mohammadjavad motamed

Public service motivation is more of a technical term that is not known to researchers who are not familiar with public administration; Therefore, more care should be taken in conveying its concepts (Bozman and Su, 2015: 703). Perry and Wise (1996) considered public service motivation as a kind of individual tendency and desire to realize motives that are unique to public institutions and organizations. Based on this, public service motivation as an altruistic motivation has a positive effect on people's performance and is a type of individual behavior that ultimately leads to serving the society and its individuals (Anderson and Cerizlo, 2012: 20). Contrary to this point of view, Perry and Handqom (2008) believed that although in popular language, the motivation of public service is used as equivalent to altruism, but these two concepts are different from each other. Public service motivation is a specialized term that means nurturing people who do not participate in public administration, while altruism, from Baston and Shaw's (1991) point of view, is a motivational state whose ultimate goal is to increase people's well-being (Bozeman and Su, 2015: 706).

The public service motivation of rulers and agents is one of the most fundamental indicators of the maturity of political actors in the ascendency structure of Islamic societies. The following article aims to develop the concept of public service motivation (PSM) based on the Nahj al-Balaghah within the Islamic framework. After reviewing the literature and examining the content of Nahj al-Balaghah (sermons, letters, and wisdom), the primary theoretical framework has been carried out based on three levels of anthropology, behaviorism, and structuralism. Then a qualitative research method and a theme analysis strategy were used to extract textual data in the form of three axes of antecedents, dimensions and consequences, and the public service motivation based on Nahj al-Balaghah. The results of this research at the level of anthropology indicated the personality traits of political elements with the motivation of public service. It also indicated central component of high human motives in the form of five categories: believing  God, meekness, deep thought, commitment to the right, and core competencies. The behavioral level of the research also known as the central component of interactive motivations included three categories of strategic communication, behavioral justice, and kindness. The structural level also included the norms and policies governing institutions to increase the motivation of public service. This level consisted of the components of normative motivations and the five categories of transcendental social ethics; strategic dealings; the development of public justice and social welfare, structuring of desirable religious governance; and spiritual leadership in servicing the people.