The centrality of prosocial values in work motivation among public and private sector employees

Vaidelytė, Eglė (author), Morkevicius, Vaidas (author), Butkevičienė, Eglė (author), Vries, Michiel S. de (author)

Purpose: The paper proposes an alternative measure of the importance of prosocial values in the work motivation of public and private sector employees. Hitherto research measures the importance of values by taking them as autonomous entities or using a factorial design, asking employees whether they adhere to a certain value or not. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a psychological theory on values and motivation, the paper argues that it might be preferred to measure the centrality of prosocial values amidst other job motivators in the value system as a whole to assess the degree of prosocial values’ dominance. Findings: The application of such a measure in a longitudinal and international comparative analysis shows that differences in the centrality of prosocial values make the difference between employees in the public and private sectors much more pronounced than usually found in the relevant literature. This finding does not disappear when the research model includes the nature of the job, individual characteristics, and societal features, such as the GDP per capita and the dominance of individualism over collectivism in society. Significance: This research also shows that differences between employees adhering to intrinsic, extrinsic, and prosocial motivations are relative, as almost all employees – irrespective of where they work – assess values of job security and having an interesting job to be the most important work motivators.

• Language: English
• Keywords: prosocial values, job motivation, comparative analysis, International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FU - Faculty of Administration
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2022
• Number of pages: Str. 33-55, 191-192
• Numbering: Vol. 20, no. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-143418
• UDC: 35:331.101.3:005.962-027.55
• ISSN on article: 2591-2240
• DOI: 10.17573/cepar.2022.2.02
• COBISS.SI-ID: 132387331
• Publication date in RUL: 20.12.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Central European public administration review
• Shortened title: CEPAR
• Publisher: Fakulteta za upravo
• ISSN: 2591-2240
• COBISS.SI-ID: 293849600

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Pomen prosocialnih vrednot za delovno motivacijo zaposlenih v javnem in zasebnem sektorju

Abstract

Namen: Prispevek predlaga alternativo za merjenje pomena prosocialnih vrednot za delovno motivacijo zaposlenih v javnem in zasebnem sektorju. Dosedanje raziskave pomen vrednot merijo tako, da jih obravnavajo kot samostojne vrednote ali pa uporabljajo faktorski poskus, kjer zaposlene sprašujejo, ali se zavzemajo za določeno vrednoto ali ne. Zasnova/Metodologija/Pristop: Na podlagi psihološke teorije o vrednotah in motivaciji prispevek predlaga, da bi bilo za oceno stopnje prevlade prosocialnih vrednot najprimerneje meriti pomen prosocialnih vrednot glede na ostale motivacijske dejavnike v vrednostnem sistemu. Ugotovitve: Uporaba takšnega merila v longitudinalni in mednarodni primerjalni analizi je pokazala, da se zaradi razlik v pomenu prosocialnih vrednot zaposleni v javnem in zasebnem sektorju veliko bolj razlikujejo kot doslej navedeno v literaturi. Ta ugotovitev drži tudi, če v raziskovalni model vključimo naravo delovnega mesta, značilnosti posameznika in družbene značilnosti, kot sta BDP na prebivalca in prevlada individualizma nad kolektivizmom. Pomen: Raziskava tudi kaže, da so razlike med zaposlenimi, ki jih motivirajo notranji, zunanji in prosocialni dejavniki, relativne, saj skoraj vsi zaposleni – ne glede na to, kje delajo – kot najpomembnejša motivacijska dejavnika pri delu navajajo varnost zaposlitve in zanimivo delo.

• Keywords: prosocialne vrednote, delovna motivacija, primerjalna analiza, Mednarodna splošna družboslovna anketa (ISSP)