Are the New Public Servants Ordinary People, Too

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Are the New Public Servants Ordinary People, Too?

• Hun Myoung Park
• James L. Perry
• (Indiana University)
• August 10, 2009
• Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management

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Outline

• New Public Servants
• Literature Review
• Goodsell (1983)
• Lewis (1990)
• Bureau Voting Model
• Classification of Public Services
• Data and Methods
• Results
• Conclusion

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New Public Servants

• New Governance
• For-profit and nonprofit employees providing
  public services
• Do bureaucrats differ from the general public?
• Do new public servants differ from bureaucrats
  and other private employees?

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Literature Review

• Paul Appleby (1945), Big Democracy
• Frederick Mosher (1968), Democracy and the Public
  Service
• Charles Goodsell (1983), The Case for
  Bureaucracy A Public Administration Polemic
• Paul Light (1999), The New Public Service

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Charles Goodsell (1983)

• Bureaucrats policy views are far more diverse
  than homogenous
• Little evidence for bureaucratic mentality
• Bureaucrats generally well adjusted, not
  alienated and powerless
• Bureaucrats not as despised as the media
  stereotype

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Gregory Lewis (1990)

• Views similar to average citizens on government
  spending
• Secular humanists in terms of traditional values
  (e.g., sex, sex roles, race)
• Rejects the oppressed-bureaucrat thesis
• Bureaucrats are ordinary people

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Bureau Voting Model

• Bureau information monopoly (Niskanen 1971)
• Self-interested budget maximizers
• Bureau voting model (Garand et al. 1991)
• More supportive of government spending
• More likely to vote
• More supportive of candidates favoring spending

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Classification of Public Services

• Using Standard Industrial Classification
• 1980 SIC (2000-2006)
• Public services versus non-public services
• Service providers
• Government (including USPS)
• For-profit
• Nonprofit social/health/education

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Classification of Public Services
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Data and Methods

• General Social Survey (2000-2006)
• Dependent variables government spending,
  confidence in institutions, voting for
  Republicans, morality and tolerance, reward
  preferences, social capital, sex/religion, world
  view
• Covariates education, political ideology, family
  income, prestige of jobs, age, gender, race
• T-test, ordinary least squares, binary logit
  model to compare groups

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Result Government Spending

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Result Government Spending

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Result Government Spending

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Result Government Spending

• Government bureaucrats more supportive of
  military/armaments/defense programs
• Nonprofit employees more supportive of welfare
  spending, condition of blacks, social security
  budget and spending maximizers?
• No significant difference in environment, health,
  crime, city problem, drug, and foreign aid
• Close similarity between bureaucrats and
  for-profit public services employees (new public
  servants)

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Confidence in Institutions

• Similar to the general public (Federal
  government, Supreme Court, Congress, press,
  banks, scientific community, organized labor, TV,
  medicine)
• Bureaucrats slightly higher in scientific
  community and lower in organized labor than
  private employees
• Nonprofit public servants slightly higher
  confidence in education institutions and lower in
  major companies and military than ordinary people
• Close similarity between government bureaucrats
  and for-profit public services employees

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Voting for Republicans

• Government bureaucrats more likely than private
  employees to vote for Republicans new public
  servants do not differ from ordinary people
• Voting government and education employees gt
  other new public servants gt ordinary people
• Nonprofit employees more Democratic than
  government and for-profit employees
• Nonprofit employees more supportive of needy
  Americans than government and for-profit
  employees budget and spending maximizers?

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Morality and Tolerance

• Similar in morality and tolerance as a whole
• Nonprofit employees less supportive of death
  penalty and euthanasia than government and
  for-profit counterparts, and more supportive of
  making pornography illegal than ordinary people.
• Government and for-profit employees higher
  tolerance (allowing racists and anti-democratic
  people to speak) than ordinary people, and more
  likely than nonprofit employees to allow
  homosexualists

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Reward Preferences

• New public servants more satisfied with jobs than
  government employees and ordinary people
• Government and nonprofit public services have
  higher job security than for-profit counterparts
• Social/health services less financially satisfied
  but motivated by mission and intrinsic factors
• For-profit public services employees put more
  value on high income and job security, but less
  on the feeling of accomplishment than nonprofit
  employees

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Social Capital

• Slightly higher perceptions about helpfulness,
  fairness, and trust than ordinary people
• Government bureaucrats more altruistic and
  affiliated with organizations than ordinary
  people
• Nonprofit employees higher empathy than
  government and for-profit counterparts.
• Similar in social evening with relatives,
  friends, etc.
• Government and nonprofit employees less likely to
  go to a bar than for-profit counterparts.

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Sex, Religion, World View

• Government and for-profit public services
  employees do no differ in perceptions about sex,
  religion, and world view from ordinary people
• Education employees more tolerant of
  homosexuality than government employees and
  ordinary people, but less of premarital sex
• Nonprofit employees more frequently attend
  religious services and tend to be strong
  believers than government employees and ordinary
  people

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Conclusion

• Both bureaucrats and new public servants are
  ordinary people as a whole
• For-profit public service employees are similar
  to government respondents, but more sensitive to
  monetary incentive and less intrinsically
  motivated. Effect of privatization?
• Nonprofit public services employees are more
  sympathetic, ethical, religious intrinsically
  motivated female dominated

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Questions and Suggestions?