Public Service Motivation and the Circumplex Model of Affect: Profiling Australasian Public Servants

Abstract

This paper explores public servants’ public service motivation through the prism of the circumplex model of affect (CMA). The application of CMA to work, and specifically public sector contexts, is relatively novel, and the framework helps explain how multiple states of affect (i.e., comprised of underlying feelings, emotions, and moods) cluster together and are shaped by one’s work environment. The mixed method paper begins with a qualitative study of Australasian public servants, presenting evidence of the CMA and its connection to PSM. The subsequent quantitative analysis of 222 survey respondents offers four distinct latent profiles of public servants’ PSM and associated circumplex states of affect. The research builds on the state and trait proposition of PSM, showing how PSM and associated states of affect, shape and are shaped by public servants’ underlying psychology and their work environment.