The Impacts of Private Experience on the Employment of Different Public Job Positions

Abstract

There have been many studies on the differences between the public and private sectors; yet, these studies often do not address differences within the public sector. This article investigates the impacts of the private sector experience on the employment of different categories of public employees: public budgeting and finance (PBF) employees, professionals, and managers. It also compares the different impacts among mixed categories of PBF professionals, non-PBF professionals, PBF managers, and non-PBF managers. The results suggest that the private sector experience increases the likelihood of a public sector employee being in a PBF or professional position, while it decreases the propensity of a public sector employee to be in a managerial position. Moreover, while private sector experience negatively correlates with public employees’ job satisfaction, the results are not significant for PBF employees and professionals, and the negative effects are much higher for non-PBF employees and nonprofessionals.

Keywords

private sector experience public job positions PBF employees job satisfaction

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abernethy

M. A.

Stoelwinder

J. U.

(1995). The role of professional control in the management of complex organizations. Accounting Organizations and Society, 20, 1-17.

Baldwin

J. N.

Farley

Q. A.

(2001). Comparing the public and private sectors in the United States: A review of the empirical literature. In Farazmand

(Ed.), Handbook of comparative and development public administration (2nd ed., Rev. and Expanded ed.) (pp. 27-39). New York, NY: Marel Dekker.

Behn

R. D.

(1995). The big questions of public management. Public Administration Review, 55, 313-324.

Boardman

Bozeman

Ponomariov

(2010). Private sector imprinting: An examination of the impacts of private sector job experience on public managers’ work attitudes. Public Administration Review, 70, 50-59.

Bowling

N. A.

(2007). Is the job satisfaction–job performance relationship spurious? A meta-analytic examination. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 71, 167-185.

Bozeman

Ponomariov

(2008). Sector switching from a business to a government job: Fast-track career or fast track to nowhere? Public Administration Review, 69, 77-91.

Brewer

G. A.

(2003). Building social capital: Civic attitudes and behavior of public servants. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 13, 5-25.

Brewer

G. A.

Brewer

G. A.

(2011). Parsing public/private differences in work motivation and performance: An experimental study. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21, I347-I362.

Buelens

Van den Broeck

(2007). An analysis of differences in work motivation between public and private sector organizations. Public Administration Review, 67, 65-74.

10.

Chatman

J. A.

(1991). Matching people and organizations—Selection and socialization in public accounting firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 459-484.

11.

Christensen

R. K.

Wright

B. E.

(2011). The effects of public service motivation on job choice decisions: Disentangling the contributions of person-organization fit and person-job fit. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21, 723-743.

12.

Dixit

(1997). Power of incentives in private versus public organizations. American Economic Review, 87, 378-382.

13.

Edmans

(2012). The link between job satisfaction and firm value, with implications for corporate social responsibility. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 26, 1-19.

14.

Emmert

M. A.

Taher

W. A.

(1992). Public sector professionals: The effects of public sector jobs on motivation, job satisfaction and work involvement. American Review of Public Administration, 22, 37-48.

15.

Fottler

M. D.

(1981). Is management really generic? The Academy of Management Review, 6, 1-12.

16.

Hall

R. H.

(1968). Professionalization and bureaucratization. American Sociological Review, 33, 92-104.

17.

Hall

R. H.

(1996). Organizations: Structures, processes, and outcomes (6th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

18.

Heneman

G. H.

(1989). Personnel/human resource management (4th ed.). Homewood, IL: Irwin.

19.

Iaffaldano

M. T.

Muchinsky

P. M.

(1985). Job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 251-273.

20.

Johansen

Leroux

(2013). Managerial networking in nonprofit organizations: The impact of networking on organizational and advocacy effectiveness. Public Administration Review, 73, 355-363.

21.

Johansen

Zhu

(2014). Market competition, political constraint, and managerial practice in public, nonprofit, and private American hospitals. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 24, 159-184.

22.

Johansen

Zhu

(2016). Who values diversity? Comparing the effect of manager gender across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. American Review of Public Administration, 1-18.

23.

Jurkiewicz

C. L.

Massey

T. K.

Jr. Brown

R. G.

(1998). Motivation in public and private organizations: A comparative study. Public Productivity & Management Review, 21, 230-250.

