A Walk on the Wild Side – On the Motivation of Immigrant Workers to Provide Public Service in Greenland

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores the recruitment and turnover of a particular type of immigrant workers, namely, school teachers in Greenland. The central research question is: What are the motivational bases for recruitment and turnover of school teachers, comparing the West and East coast of Greenland? A wider discussion is whether particular motivational forms are worth fostering in the educational sector in Greenland, and if they may hold a potential for mitigating some of the recruitment problems the educational sector in Greenland is facing. The chapter focuses in particular on three motivational forms: Public Service Motivation, Sense of Community/Sense of Community Responsibility, and “excitement motivation”. By exploring their potential for mitigating turnover among school teachers in Western and Eastern Greenland, the chapter offers insights into how motivational forms interact and overlap. This insight may help practitioners actively mitigate turnover among school teachers and underlines the potential that lies in the intersection between public management and community psychology for both practitioners and researchers.