Social Desirability Bias in Measuring Public Service Motivation

Abstract

Public service motivation (PSM) is usually measured using self-report data, which suggests that PSM measures can be influenced by social desirability bias. This study investigates whether respondents tend to report an inflated view of their attitudes and orientations during surveys on PSM. Experimental survey research (list experiment) is conducted to analyze the magnitude of social desirability bias in PSM measurements and to examine the relationship between socio-demographic factors and social desirability bias in Korea.The results show evidence of social desirability responding bias, although the pattern of bias varies across socio-demographic subgroups. Respondents in their forties or fifties, conservatives, Protestants, and those without a religious affiliation show more bias than other subgroups. This finding implies that correlational analysis in PSM research may be prone to the moderating effect of social desirability bias. Research that does not Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 14:28 16 March 2015 2 recognize and compensate for this bias may produce unwarranted theoretical or practical conclusions.

Job characteristics, Public Service Motivation, and work performance in Korea

“…First, we recognize limitations of self-reports and cross-sectional data. Self-reports can be inaccurate as respondents may come up with post-hoc explanations or justifications, which could lead to social desirability bias (Kim and Kim, 2016). Cross-sectional survey data do not allow conclusions on the direction of causality, and thus the ability to make causal statements about the hypothesized relationships is constrained.…”

Harnessing Sustainable Motivation: A Grounded Theory Exploration of Public Service Motivation in Local Governments of the State of Oregon, United States

“…While PSM has been tested positively in many countries around the world, some scholars found pitfalls in existing PSM instrument. In South Korea, Kim and Kim [81] found a strong indication of social desirability bias in the PSM construct, and posit that if respondents perceive the questions to be sensitive, they are more likely to give a socially desirable response as opposed to their actual opinion in the PSM survey (p. 294). Whereas the majority of studies have shown positive outcomes and consequences of having higher PSM in public sector employees, in Denmark Jensen, Andersen and Holten [82] discovered the flip side of the coin, i.e., the potential negative consequences of high PSM.…”

How Does Public Service Motivation Among Teachers Affect Student Performance in Schools?

“…This body of research indicates that PSM influences behavior, which again can be linked to different dimensions of performance. Self-reported behavior is, however, subject to social desirability bias just like assessments of PSM and performance (Kim and Kim 2012), and this is particularly serious if the dependent and the independent variables are obtained from the same person in the same measurement context using items with similar characteristics (Podsakoff et al 2003: 885). Common-source bias can potentially generate many false positives (Meier and O'Toole 2012), and the literature has started to handle this by including administrative data on performance.…”

“…One solution is to measure performance as the supervisors' performance appraisals and promotions of the employees (Alonso and Lewis 2001), but this introduces a potential supervisor bias (because supervisors may favor high-PSM employees (Wright and Grant 2010: 695)) and swaps employee subjectivity for supervisor subjectivity. In general, the studies on PSM and subjective performance suffer from social desirability bias and common source bias, which are serious flaws known to produce Type I errors (Brewer 2008;Kim and Kim 2012;Meier and O'Toole, 2012;Petrovsky and Ritz 2010). Thus, studies using objective measures of performance are greatly required.…”