It takes two to tango: concepts and evidence of further integration of public service motivation theory and self-determination theory

An important element in further developing public service motivation (PSM) theory is integrating it with other theories of motivation. One such candidate for further integration is self-determination theory (SDT). This paper examines this relationship, and respective antecedents using two different studies. The first study uses a dataset of local government civil servants (N = 453). The findings demonstrate that PSM is an identity, which is mostly regulated on an identified basis. The second study uses a dataset of state civil servants (N = 3506). The findings more or less corroborate the findings of study 1 but also indicate that satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness–based upon SDT–are important in the development of PSM. Overall, one can conclude that PSM corresponds to an autonomous type of identity, but is still a construct in its own right. The results indicate that PSM might behave according to the rules of SDT, which creates openings for new perspectives on public management.