Public Service Motivation and Civic Engagement by Fabian Homberg & Joyce Costello

Author:Fabian Homberg & Joyce Costello
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030024536
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Public Service Motivation

The dialogue here within builds upon the discussion in Chaps. 1 and 2, but focuses on PSM-volunteering studies.

Steen (2006) suggested the possibilities of PSM being related to volunteerism. She argues that volunteering can be a result of “impure” altruism, but that PSM includes the instrumentalism that is often missing in other motivation studies. This divergence from PSM studies in the public sector was subtle, but a foreshadowing of an emerging manner of applying the PSM theory. Indeed, that same year Houston (2005) compared PSM amongst public and non-profit sector employees (using sector as a proxy for PSM) in terms of volunteering time and money. Houston (2008) would later expand his analysis of PSM and volunteering by investigating the relation between PSM and different types of volunteering organizations such as professional associations, church or religious organizations, political parties, sports, leisure or cultural groups and other voluntary organizations. These samples of public and non-profit sector employees mirrored samples studied by other PSM scholars who were exploring evidence of PSM being prominent in the public sector. However, Houston concluded that by expanding PSM conversations in a context outside of the public sector into areas involving civic participation and prosocial acts, individuals with high levels of PSM could serve as “catalysts for the formation of social capital” (p. 194). Together, Houston and Steen helped build another stream of research where studies linking PSM to volunteering quickly emerged.

A logical and rather easy access for academics to explore evidence between PSM and volunteering was using the student population for studies. Clerkin et al. (2009) surveyed Generation Y university students and found affective and normative motives such as compassion and civic duty were strong motivational drivers. However, the authors did stipulate that the findings were based on scenarios presented to the students and may not necessarily reflect a stronger preference for norm and affective-based motives. Taylor and Clerkin (2011) would later do a study which included looking at rational motives amongst university students to see if they could connect attraction to policy making (APM) to increasing volunteer campaign, contributing and discussion activities. Aside from political discussion, APM was significantly related to various aspects of political participation and volunteering. Clerkin and Fotheringham (2017) would do a follow-up study using similar sample of undergraduate students to see if the relations between PSM and formal or informal volunteering were replicated as shown in Clerkin’s (2009) initial study. However, this time while civic duty remained a significant impactor on volunteering, self-sacrifice was the only significant affective motive. This implies that different PSM dimensions do operate differently. Collectively, these studies provide evidence that PSM was significantly related to volunteering amongst undergraduate students. Even though some scholars will argue that students do not represent the general public, the individuals in the aforementioned studies do represent the next generation of managers and potential leaders who will be in the position to influence policy and decisions as their careers progress.

Other studies chose a different sampling approach which focused on the crème de’ la crème of the volunteering society.

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