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This study examines the joint influences of work exhaustion, job demands (red tape, role conflict, work overload), and public service motivation on street-level bureaucrats’ turnover intention. Based on a survey of 4974 Korean street-level bureaucrats, the study examines the potential mediating role of work exhaustion and complex moderating role of public service motivation in determining street-level bureaucrats’ turnover intention. In line with previous research, we find that job demands have both direct and indirect associations with street-level bureaucrats’ turnover intention through work exhaustion. However, public service motivation was found to reduce the employees’ turnover intention in two different ways. First, public service motivation was found to have a direct negative association with turnover intention. In addition, it was also found to mitigate the positive associations between job demands and work exhaustion, and between job demands and turnover intention. Points for practitioners The findings of the current study provide several practical implications for public managers. First of all, it suggests that imbuing public sector values through formal and informal training is important. Second, it provides some clues for local government managers to reduce street-level bureaucrats’ work exhaustion and turnover intention. For example, the problem of work overload for street-level bureaucrats could be reduced by reassigning work responsibilities according to workload analyses for given jobs.

This study attempts to provide an increased understanding of the antecedents of public employees' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Using a field survey involving public employees working for Korean local government organizations, the data analyses reveal that public service motivation (PSM), organizational identification, subjective OCB norms, task interpendence and procedural justice are important antecedents of government employees' OCB, even after partialling out the common method variance, whereas job satisfaction and distributive justice are not.

The current study attempts to examine Perry’s assertion that the public service motivation (PSM) of government employees may be influenced by the logic of appropriateness. Based on a survey of 596 Korean local government employees in 110 work groups, this study investigated the associations between ethical climate, servant leadership, and PSM. Multilevel structural equation models (SEM) were employed. At the individual level, ethical climate (i.e., efficiency, rule/law, independence) was significantly associated with PSM. However, at the work group level, ethical climate did not demonstrate a significant association with PSM. In addition, this study found that servant leadership is effective in helping government employees develop PSM at both the individual and work group levels.

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