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This study aims to investigate the relationship of employee motivation to team support, financial incentives and public sector motivation in various agencies under the Binh Dinh People's Committee in Vietnam. These agencies fulfil state management functions in many fields, such as investment, finance, construction, sports, culture and tourism.

This study applies the quantitative method to test team support, financial incentives and public service motivation (PSM) in relation to employee motivation in the public sector. The data are analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling (SEM), with a sample size of 263 employees who work at provincial government agencies.

The study results show that team support, financial incentives and PSM have a positive influence on employee motivation in the public sector.

The findings provide theoretical evidence that team support, financial incentives and PSM are key predictors of employee motivation in the public sector in the context of an emerging economy. Consequently, the authors propose that managers in the public sector should motivate employees by communicating with employees about the employees' roles in improving the local people's lives to stimulate the PSM of employees. In addition, managers should always provide constructive feedback that recognises employees' achievements and pay bonuses based on job performance and successful projects to improve public service.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing the decision of managers to work in the nonprofit sector and how these choices are shaped by intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Additionally, this research examines the impact of job choice motivation on social, community and professional outcomes and the unique characteristics of managers in the nonprofit sector.

This research employed data from the National Administrative Studies Project (NASP-III) survey, which measured the mid- and upper-level managers working in nonprofit organizations in Illinois and Georgia. The survey measured the manager’s perceptions of various organizational issues, including work motivation, mentoring and communication, career histories, hiring practices, and organizational cultures and structures. The data were then analyzed using a hierarchical regression model.

The findings of this research support the idea that intrinsic motivation is an important aspect of job choice motivation for individuals in the nonprofit workforce. In addition, the findings suggest other characteristics, including policies that enhance work life balance (WLB), advancement, and job security, are important to understand the job choice motivations of nonprofit managers. This research also found not all types of nonprofit agencies attract similarly motivated individuals, or lead to equivalent community outcomes.

The organizations represented in the NASP III sample included more membership and professional associations than the overall nonprofit sector. This over representation partially limits the generalizability of these findings but it also allows the research to more thoroughly understand this unique subset of organizations that serve predominantly the narrow interests of their members.

This research highlights the advantage nonprofit employers have over other organizations in terms of using intrinsic motivations to attract employees. However, the findings also suggest nonprofit organizations need to focus on human resource (HR) strategies including policies that enhance WLB, advancement, and job security to compete with other employers for talent. Finally, the research also suggests the need to tailor HR strategies to groups of nonprofit employees based upon important employee characteristics such as gender, job type, and prior career experience.

This study extends a well-developed body of knowledge on motivations and selection of career paths to individuals working in the nonprofit sector. It also suggests variations among employees and organizations matter in terms of the type of individuals attracted to particular career path in nonprofits. Additionally, this research suggests future research needs to include more nuanced examinations of the differences which exist among organizations in the nonprofit sector rather than simply focussing upon similarities across the most prevalent types of nonprofit organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of the relationship between work motivation and organisational performance in the extended public sector, by testing empirically common elements of existing theoretical frameworks.

A unique questionnaire‐based survey was carried out in three organisations/corporations where the state is the major stakeholder. Of the 1,000 questionnaires distributed, 454 were returned and included in the analysis. By using descriptive statistics the provision of extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motives in the extended public sector of Greece was identified.

Findings show that the public sector in Greece is more likely to provide extrinsic than intrinsic rewards, however the latter seems to be related to better organisational outcomes. Both individuals' ability and demographic characteristics are core determinants of employees' motivational preferences.

The core of this paper tests empirically the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation with performance in a country of EU “periphery”. Caution should be exercised in generalizing the results for more advanced economies.

Organisational leaders and public management in Greece need to conceive work motivation as a complex system and recognize the importance of intrinsic incentives. Originality/value – There is currently limited evidence on the impact of motivation in the performance of the extended public sector. This research is one of the very few that has been made from the perspective of employees. To the extent of the author's knowledge, this is the first time that a detailed public sector level analysis on work motivation has been presented for Greece.

