This study analyzes the impacts of public service motivation (PSM) on the front-line public employees’ coping strategy, considering the moderating roles of two contextual factors: organizational performance pressure and clients’ help deservingness. Two vignette-based survey experiments were conducted separately in regulation and service settings (financial regulators and healthcare workers) in China. The findings indicate agreement across different settings on the positive effects of PSM on public employees’ intention to move against clients. However, the evidence regarding the moderating roles of organizational performance pressure and clients’ help deservingness points to more complexity, with the results varying in the regulation and service settings. In the regulation setting, organizational performance pressure crowds out financial regulators’ PSM, leading to declining intentions of moving against clients. However, in the service setting, clients’ help deservingness serves as a significant contextual factor, moderating the relationship between healthcare workers’ PSM and intentions on moving against clients.
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