Review of Public Administration and Management

Impact of Public Service Motivation and Job Level on Bureaucrats Preferences for Direct Policy

Dante Manzoni^* Department of Public Administration, University of Milan, Milano, Italy
^*Correspondence: Dante Manzoni, Department of Public Administration, University of Milan, Milano, Italy, Email:

Received: 05-Aug-2022, Manuscript No. RPAM-22-17939; Editor assigned: 08-Aug-2022, Pre QC No. RPAM-22-17939 (PQ); Reviewed: 22-Aug-2022, QC No. RPAM-22-17939; Revised: 29-Aug-2022, Manuscript No. RPAM-22-17939; Published: 05-Sep-2022, DOI: 10.35248/2315-7844.22.10.357

Description

Administration's attempts to away public opinion and advance policy objectives through the use of policy tools they range from direct rules and requirements to indirect financial incentives like tax breaks, gift cards, and tradable permits. The right amount of pollution, quality, or safety is decided by or provided by the government using direct instruments. Citizens can use indirect instruments to influence their own judgments while taking into consideration the offered financial incentives. Based on the presumption that the private sector is more effective than the public sector, this movement is centred on the premise that government should empower the private sector in order to foster autonomy and creativity.

These changes to policy tools don't always work out, in part because of bureaucratic opposition. Thus, it is crucial to comprehend the underlying causes of bureaucrats' reluctance if indirect policy instruments are to be implemented successfully. The prior research has frequently argued that this opposition was caused by the bureaucrats' self-interest to maintain their personal rewards, stability, or power since direct policy instruments give them more authority and information than indirect instruments. Numerous studies have identified PSM as a distinctive form of employee motivation in the public sector. It is possible to speculate that bureaucrats may feel that direct policy tools serve the public better than indirect ones if they have strong PSM and avoid employing them. However, very few researches have looked into the connection between PSM and the policy preferences of bureaucrats.

The scholarship of policy tools also recognizes that choosing a policy instrument is rarely based solely on its efficacy and practicability. Some studies contend that the selection of policy tools is based on political and environmental elements including political pressure and legal restraints, while others say that organizational and contextual factors should be considered. No studies have looked at whether PSM can alter bureaucrats' preferences for policy instruments, despite the significant importance that bureaucrats play in the selection and implementation of policy instruments. The existing disparity between the two literatures is very remarkable given the amount of attention that has been dedicated to both PSM and policy instruments, respectively. Evaluating the extent to which officials' PSM influences their relative selection of direct policy tools. Particularly, we suggest a straightforward theoretical framework to examine whether bureaucrats' opposition to indirect policy instruments is driven by their PSM. We also explore how and whether the PSM's commitment to the public interest and self-sacrifice components would differ in how bureaucrats' preferences for direct policy instruments are influenced by their job levels. Direct policy instruments may require more effort and uncomfortable direct interactions with the clients being serviced, especially at the lower job levels, in contrast to the claims that they can bring more private perks like bribery and prestige. Therefore, especially at the lower employment levels, both the commitment to the public interest component and the self-sacrifice component of PSM might be significant.

Low-ranking bureaucrats are typically in charge of carrying out the policy instruments, even though high-ranking bureaucrats have more power in the selection of those tools. As a result, examining variability across job levels can help us better understand how PSM and policy instruments interact in a hierarchical government organization. However, bureaucrats are frequently perceived as being uninterested in or hostile to indirect policy instruments. The introduction of indirect policy instruments may be slowed slowly or lose some of their effectiveness because bureaucrats are in charge of the actual design and execution of such instruments. Therefore, it is essential to connect the incentives of bureaucrats such that they support the indirect policy tools in order for policy reforms to be successful. When using direct policy instruments, bureaucrats frequently have the authority to decide how to distribute resources. As a result, it has been argued in earlier literature that bureaucrats' opposition to indirect policy instruments is driven by their own self-interest, such as the desire to maintain their own rewards like bribery or status. The self-determination theory's discussion of intrinsic motivation does not directly address the statement. I feel strongly about making a contribution to society. The results of our study then recommend separating prosocial from intrinsic motivation when defining PSM characteristics.