In the past few years, the public–private partnership (PPP) model has become increasingly popular in the infrastructure projects of developing countries, especially in the power sector. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the motivations for engaging in PPP power projects in Ghana by comparing the public and private sectors.

Questionnaires were used to elicit responses from respondents using a two-round Delphi survey. Mean score ranking was used to rank the motivation factors, while reliability analysis was conducted using Cronbach alpha coefficient, and level of agreement was tested using Kendall’s concordance. One-sample t-test assessed the relative significance of these motivation factors.

For the public sector, the topmost motivations were achieving improved value for money; access to additional capital; increased certainty of projects; greater efficiency of project delivery services; and improved ability to deliver new infrastructure. For the private sector, the topmost motivations were obtaining of investment support; improvement in private sector’s international image; synergy with public sector; sharing of risks; and gaining of profits.

The findings of this study will lead to increased knowledge on the motivation factors for the public and private sectors engaging in PPP power projects in Ghana.

The output of this research contributes to the checklist of motivation factors for engaging in PPP power projects and contributes to the development of PPP practice.

Despite much research, too many employees are disengaged in their work. As such, the present research uses a public sector setting to investigate variables (e.g. public service motivation and high-involvement climate) most likely associated with engagement and demonstrates a conceptual and empirical link to relevant outcomes (e.g. job performance and perceived meaningfulness).

Across a work week, the authors analyze the drivers and outcomes of public service employees’ engagement levels and the mediating effect of employee engagement.

Employee engagement mediated the positive relationship between the authors’ independent variables of public service motivation and high-involvement climate and our outcomes of supervisor-rated employee performance and meaningfulness. All direct and indirect effects were statistically significant and positive.

The authors’ sample is a nonprofit government agency, so the results may lack generalizability. Although self-determination theory (SDT) guided their choice of variables and hypotheses, they did not measure the specific needs satisfaction (competence, relatedness, and autonomy) associated with the SDT.

Managers in public-service organizations may want to recruit those high in public service motivation and institute a high-involvement climate via manager skill training.

This article follows a meta-analysis call on SDT to test the impact of variables that fall under the identified form of autonomous motivation, and investigate their impact on engagement and other positive organizational outcomes (e.g. job performance and perceived meaningfulness). Additionally, the author followed calls to extend engagement research to focus on specific industry sectors, such as the public sector.

This chapter considers some of the key gaps in resilience research in the public sector, specifically: (1) the potential negative implications of organisational efforts to support resilient behaviour – i.e., ‘the dark side of resilience’; and (2) the relationship between resilience and value-based motivations specific to the sector, primarily public service motivation (PSM).

This piece argues that current studies on resilience have adopted an overly positive tone that may not reflect the full range of consequences associated with building a resilient organisation, especially in the public sector. Issues related to burnout, fatigue and feelings of inadequacy resulting from the ‘need’ to be resilient have not been sufficiently explored, and furthermore, we currently know very little of the link between these issues and employees' desire to have a meaningful contribution to people's lives, i.e., one of the key motivational drivers in the public sector.

This chapter highlights several unanswered questions in the extant literature, and proposes several avenues for further research, aiming to bridge these knowledge gaps and identify new ways to effectively manage future crises and developments in the sector.

The purpose of this study is to explore the motivations of governments for adopting unsolicited proposals for public–private partnership (PPP) project implementation.

A comprehensive review of literature was conducted to derive a list of motivations for adopting unsolicited PPPs. Subsequently, an empirical questionnaire survey was conducted with international PPP experts. Inter-rater agreement analysis, mean significance index and independent two-sample t-test were used for data analysis.

Results reveal four very critical motivations for governments’ interest in unsolicited PPPs; these include: “enhanced private sector innovation and creativity in PPPs”; “lack of public sector capacity to identify, prioritise and procure projects”; “lack of private investors’/developers’ interest in projects at remote areas”; and “rapid implementation of PPP projects”. Further analysis shows that developing and developed countries view the significance of three motivations differently.

