Research in the for-profit and public sectors has long sought to understand the factors affecting employee motivation but little is known concerning motivation of the nonprofit workforce. It has been suggested that nonprofit employees are an integral part of the new public service and are in many ways motivated to serve similar to public employees. To test this notion, this research presents an adapted version of Perry’s Public Service Motivation (PSM) Scale to examine motivation of nonprofit sector employees and empirically measures the level of service motivation of the nonprofit employees surveyed. The findings suggest that the modified version of Perry’s PSM Scale provides a good empirical model of nonprofit service motivation (NPSM). This provides support for the idea that nonprofit employees are largely attracted to their jobs because of the intrinsic rewards involved. In addition, the level of NPSM was found to be affected by attraction to mission, race, depth of involvement in the nonprofit sector and state context.
BanC.Drahnak-FallerA.TowersM. (2003). Human resource challenges in human service and community development organizations: Recruitment and retention of professional staff. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 23, 133-153.
2.
BoyneG. A. (2002). Public and private management: What’s the difference?Journal of Management Studies, 16, 67-88.
3.
BrownW.YoshiokaC. F. (2003). Mission attachment and satisfaction as factors in employee retention. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 14, 5-18.
4.
ClaryE.SnyderM.RidgeR.CopelandJ.StukasA.HaugenJ.MieneP. (1998). Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: A functional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1516-1530.
5.
Commongood Careers. (2008). The voice of nonprofit talent: Improving recruitment and retention by responding to the needs of nonprofit employees and jobseekers. Boston, MA: Author.
6.
CourseyD. H.PandeyS. K. (2007). Public service motivation measurement: Testing an abridged version of Perry’s proposed scale. Administration & Society, 39, 547-568.
7.
CrewsonP. E. (1997). Public service motivation: Building empirical evidence of incidence and effect. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 7, 499-518.
8.
GazleyB. (2009). Personnel recruitment and retention in the nonprofit sector: The 21st century challenge. In HaysS. W.KearneyR. C.CogburnJ. D. (Eds.), Public personnel administration: Problems and prospects. Uppers Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
9.
HansmannH. (2006). Economic theories of nonprofit organization. In PowellW. W.StenbergR. (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 27-42). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
10.
HermanR. D.RenzD. O. (1998). Nonprofit organizational effectiveness: Contrasts between especially effective and less effective organizations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 9, 23-38.
JamesL. R.MulaikS. A.BrettJ. M. (1982). Causal analysis: Assumptions, models, and data. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
13.
LeeteL. (2006). Work in the nonprofit sector. In PowellW. W.SteinbergR. (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 159-179). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
14.
LightP. C. (2002). The content of their character: The state of the nonprofit workforce. The Nonprofit Quarterly, 9, 6-16.
15.
LyonsS. T.DuxburyL. E.HigginsC. A. (2006). A comparison of the values and commitment of private sector, public sector and parapublic sector employees. Public Administration Review, 66, 605-618.
16.
MannG. A. (2006). A motive to serve: Public service motivation in human resource management and the role of PSM in the nonprofit sector. Public Personnel Management, 25, 33-48.
ParkS. M.RaineyH. G. (2007). Antecedents, mediators, and consequences of affective, normative, and continuance commitment: Empirical tests of commitment effects in federal agencies. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 27, 197-226.
20.
ParryE.KelliherC.MillsT.TysonS. (2005). Comparing HRM in the voluntary and public sectors. Personnel Review, 34, 588-602.
21.
PerryJ. L. (1996). Measuring public service motivation: An assessment of construct reliability and validity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 6, 5-22.
22.
PerryJ. L. (2000). Bringing society in: Toward a theory of public-service motivation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 10, 471-488.
23.
PerryJ. L.BrudneyJ. L.CourseyD.LittlepageL. (2008). What drives morally committed citizens? A study of the antecedents of public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 68, 445-458.
24.
PerryJ. L.WiseL. R. (1990). The motivational basis of public service. Public Administration Review, 50, 367-373.
25.
PetersJ.WolfredT. (2001). Daring to lead: Nonprofit executive directors and their work experience. San Francisco, CA: CompassPoint.
26.
RaineyH. G. (2003). Understanding and managing public organizations (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
27.
RaineyH. G.SteinbauerP. (1999). Galloping elephants: Developing elements of a theory of effective government organizations. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 9, 1-32.
28.
RaykovT.MarcoulidesG. A. (2000). A first course in structural equation modeling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
29.
Rose-AckermanS. (1996). The economics of nonprofit institutions: Studies in structure and policy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
30.
RyanR. M.DeciE. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.
31.
SalamonL. M.SokolowskiS. W. (2006). Employment in America’s charities: A profile. Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, 26, 1-62.
32.
SantoraJ. C.SarrosJ. C. (2001). CEO tenure in nonprofit community-based organizations: A multiple case study. Career Development International, 6, 56-60.
33.
StackmanR. W.ConnorP. E.BeckerB. W. (2006). Sector ethos: An investigation of the personal values systems of female and male managers in the public and private sectors. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16, 577-597.
34.
StevensJ. (1996). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
35.
TschirhartM.ReedK. K.FreemanS. J.AnkerA. L. (2008). Is the grass greener? Sector shifting and choice of sector by MPA and MBA graduates. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37, 668-688.
36.
WingK. T.PollakT. H.BlackwoodM. A. (2008). The nonprofit almanac 2008. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
37.
WordJ.ParkS. M. (2009a, November18). Organizational antecedents and social consequences of motivation in the nonprofit sector. Presented at the Association for Research on Nonprofits and Voluntary Action in Cleveland, OH.
38.
WordJ.ParkS. M. (2009b). Working across the divide: Job involvement in the public and nonprofit sectors. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 29, 103-133.
39.
WrightB. E. (2001). Public-sector work motivation: A review of the current literature and a revised conceptual model. Public Administration Review, 11, 559-586.
