17**
11
Leadership positionc
13314
1.65
0.48
0.05**
0.14**
0.11**
0.17**
-0.07**
0.01
0.10**
0.01
0.25**
0.12**
12
Waged
13091
2.93
1.01
-0.04**
0.27**
0.12**
0.06**
-0.12**
0.06**
0.10**
0.00
0.14**
0.19**
0.35**
13
Tenuree
13352
3.17
0.98
-0.06**
0.04**
0.04**
0.07**
0.21**
-0.10**
-0.06**
-0.10**
0.18**
0.60**
0.17**
0.10**
14
Sizef
12848
2.78
0.56
-0.07**
-0.16**
-0.07**
0.01
0.11**
-0.08**
-0.11**
-0.05**
0.27**
0.02*
0.13**
-0.30**
0.18**
15
Reform unitg
13436
1.19
0.46
0.01
-0.06**
-0.03**
0.02
-0.04**
0.04**
0.04**
0.07**
-0.05**
0.00
-0.08**
0.00
-0.06**
-0.23**
16
Native languageh
13034
1.23
0.42
0.03**
-0.10**
-0.01
-0.02
-0.03**
-0.02*
-0.05**
-0.00
-0.06**
-0.06**
-0.05**
-0.00
-0.03**
-0.04**
15
0.05**
*p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; Pearson correlation coefficient (also used for ordinal data of item no. 10, 12, 13 because a metric scale couldn’t be applied due to practical reasons); aGender is coded 0=female, 1=male; bAge is coded 1=below 20 year, 2=21-29, 3=30-39, 4=40-49, 5=50-59, 6=above 60; cLeadership position is coded 0=no, 1=yes; dWage is coded 1=salary classes 1-11, 2=12-17, 3=18-23, 4=24-29, 5=30-38 (highest); eTenure is coded 1=until 1year, 2=1-5, 3=6-10, 4=more than 10; fSize (FTE) is converted by log10; gReform unit is coded 0=no reform unit, 1=reform unit; hNative language is coded 0=German, 1=French/Italian/other; iMean and standard deviation of dimensions 1 to 4 and 6 are calculated as additive indexes
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6. Findings and Discussion Univariate Analysis The univariate statistics show the following results (see Appendix). Interest in politics within the PSM dimension attraction to public policy-making has the highest average value (mean: 4.31). This is in contrast to the comparably low interest in politicians and their work (3.86). The interest focusing on how relevant the work is for society is seen in the PSM dimension commitment to the public interest. Its lower values (4.25, 4.14 respectively 3.79) compared to the above mentioned interest in politics does not confirm the findings of Brewer et al. (2000) whereas the primary motives of public employees are to serve the public and not to participate in the policymaking process. The respondents respond less positively when their involvement with the public sector is compared to a specifically selfinterested motive, such as, the attainment of personal goals in the third item of this dimension. The latter aspect is comparable to Perry’s findings (1996). Overall, this addresses the results of other studies, which emphasise the subordinate significance of extrinsic incentives in comparison to the organisational goals and work content for public administration employees (Wright, 2007; Bright, 2005; Brewer et al., 2000; Houston, 2000; Brewer and Selden, 2000; Crewson, 1997). Compared to the responses on PSM, those on affective commitment consistently exhibited more positive values. By way of comparison, particularly the individual’s willingness to work hard was valued very high. This tends to contradict the wide-spread views regarding the willingness of civil servants to work hard and the extra motivation exhibited by civil servants. Due to the self-reported surveys, as well as possible influences of social desirability, this high average of 5.00 should be interpreted cautiously. Overall, however, the mean clearly shows a consistently strong commitment to the federal administration. Furthermore, it is interesting that the dimension of goal orientation is assessed quite positively or clearly above the scale’s average. This more likely contradicts the goal-setting function in public administrations − which has been called difficult − above all on the organisational level (Rainey, 1993). The mean for goal orientation is also differentiated quite distinctly from the indicators on internal efficiency. The responses on cost reduction, process simplification and timely decision-making attain values that are average for the scale.
Bivariate Analysis The correlations between the independent variables were examined using a correlational analysis (see Table 1). Modest positive correlation values were seen between goal orientation and leadership behaviour (r=0.62, p
