The Limits of Public Service Motivation: Confidence in Government Institutions Among Public Servants

Abstract

Do government employees have more confidence in government than their counterparts in other sectors? The public service motivation (PSM) literature suggests that they should, but this assertion has never been tested. In this paper, we examine how public servants feel about the federal government and compare these feelings with those of employees in other sectors. Although we find that public servants hold some parts of government in higher regard than their counterparts, this finding does not apply to every branch of government. The patterns of confidence in institutions we find among America’s public servants suggest that there is a limit to PSM.

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