The Role of Contract Types for Employees’ Public Service Motivation

Abstract

The intention of “doing good for society” is regarded to be a crucial motivator for employees in the public sector in order for them to perform well. Recent research in the public sector literature calls for a deeper understanding of how this specific public service motivation (PSM) is shaped. In our paper, we analyze how different degrees of inclusion in the public sector matter for PSM. We investigate how prospects of employment relations (fixed-term versus permanent contracts) and temporal differences (part-time versus full-time employment) moderate PSM in the public and in the private service. Our findings show that aspects of PSM are related by these employment characteristics in various ways, suggesting that the factors influencing PSM are multifaceted and that actual employment conditions need to be taken into consideration when assessing PSM.