24.

Kahn

R. L.

Morse

N. C.

(1951). The relationship of productivity to morale. Journal of Social Issues, 7, 8-17.

25.

Karl

K. A.

Sutton

C. L.

(1998). Job values in today’s workforce: A comparison of public and private sector employees. Public Personnel Management, 27, 515-527.

26.

Katz

Kahn

R. L.

(1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Wiley.

27.

Knapp

Mclean

(2003). The passion for public service. Parks & Recreation, 38, 24-30.

28.

Lawler

E. E.

(1981). Pay and organization development. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.

29.

Lawler

E. E.

(1986). High-involvement management. Participative strategies for improving organizational performance. Academy of Management Review, 12, 567-570.

30.

Lawler

E. E.

(1994). Motivation in work organizations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

31.

Light

P. C.

(1999). The new public service. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

32.

Mitchell

T. R.

(1979). Organizational behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 30, 243-281.

33.

Moore

W. E.

(1970). Professions: The roles and rules. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

34.

Morrissey

Gillespie

D. F.

(1975). Technology and the conflict of professionals in bureaucratic organizations. The Sociological Quarterly, 16, 319-332.

35.

Moynihan

D. P.

Pandey

S. K.

(2007). The role of organizations in fostering public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 67, 40-53.

36.

Perry

J. L.

Brudney

J. L.

Coursey

Littlepage

(2008). What drives morally committed citizens? A study of the antecedents of public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 68, 445-458.

37.

Perry

J. L.

Hondeghem

(2008). Motivation in public management: The call of public service. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 67, 505-507.

38.

Perry

J. L.

Porter

L. W.

(1982). Factors affecting the context for motivation in public organizations. Academy of Management Review, 7, 89-98.

39.

Perry

J. L.

Vandenabeele

(2008). Behavioral dynamic of public service motivation. In Perry

J. L.

Hondeghem

(Eds.), Motivation in public management: The call of public service (pp. 56-79). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

40.

Perry

J. L.

Wise

L. R.

(1990). The motivational bases of public service. Public Administration Review, 50, 367-373.

41.

Ponomariov

B. L.

Boardman

P. C.

(2011). Organizational pathology compared to what? Impacts of job characteristics and career trajectory on perceptions of organizational red tape. Public Administration Review, 71, 582-597.

42.

Rainey

H. G.

(1989). Public management: Recent research on the political context and managerial roles, structures and behaviors. Journal of Management, 15, 229-250.

43.

Rainey

H. G.

(2014). Understanding and managing public organizations (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

44.

Rainey

H. G.

Bozeman

(2000). Comparing public and private organizations: Empirical research and the power of the a priori. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 10, 447-469.

45.

Rainey

H. G.

Steinbauer

(1999). Galloping elephants: Developing elements of a theory of effective government organizations. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 9, 1-32.

46.

Simeone

E. A.

(2004). The ideal of public service: The reality of the rhetoric (Chair: John A. Rohr). Dissertation Abstracts International, 65-02, Section: A, 0695.

47.

Sorensen

J. E.

Sorensen

T. L.

(1974). The conflict of professionals in bureaucratic organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 19, 98-106.

48.

Taylor

Westover

J. H.

(2011). Job satisfaction in the public service: The effects of public service motivation, workplace attributes and work relations. Public Management Review, 13, 731-751.

49.

Vandenabeele

(2007). Toward a public administration theory of public service motivation. Public Management Review, 9, 545-556.

50.

Vroom

H. V.

(1964). Work and motivation. New York, NY: Wiley.

51.

Whorton

J. W.

Worthley

J. A.

(1981). A perspective on the challenge of public management: Environmental paradox and organizational culture. The Academy of Management Review, 6, 357-361.

52.

Wilensky

H. L.

(1964). The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70, 137-158.

53.

Wittmer

(1991). Serving the people or serving for pay: Reward preferences among government, hybrid sector, and business managers. Public Productivity & Management Review, 14, 369-383.

54.

Wright

B. E.

(2001). Public-sector work motivation: A review of the current literature and a revised conceptual model (Articles). Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 11, 559-586.