Unlike the purpose of general private companies to increase corporate profits, the work of administrative agencies is aimed at promoting the public interest. Accordingly, it is common for administrative agencies to operate in a different structure fro...
Unlike the purpose of general private companies to increase corporate profits, the work of administrative agencies is aimed at promoting the public interest. Accordingly, it is common for administrative agencies to operate in a different structure from general private companies. The operating structure of such an administrative agency is also related to the purpose that public officials constituting the administrative agency should pursue. The purpose of public officials to pursue is an abstract concept such as promoting public interests, not visible performance such as corporate profits, which also means that it is difficult to quantify and measure each public official's performance. Therefore, in order to increase the performance of public officials, it will be more effective to motivate them to work hard rather than focusing on achieving quantitative results. Public service motivation is mainly mentioned to explain the motives of public officials. In relation to this public service motivation, there is a growing need for research on how it will affect public service motivation depending on which individual (personal characteristics) performs what tasks within which organization (organizational characteristics). In particular, considering that the number of new civil servants who have passed five-grade public recruitment after preparing for an average of four years has increased within three years, efforts to increase public service motivation by increasing satisfaction with the job.
This study examined how the influence of personal organizational characteristics on public service motivation of public officials varies depending on the importance of work from the perspective of Hackman & Oldham (1980)'s job characteristic theory under this awareness. An analysis was conducted using survey data for public officials working in the central department to obtain a sample of 135 people. The collection of survey samples was conducted in a snow-ball manner, focusing on the researchers' motivation for the fifth-grade public recruitment test, and was conducted in an online self-written survey provided by Google from April 18, 2022 to May 2, 2022.
As a result of the analysis, it was analyzed that the three independent variables related to the personal characteristics of public officials had a significant influence on the dependent variable, the motivation for public service. In particular, it was found that the stronger each of the beliefs and value variables measured individualism, the more negative the public service motivation, and the stronger the normative variable measured collectivism, the more positive the public service motivation. It was analyzed that the three independent variables related to the characteristics of the organization of public officials had a significant influence on the dependent variable, the motivation for public service. In particular, it was found that the higher the formalization variable, the more positive the motivation for public service, and the higher the ruling and complexity variables, the more negative the motivation for service motivation. Looking at the moderating effect according to the level of importance of work, it was analyzed that the importance of the work performed by public officials had a significant positive (+) moderating effect on the dependent variable, public service motivation. In other words, in the case of public officials performing tasks with high importance, there was a moderating effect in the direction of further strengthening the degree of positive and negative impact of the personal characteristics of public officials and the characteristics of public officials' organizations on public service motivation.
The policy implications of this study are summarized as follows. First, tasks suitable for personal characteristics must be distributed, and appropriate performance compensation according to the amount and difficulty of tasks in charge must be accompanied. There is a tendency to grant a small amount of work to public officials with a strong tendency to individualism, and to grant a large amount of work to public officials with a strong tendency to collectivism. However, if this asymmetry of work allocation continues, it will act in the direction of increasing the individualism tendency of members of the organization, such as the loss of work motivation for public officials performing excessive work and the overall work atmosphere in the organization. Therefore, it will be more efficient to achieve the organizational goal by providing sufficient compensation such as appropriate reward leave, high performance rating, and reflecting personal preferences when moving personnel. Second, an organizational management system should be established to share the characteristics of an organization that produces excellent performance so that it can be learned. There are characteristics of an organization that can perform tasks more effectively between ministries or within ministries, and if an organizational management system that can learn from each organization is introduced, it will be easier to achieve the public interest objectives pursued by public officials. Third, in consideration of the importance of work, the tasks that must be performed by individual public officials and public officials organizations should be distributed, and furthermore, it is necessary to use them as a basis for personnel and organizational reorganization. Considering the moderating effect of the importance of work, it suggests that the best way to increase the motivation of collectivist public servants in organizations with high degree of formalization, low degree of government and complexity.
However, it is necessary to pay attention to the following limitations in interpreting the results of this study. First, 2022 when this study was conducted was a time when the COVID-19 infectious disease was continuously maintained in a special environment, and the COVID-19 situation may have served as a confusion factor in the relationship between variables in studying the impact of public officials' personal and organizational characteristics on public service motives. Second, it is impossible to rule out the possibility that the sample collection was concentrated in the sample data due to differences in income, work, and organizational perceptions according to the recruitment path. Third, since the respondent's personal characteristics, organizational characteristics to which the respondent belongs, and the respondent's motivation for public service were measured through a single survey, the possibility of interpretation that the dependent variable may not actually affect the dependent variable. Fourth, the individual characteristics of public officials, organizational characteristics of public servants, public service motivation, and work importance were measured through a single survey, so respondents were asked to answer the question at the same time.