Does the economy matter? Tough times, good times, and public service motivation

This paper describes a pilot study which explored the effects of different economic conditions on the public service motivation (PSM) levels of a small group of government and private sector employees in Malaysia. It address three questions: are the PSM levels of government employees significantly higher than those of private sector employees; are the PSM levels of employees significantly influenced by their perceptions of the external economic environment; and is the relationship between the economy and PSM affected by the sector of employment? Government employees' PSM levels were found to be higher than those of the private sector employees, and were sensitive to perceptions of different economic conditions.