State-agent and citizen-agent: Whether the Chinese government has inspired community healthcare workers’ public service motivation

Abstract

Abstract Community healthcare workers need to have a dual public service motivation of participating in policy-making and producing community services in China. The government has adopted the strategies of “embedding” and policy innovation to inspire public service motivations and set career capital requirements to select healthcare workers. Using data from a sample of 589 individuals in eight cities, this study developed structural equation models of leader-member exchange relationships, innovation climate, career capital, and state-agent motivation versus citizen-agent motivation to test the rationality of these strategies. We found that the leader-member exchange relationship was positively associated with two public service motivations, innovative climate fully mediated leader-member exchange relationship and state-agent motivation, while partially mediated leader-member exchange relationship and citizen-agent motivation. Healthcare workers with high political capital and educational capital have stronger citizen-agent motivation. These findings validate the rationality of Chinese community social work development strategies and also reveal their inadequacies.