The growth in international research on public service motivation (PSM) raises a number of important questions about the degree to which the theory and research developed in one country can contribute to our understanding of PSM in other counties. To help address this issue, this study revisits the conceptual and operational definitions of PSM to address weaknesses previously noted in the literature. Although some important steps have been taken to both improve and internationalize the PSM scale, this work has been done incrementally. In contrast, this study takes a more systematic and comprehensive approach by combining the efforts of international PSM scholars to develop and then test a revised measurement instrument for PSM in 12 countries. Although the resulting four dimensional 16-item measure of PSM reported here provides a better theoretical and empirical foundation for the measurement of PSM, our results suggest that the exact meaning and scaling of PSM dimensions are likely to differ across cultures and languages. These results raise serious concerns regarding the ability to develop a single universal scale of PSM, or making direct comparisons of PSM across countries.Its earlier versions were delivered at the Annual Conference

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PurposeThe main theme is to investigate whether the distinct classes of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) such as altruism and generalized compliance are shown in the Korean context, and whether public service motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment are predictors of OCB in Korean civil servants.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to survey data of 1,584 civil servants in Korea to examine the relationships between the three predictors and the two dimensions of OCB.FindingsThe results indicate the presence of the two dimensions of OCB in the Korean context, and support the relationships between public service motivation and OCB and the relationship between organizational commitment and OCB. However, the direct relationship between job satisfaction and OCB is not confirmed.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to analyze the effect of public service motivation on OCB, and shows that public service motivation emerges as a more significant predictor of OCB in the public sector of Korea. It contributes to enhancing the applicability and meaningfulness of the concept of OCB across different cultures.

As the scholarly research on public service motivation (PSM) has grown and the geographic scope of the research has expanded, there is growing concern about whether the conceptual composition and dimensionalities of PSM are appropriate for explaining and predicting public service-related behavior in different countries and internationally. For doing cross-national research and comparison, we need to assure that the dimensionalities are stable and a measure of PSM can be used confidently. This article sets out a strategy for convergence internationally in research and measurement approaches. It will review research to assess commonalities in the content of PSM internationally, and revise the construct and operational definition of PSM to develop a more universal construct that can be used globally and is more likely to generate cumulative knowledge.There are three significant subjects that need to be analyzed in this study. They are to sharpen the concept of PSM by refining the conceptual components in Perry and Wise's (1990) study, to clarify the dimensionalities of PSM by refining the four dimensions in Perry's (1996) scale, and to specify the relationship between PSM and its dimensions by comparing a reflective measure with a formative one.After reviewing the previous studies, we propose that public service motives are based on self-sacrifice and can fall into three categories (instrumental, value-based, and identification motives) and that the dimensions of the PSM construct are refined as attraction to public participation, commitment to public values, compassion, and self-sacrifice. We also suggest that developing more appropriate items for better discriminant validity is essential for further research. The careful consideration of the relationships between PSM and its dimensions shows that it is more reasonable to define PSM as a formative construct: first-order reflective and second-order formative.