Chunkui Zhu and Chen Wu
This paper aims to examine different hypotheses concerning the effects of public service motivation (PSM) and other attitudinal or institutional dimensions on organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine different hypotheses concerning the effects of public service motivation (PSM) and other attitudinal or institutional dimensions on organizational performance (OP). Specifically, based on the experience of Chinese provincial governments, this study provides new evidence about how PSM may affect OP.
Design/methodology/approach
This study collected data from a survey of different provincial government departments in Sichuan Province, Hubei Province, Hunan Province and Chongqing Municipality in 2011. Using data from 761 respondents, Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis were used to explore the relationships between related factors.
Findings
PSM, job satisfaction, affective commitment and job involvement have statistically significant effects on OP, and these results are consistent with the findings of previous researches that PSM positively affected OP at a significant level. The results suggest that, if civil servants have a strong PSM, the performance of their organizations will be high.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should look for additional factors that affect OP, comparing employees’ perceptions of an organization’s performance with objective data to determine whether, and to what degree, subjective measures of performance are valid measures of OP in the public sector.
Practical implications
In the process of improving government performance, it is significant to give attention to the government employees’ mentality. The government training and promotion system should encourage civil servants to care about the public interest. A more flattened organization should be considered as part of the next steps in government reform, and more opportunities should be provided to involve more government employees in policy making.
Originality/value
This study helps to clarify the effects of individual factors of PSM on OP in China in a tightly controlled bureaucratic environment, where related data are hardly accessible.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to make a call for the establishment of a new research journal: a likely title for which would be Chinese Public Management. The background to this is clearly set…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to make a call for the establishment of a new research journal: a likely title for which would be Chinese Public Management. The background to this is clearly set out here for posterity’s sake. The review of selected papers unveils an emerging trend amongst Chinese researchers for undertaking deeper, cluster-based analyses. See, for example, the insights presented in this issue concerning competitiveness in China’s automobile industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A diary-like account has been made of the series of recent events that sparked the author’s interest in creating a journal to be known as Chinese Public Management. Why is there currently this focus on empirical research for public policy? From the author’s five years’ work for a serial visiting professorship across China, he has found that there are now well-established, substantial databases dedicated to the subject. Even more importantly – as this paper illustrates – a growing community of scholars has become keen to embark upon an in-depth, quantitative research. Perhaps, for the new journal, we would need an editor concentrating specifically on databases. Furthermore, undertaking scholarly work that is still of practical relevance for guiding authorities in their formulations of public policy will add a whole new dimension to the available research.
Findings
There is scope for a new endeavor that documents management research within the public sector in China. This may be seen as a sister journal for “Chinese Management Studies” that focuses on the other, much larger Chinese sector, that is, governmental organizations.
Originality/value
This paper documents the emergence of the necessity for a new journal about management in China.