What motivates public employees to work hard? This Element systematically reviews answers from public administration research. The authors locate this research in a novel two-dimensional typology, which shows that public employees can be motivated for other- and self-interested reasons and extrinsic (motivated by outcomes) and intrinsic (motivated by work itself) reasons. Public administration research sheds significant light on extrinsic motivators: working hard to help society (public service motivation), one's organization (organizational commitment) and oneself (financial incentives). Future research should focus on hitherto understudied motivators: symbolic rewards and intrinsic motivators, such as enjoyable work tasks, warm glow, and relatedness with colleagues. Supplementary material for this Element is available online.
Meta-Analysis for Public Management and Policy is a groundbreaking book that introduces meta-analysis and includes proven techniques for research in public management and policy. The book provides statistical approaches to meta-analysis most useful for public policy and management and features five examples of original meta-analyses of important questions in public management and policy conducted by the author and his team. These original studies show step-by-step how to conduct a meta-analysis and contribute original research on ...
This book examines the theory and practice of performance budgeting, which aims make government more effective by linking the funding of government agencies to the results they deliver. Combining thematic studies and case studies, it clearly presents the diverse range of contemporary performance budgeting models and examines their effectiveness.
With over three decades of experience in public sector HR, Bob Lavigna gives managers the tools they need to leverage the talents of government's most important resource: its people. You know firsthand that your government workers are not underworked, overpaid, or mindless clones just carrying out the morally compromised work that politicians forced through the pipeline. Besides having to daily overcome the persona of being a government employee, your hard-working employees face enormous pressures and challenges every day and are asked to solve some of our country’s toughest problems, including unemployment, security, poverty, and education. To be able to return to their desks daily with the passion and commitment required to accomplish these overwhelming duties will require a manager who knows how to leverage talent, improve performance, and inspire passion within these true servants. In Engaging Government Employees, you will learn: Why a highly engaged staff is 20 percent more productive How to get employees to deliver “discretionary effort” How to assess the level of engagement Why free pizza and Coke every Friday is not a viable strategy Engaging Government Employees rejects the typical one-size-fits-all approach to motivation. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence, this indispensable resource shows how America’s largest employer can apply the science of engagement to get team members passionate about the agency’s mission and committed to its success.
Are public servants self-interested, or motivated by a sense of duty and commitment far above what we would expect given their often modest compensation and frequent public criticism? This book looks at research on this and related questions in assessing the current state of our scientific knowledge.
The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.
In recent years there have been increasing efforts to use accountability systems based on large-scale tests of students as a mechanism for improving student achievement. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a prominent example of such an effort, but it is only the continuation of a steady trend toward greater test-based accountability in education that has been going on for decades. Over time, such accountability systems included ever-stronger incentives to motivate school administrators, teachers, and students to perform better. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education reviews and synthesizes relevant research from economics, psychology, education, and related fields about how incentives work in educational accountability systems. The book helps identify circumstances in which test-based incentives may have a positive or a negative impact on student learning and offers recommendations for how to improve current test-based accountability policies. The most important directions for further research are also highlighted. For the first time, research and theory on incentives from the fields of economics, psychology, and educational measurement have all been pulled together and synthesized. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education will inform people about the motivation of educators and students and inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems. Education researchers, K-12 school administrators and teachers, as well as graduate students studying education policy and educational measurement will use this book to learn more about the motivation of educators and students. Education policy makers at all levels of government will rely on this book to inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems.
The book that turns our understanding of motivation on its head . . . and shows why most companies get it wrong. There are few people with more experience and accumulated wisdom about the inner workings of business and how people can work together more effectively than Jon Katzenbach. His groundbreaking research has resulted in several important books, including The Wisdom of Teams and Real Change Leaders. Over the past several years he has turned his attention to one of the perennial questions of leaders everywhere: How do I motivate my employees? Most everyone frets about how to devise schemes that will keep the troops revved up. Conventional wisdom—or at least the practice at most companies—often centers on money as the primary motivating force. Many also rely on intimidation, which like money generally has a short-term impact. But what Katzenbach has found in his research at many organizations is that both of these practices do little to build the long-term sustainability of an organization. For that you need a powerful force that has been—until this point—understood by few managers and implemented by fewer still: pride. From the front lines to the executive suite, most people are motivated by feelings of accomplishment, approval, and camaraderie. It’s why the best employees strive well beyond performance levels that will yield them higher pay and why most true professionals relentlessly avoid retirement. Why does Southwest Airlines consistently turn in the highest levels of performance and profitability of any company in the airline business? What can the U.S. Marines teach us about individual commitment that can be used in the for-profit world? How is General Motors overcoming its history of labor-management enmity through the efforts of “pride-builders” from both the union and the management side? By drawing on what he has learned from these and many other organizations, Jon Katzenbach provides a practical program for understanding the role of pride: • Money is not the motivator most people think it is: Katzenbach shows why pay-for-performance programs by themselves result in employees who focus on self-serving behavior and skin-deep organizational commitment. • Money tends to be a short-term motivational device and works best during times of growth, but pride works in bad times as well as good. • Cultivating pride is an investment that yields high returns on workforce performance over time and is not nearly as costly as relying solely on monetary compensation and the turnover risks that accompany a “show me the money” culture. Katzenbach shares unique insights and specifics about how the best mid-level pride-builders take advantage of the world’s greatest motivational force even in environments as challenging as General Motors and Aetna. He shows how managers at every level are missing a powerful lever if they are not instilling pride as a primary force for building their organization. Also available as an eBook.
