THE EFFECT OF COMMUNICATIVE RATIONAL ACTION ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR EXECUTIVES

Abstract

Private sector organizations work to make a profit, so their main goals should keep their organizational performance high. However, the main motivation of public organizations is efficiency, not productivity. Therefore, public organizations have displayed an image that is far from efficiency for a long time and organizational performance has not received enough attention. With the neo-liberal policies under the influence of public administration, public organizations adopted private sector principles and tried to increase their organizational performance. The study was prepared with reference to Max Weber's “rationalization theory” and Habermas' “communicative action theory” with the assumption that the factors underlying the success of all organizations are based on rational actions and communication action phenomena. In this context, within the scope of the inquiry, the effect of communicative rational action on organizational performance and the moderating role of the sector (Private or public sector) in the relationship between communicative rational action and organizational performance were examined. For this aim, data were collected from 391 managers residing in the provinces of İzmir, Manisa and, Uşak who are working in the private and public sectors. We used SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 24 statistics programs were used within the context of this study. Explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis, correlation, hierarchical regression and simple slope analysis are used to verify the hypotheses of the study. The findings indicate that rationality, value rational action, practical rational action, rational communication and firm family (stakeholders) have a positive effect on organizational performance, and the sector has a moderating role in the relations between value rational action-organizational performance, Firm Family (stakeholders)-organizational performance and rational communication-organizational performance. In this sense, while the positive relationship between value rational action-organizational performance and firm family(stakeholders)-organizational performance is stronger in the private sector, the positive relationship between rational communication-organizational performance is stronger in the public sector.