Abstract
Whether employees who are motivated by public service are also the ones who are more effective at their job, is a debate which has led to many conflicting findings in the public administration literature. Scholars have delved into many theories of motivation and rewards to address this puzzle and tested their ideas on samples of public sector employees across diverse occupations, sectors and countries. Using a quantitative review methodology such as bibliometrics, this study maps this debate over it’s entirety with a survey of 110 systematically selected papers. Three distinct time periods of conceptual development are observed. Content analysis, keyword co-occurrence network analysis and citation analysis techniques are used. Additionally, a performance analysis is conducted, of the sub-themes within this discourse. Extensive research directions are offered for future scholars in this topic domain.
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All data analysed is from published, secondary sources, available in the public domain.
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Appendix: Formulae used
Appendix: Formulae used
CIJ | Sum of individual C/Ys of ‘n’ articles published in journal ‘J(i)’, where i,n = 1,….∞ |
CIA | Sum of individual C/Ys of ‘n’ articles published in journal ‘J(i)’, where i,n = 1,….∞ |
CIAT | Sum of individual C/Ys of ‘n’ articles published by author teams (ATs) of size ‘i’, where i = 1,2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and n = 1,….∞ |
CII | Sum of individual C/Ys of ‘n’ articles published in institution ‘I(i)’, where i,n = 1,….∞ |
CIC | Sum of individual C/Ys of ‘n’ articles published in country ‘C(i)’, where i,n = 1,….∞ |
CIRP | Sum of individual C/Ys of ‘n’ articles published in research period ‘RP(i)’, in time period ‘t’; where ‘i’ is 1, 2 and 3 corresponding to the 3 time blocks or ‘t’s of 1997–2010, 2011–2015 and 2016–2020 respectively; and n = 1,….∞ |
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Das, R. Does public service motivation predict performance in public sector organizations? A longitudinal science mapping study. Manag Rev Q 73, 1237–1271 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-022-00273-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-022-00273-w
Keywords
- Public service motivation
- Performance
- Performance analysis
- Science mapping
- Bibliometrics
- Content analysis
- Keyword co-occurrence network analysis
- Citation analysis
- Systematic literature review