Explaining Public Service Motivation: The Role of Leadership and Basic Needs Satisfaction

Wouter Vandenabeele*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Both leadership and public service motivation (PSM) are important issues in contemporary public administration. By connecting these issues, the aim of this article is to assess the impact of one particular type of transformational leadership behavior-promoting public values-on PSM development. Two hypotheses were tested with a dataset of 3,506 state civil servants in Belgium. The analysis shows that a positive relation exists and that it is moderated by a set of basic psychological needs (autonomy and competence), whereby it demonstrates the validity of an institutional theory of PSM.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)153-173
Number of pages21
JournalReview of Public Personnel Administration
Volume34
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2014

Keywords

  • basic psychological needs satisfaction
  • public service motivation
  • public values
  • self-determination theory
  • supervisor

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