The major limitation lies in the fact that this study only focused on the general motivations/rationale for using unsolicited PPP proposals and did not thoroughly examine and consider the inherent property of motivations (i.e. push and pull theories). Therefore, future studies should explore the “pull and push” motivations for adopting unsolicited PPPs within a specific country or region.

The research outputs inform international private developers of the key expectations of governments/public departments when submitting unsolicited PPP proposals for consideration by the public sector. Furthermore, the outputs will enable governments/public departments and private proponents to derive performance objectives and standards for unsolicited PPP projects.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that may be related to a career choice in the public vs the private sector in a developing African country.

Using a sample of graduate management students, the authors tested reward preferences and altruism, elements of public service motivation, on their generalizability to a developing country in Africa. The authors also examine the role of career attitudes, individual personality factors, and cultural values on a career choice in public service.

The authors find that not all the factors associated with the choice of sector (public or private) found in previous studies apply in the Botswana context.

Perry and Wise (1990) developed the concept of public service motivation to explain why individuals may be motivated to serve the public. However, two of the factors associated with public service, intrinsic motivation, and altruism, were not predictive of a career choice in the public sector in Botswana, and thus may limit its generalizability outside of western developed countries.

In Botswana and other developing economies, government jobs are considered to provide lucrative and stable employment, and attract educated citizens regardless of motivations. However, as the private-for-profit sector is emerging, these countries could soon be facing serious competition for top university students, and will need to develop a strategy for attracting the best talents to choose employment in the public sector over career options in the private sector.

The present study seeks to further the understanding on how individuals make a career choice between public vs private sector management in a developing country.

The present study aimed to find out the relationship of public service motivation (PSM) with other positive aspects, that is workplace spirituality and employee well-being among academic staff of public sector higher education institutions.

In order to capture the full picture of the institutional factors that may be responsible for initiating and improving public service motivation among employees, 23 interviews were carried out with employees placed in leadership positions in the public sector universities. The data were qualitatively analyzed through NVivo 12 to gain institutional perspective regarding various organizational factors that could influence PSM.

The finding of this study elaborates that, although PSM is a personal attribute of the individual, there are many other organizational factors that exert a substantial effect in promoting PSM. The results of qualitative data also affirmed a significant relationship between PSM and workplace spirituality (a type of organizational culture) and the influence of employee well-being in improving the motivation of public employees towards service provision.

The data were collected from the specific population that is academic staff of public sector universities which limits the generalizability of the results.

PSM is a vital concept in public organizations where individuals must understand and focus on public concerns to improve the quality of public service. Therefore, public sector organizations faced the challenge of nurturing an organizational culture in which selfless public service becomes the norm and individuals are driven by the effective accomplishments of their services. Therefore, an organization that is highly oriented towards spirituality likely to improve employee well-being, which is a challenging and important concept in organizations in promoting PSM among employees.

This study is unique in terms of identifying workplace spirituality and employee well-being as organizational influencers in promoting PSM among employees.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive, independent and credible assessment of relevant academic and other literature since 2007, on the effectiveness and value for money of performance-related-pay (PRP) in the public sector.

PRP was studied using both economics-based literature and literature from the organisational and management field (including human resources, management sociology and psychology). An initial search of databases identified 7,401 documents regarding PRP in the public sector, which was reduced to 57 final papers included in the study (27 in the health sector, 16 in the education sector and 16 in the civil service) after abstract and full paper screening.

The review found some evidence that PRP schemes can be effective across the three domains of the public sector for which there was evidence available (health, education and the civil service), but findings within and between the sectors are mixed, with scheme effectiveness often dependent on scheme design and organisational context.

The research highlights the importance of considering both economics-based and organisational literature when discussing PRP in the public sector, and the implications for motivation and PRP design.

The results indicated that the design of PRP schemes could influence their effectiveness and outcomes, and the research suggests how the challenges of designing and implementing PRP schemes can be overcome in the public sector.

The review highlights that when implementing PRP schemes there may be gender differences in their overall effectiveness (especially in education) and there must be consideration for how fairly the PRP scheme is perceived.

The paper uses literature from economics and behavioural sciences when looking at the motivational implications for PRP in the public sector.