Am I a Public Servant or Am I a Pathogen? Public Managers' Sector Comparison of Worker Abilities

Abstract

Political rhetoric in the United States is rife with condemnations of public sector workers. The assertion that public sector workers are less creative, talented, or autonomous than those working in businesses pervades in both academic studies and public opinions. Facing constant criticisms, do public managers also perceive that government workers are less able than their private sector peers? If so, and more importantly, does the perceived inferiority of worker abilities shake their confidence, thereby undermining their work attitudes? The present study employs social comparison theory to answer these questions. Based on state government managers' responses in the United States, the results indicate that a clear majority of public managers perceive public sector inferiority with respect to worker creativity, talent, and autonomy. The findings also show that perceived inferiority is related to lower job satisfaction, job involvement, and pride in working for the current organization. Based on the findings, we provide suggestions to both researchers and practitioners.

Sector Switching in Good Times and in Bad: Are Public Sector Employees Less Likely to Change Sectors?

“…Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1992) compared with the state and local government employees. As public managers tend to follow the public perceptions of their job sector (Chen & Bozeman, 2014), low levels of public trust and greater attributions of blame may help explain higher levels of sector switching among federal government employees during times of economic instability. Public managers and human resource managers should tailor recruitment and retention techniques by levels of government to take important nuances across federal, state, and local government employees into account.…”

The Relation between Public Managers’ Compensation and Governance

“…In general, the hot debate, both in scientific literature and in media, is that government managers are overpaid (Hood and Peters, 2003;Hood and Peters, 1994;cf., Jarque, 2008). Several studies have analyzed different factors of the high compensation of high public officials (cf., Chen and Bozeman, 2014;Hood and Lodge, 2006). In particular, these studies show that compensation of public managers can depend on economic, social, institutional and political factors of countries (Benati and Coccia, 2017).…”

“…One of the problems in public economics and public administration is to detect the factors associated with high levels of compensation for high public officials (Hood and Peters, 1994;Hubbard, 2005). Many studies on compensation of public managers explain some ISSN 2161-7104 2018 components of salary and support reforms directed to increase the efficiency of public organizations as well as of overall public administration (Chen and Bozeman, 2014;Gao and Li, 2015;Malul and Shoham, 2013;Rimington, 2008;cf., Coccia and Rolfo, 2007Coccia and Cadario, 2014). In general, the average compensation of managers has risen in recent years both in public and private sectors (Benati and Coccia, 2017;Jarque, 2008).…”

Burocratas de Médio Escalão: novos olhares sobre velhos atores da produção de políticas públicas

“…A maioria dos textos analisados busca compreender como os valores desses burocratas têm-se alterado (ou não), considerando os processos de reforma do Estado em curso, norteados por novos valores do New Public Management. Ainda na linha de compreensão dos valores e motivações dos servidores, há estudos que se voltam a comparar gestores intermediários de organizações públicas com aqueles da iniciativa privada e do terceiro setor (LEE; WILKINS, 2011; CHEN; BOZEMAN, 2014;OLIVEIRA et al, 2010). Para esses autores, os gestores que atuam no setor público têm preferências, motivações e valores bastante distintos, que podem levar a resultados diferentes das demais organizações.…”