***Apologies for cross-postings***
CALL FOR PAPERS
Public Administration Quarterly
"Millennials and Public Service Motivation"
"I won't just ask for your vote as a candidate,
I will ask for your service and your active citizenship
when I am the President of the United States"
(Barack Obama, Campaign Speech at Cornell College, December 5, 2007)
During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, there was a renewed call for public service by [then Candidate] Barack Obama (New York Times, 2007; Gallup Poll, 2008). Soon after President Obama assumed office, the call for public service generated a lot of interest, as evidenced by the number of applicants to the Peace Corps and Teach for America programs (Christian Science Monitor, 2009). A new cadre of younger workers are also standing by to replace the impending wave of retiring baby boomers. In North America, those born between 1980 and 1995 are referred to as "Millennials" or "Gen Y" (Chester, 2002; Ng, Schweitzer, & Lyons, 2010), and they are purported to have a desire to "save the world." Millennials are increasingly looking at factors "that go beyond simply making money" (Ng et al., 2010, p. 283) and are interested in a company's core values and overall mission in selecting places they want to work. Millennials also have high expectations for social responsibility and ethical behavior on the part of their employers, making them uniquely suitable for public service (Ng & Gossett, forthcoming). At the same time, the Millennial generation has been portrayed as valuing extrinsic rewards such as high salaries and rapid advancement (Ng et al., 2010), as well as showing a preference for boundaryless and protean careers (Lyons, Schweitzer, Ng, & Kuron, 2012), characteristics not typically associated with the public sector. To that end, it is unclear how Millennials' work values, attitudes, and expectations have changed, and are consistent with Perry and Wise's (1990) original formulation of public service motivation (PSM). Furthermore, there have been suggestions that PSM and the proclivity to join the civil service varies from country to country (Vandenabeele & Van de Walle, 2008), and will depend on national-social characteristics such as the country's stage of economic development (Ali, Falcone, & Azin, 1995) and welfare regime (Gossett, Ng, Chinyoka, & Obasi, 2013; Houston, 2011). In this regard, there could be other potential micro and macro level influences that may motivate an individual to join the civil service.
This special issue aims to extend theory on public service motivation (PSM) by investigating the intersection of the motives for public service, the Millennial generation, and the changing workforce. In particular, we seek empirical research on the younger generation of workers (defined according to your national context), generational characteristics and differences, and PSM from around the world. We are particularly interested in capturing illustrative examples of the Millennial generation and public service, and invite work that is both conceptual and empirical. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies are welcome. Your paper should appeal to the general reader, add value through theory building and provide implications for HRM practice in the public or third sector. We are open to a broad range of topics that pertain to PSM, young people in public service, and a multigenerational workforce in public service. The following are some questions that the editors consider relevant to the special issue, although we note this list is by no means exhaustive.
§ What aspects of public service appeal to the Millennial generation? Has there been a shift in aspects of public service motivation from one generation to another?
§ How do socially constructed systems of norms, values, and beliefs take on added significance for Millennials in public service contexts?
§ How does the expansion of the non-profit sector create competition for the government sector in attracting Millennials?
§ What processes of human resource management are instrumental in encouraging and sustaining public service motivation in Millennials?
§ Are there case studies of organizations that have successfully developed an intergenerational workforce in a public organization and if so, how did they do it (or if unsuccessful, what went wrong)?
§ Can one compare the experiences of incorporating Millennials into the public sector workforce of two or more jurisdictions (cities, states, or countries)?
§ What are the effects of the current economic recession on the work values, attitudes and expectations of Millennials, and their motivation for public service?
Deadline for submission: March 1, 2013
All manuscripts must be based on original material and must not be under consideration by any other journal. Manuscripts should include authors' names, affiliations, and appropriate contact information. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words. Manuscripts should conform to the journal guidelines of Public Administration Quarterly (http://www.spaef.com/paq.php). Please direct all inquiries and submissions to edng@dal.ca.
Special Issue Editors:
References
Ali, A.J., Falcone, T., & Azim, A.A. (1995). Work ethic in the USA and Canada. The Journal of Management Development, 14(6), 26-34.
Chester, E. (2002). Employing Generation Why: Understanding, managing, and motivating your new workforce. Denver, CO: Tucker House.
Christian Science Monitor (2009). Public service is cool again. August 19. Retrieved from http://features.csmonitor.com/economyrebuild/2009/08/19/public-service-is-cool-again
Gallup Poll, (2008). The appeal of public service: Who... what... and how? A report by the Council for Excellence in Government. Retrieved from http://www.govexec.com/pdfs/050608b1.pdf
Gossett, C.W., Ng, E.S., Chinyoka, S.V., & Obasi, I.N. (2013). Public vs. Private Sector Mgmt: An Exploratory Study of Career Choice among Students in Botswana. Paper to be presented at the Academy of Management Africa Conference, January 7-10, 2013, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Houston, D. (2011). Implications of occupational locus and focus for public service motivation: Attitudes toward work motives across nations, Public Administration Review, 71(5), 761-771.
Jackson, D.S. (2009). "Don't worry Canada, we will be there." Viewpoint, Gen Y. Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/04/13/f-vp-jackson.html.
Lyons, S.T., Schweitzer, L., Ng, E.S.W., & Kuron, L.K.J. (2012). Comparing apples to apples: A qualitative investigation of career mobility patterns across four generations. Career Development International, 17(4), 333-357.
New York Times (2007). Obama issues call for public service. December 5. Retrieved October 10, 2009 from http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/obama-issues-call-for-public-service
Ng, E.S., Schweitzer, L., & Lyons, S. (2010). New generation, new expectations: A field study of the millennial generation, Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(2), 281-292.
Ng, E.S., & Gossett, C.W. (forthcoming). Career choice in public service: An exploration of fit with the millennial generation. Public Personnel Management.
Perry, J.L., & Wise, L.R. (1990). The motivational bases of public service. Public Administrative Review, 50(3), 367-373.
Vandenabeele, W., & Van de Walle, S. (2008). International differences in public service motivation: Comparing regions across the world. In Motivation in Public Management: The Call of Public Service, J.L. Perry and A. Hondeghem (eds.), 223–244. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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Ed Ng, PhD
Associate Professor, Organizational Behaviour
Dalhousie University