The Motivation of Public Sector Employees

Abstract

This article argues that psychological factors determine the content of people’s work motivations but that social factors determine their relative importance. The author identified six universal human needs and corresponding rewards, orientations to work, organizational control methods, and types of involvement. The author used data from a public sector organization to illustrate these orientations. He used Randall Collins’s ritual interaction theory and Etzioni’s compliance theory to explain why ritual, utilitarian, and intrinsic rewards yield moral, calculative, and intrinsic forms of involvement. He concludes that motivation varies more in accordance with hierarchical rank, control methods, and occupation than it does with sectoral location.