‘Through the looking-glass’: addressing methodological issues in analyzing within- and between-sector differences in employee attitudes and behaviors

Abstract

Many studies have investigated potential differences in employee attitudes and behaviors across sectors. However, empirical evidence in this regard remains largely inconclusive or even contradictory. Although theoretical explanations may exist, it cannot be ruled out that there are issues pertaining to methodological choices at play as well. The aim of this contribution is to explore whether two issues, one related to the justification of interpreting the public sector as a homogenous one and one to controlling for measurement invariance, influence conclusions of comparative research. Using a Dutch data set containing 1,998 respondents, we tested the impact of these two issues on four concepts that have gotten much attention in employee level comparative research, namely work satisfaction, organizational commitment, proactivity toward self-development, and public service motivation. Our findings demonstrate that differences exist within the public sector and that lack of measurement invariance affects results, which, in turn, affect conclusions regarding within-and betweensector comparisons. We therefore recommend that scholars recognize these issues before conducting comparative research.

Competencies of the public servant and their impacts: a study in Brazil

“…Organizational commitment can be defined as an employee's attitude in which they identify and engage with an organization, assimilating its objectives, ethical standards and having a strong desire to continue being part of it (Gadomska-Lila and Rogozinska-Pawełczyk, 2022; Lee et al, 2023;Mazzarolo et al, 2021). Blom et al (2021) reported that in the public sector, high levels of bureaucracy negatively impacted the ability of employees to collaborate with the organization, leaving them less satisfied and committed. In a study conducted in the public sector of Malaysia, it was identified that administrators committed to the organization are motivated to treat organizational objectives as their own (Rasdi and Tangaraja, 2022).…”

“…Blom et al . (2021) reported that in the public sector, high levels of bureaucracy negatively impacted the ability of employees to collaborate with the organization, leaving them less satisfied and committed.…”

Context is key: A 34‐country analysis investigating how similar HRM systems emerge from similar contexts

“…Owing to data quality constraints, we could not differentiate between private, public, and nonprofit organizations. Research has shown significant variations in HRM systems across these sectors (Blom et al, 2020;Knies et al, 2022), and adding these organizational characteristics into the internal context might have resulted in a more comprehensive model.…”