Explanation of Role of Public Service Motivation in Organizational Citizenship Behavior with the Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment (case study: Agricultural Jihad of Hormozgan province)

Public service motivation is a relatively new concept that has been entered into public administration literature to explain the difference between individuals' motivation to join the public sector in comparison with the private sector. The aim of this study was explaining the role of public service motivation in organizational citizenship behavior by mediating role of organizational commitment. This research was applied one in terms of purpose, and in terms of method was descriptive and correlative. The statistical population of this research were all employees of the Agricultural Jihad Organization of Hormozgan province, that 213 people were selected according to stratified random sampling method. Data collection tool were three standard questionnaires including Perry's public service motivation questionnaire (1996), organizational citizenship behavior of Oregon (2004) and Allen and Meyer's organizational commitment (1991). The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the composite reliability, and to determine validity was used confirmatory factor analysis. The data were analyzed by Lisrel software and structural equation modeling. Findings showed that public services motivation has a significant impact on organizational citizenship behavior. Public service motivation has a significant impact on organizational commitment. Also organizational commitment has a significant effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Also organizational commitment appears as mediator in the relationship between public service motivation and organizational citizenship behavior.


Studying of organizational citizenship behavior and factors affecting it, is necessary because of the importance of such behaviors to respond to changing demands in the dynamic and turbulent environment and markets (Podsakoff et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2012). Accordingly, many researches have focused on organizational citizenship behaviors (Afsar & Badir, 2016; et al., 2016; Bottomley et al., 2016; Chan et al., 2017). In other hand, a new concept has entered in public administration literature that some researches have indicated that has direct and indirect effects on organizational citizenship behavior. The concept of public service motivation that introduced by Perry and Wise (1990), is based on the assumption that public sector employees have different motivational dimensions than private sector employees (Older &, 2008; Kim et al., 2014; Kim & Kim, 2016). In response to the question of what factors motivates people to enter to public sector, this concept determines four factors including attraction to policy making, commitment to public interest, compassion, and self-sacrifice (Perry &, 1990). Public service motivation is often found in research as an independent variable (Simone et al., 2016) and this assumption exist that public service motivation is positively related to individual performance and outcomes such as organizational commitment (Crewson, 1997; Kim, 2012) and organizational citizenship behavior (Kim, 2006; Pandey et al., 2008). Accordingly, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of public service motivation on organizational citizenship behavior through the mediating role of organizational commitment in the Agricultural Jihad organization of Hormozgan province.
Case study
The statistical population of this research was all employees of Hormozgan Agricultural Jihad Organization. Based on Krejcie and Morgan table, the statistical sample size of 213 people was determined. Since the statistical society was heterogeneous in terms of service, the sample was randomly selected and the research questionnaire was distributed among them and the same number was collected and analyzed. In order to collect the required data, three standard questionnaires with a five-choice Likert option are completely disagree with the score of 1 to completely agree with the score of 5.
To measure public service motivation, the standard 24-item questionnaire of Perry (1996) was used. In order to collect information about organizational citizenship behavior, the standard questionnaire of Organ (2004) with 15 items was used. To assess organizational commitment, Allen & Meyer (1991) standard questionnaire has been used.
To test the reliability of the questionnaires, Cronbach's alpha test was used using SPSS software and composite reliability (CR) index using LISREL8.5 software. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the inherent consistency of the scale. Both of them was higher than 0.8 and it is considered appropriate, although in many studies alpha and CR higher than 0.7 is also well-accepted (Harris & Harris, 2007).
Discussion and This study aimed to investigate the effect of public services motivation on organizational citizenship behavior with regard to the mediating role of organizational commitment in Agricultural Jihad Organization of Hormozgan province. Findings showed that organizational commitment in relationship between public service motivation and organizational citizenship behavior appears as mediating variable. Employees with a higher public service motivation are committed to the organization and have more willingness to stay longer in organization (Bright, 2008; Homberg et al., 2014), and this commitment, in turn, causes them to go beyond their role and conduct citizenship behaviors ( Pooja et al., 2016).
The positive effect of public service motivation on citizenship behavior was one of the other results of this study. This finding fits with the results of Ferdousipour (2016) and Caillier (2015) which found a positive relationship between public service motivation and organizational citizenship behavior. The results of this study also showed that public service motivation has a significant impact on organizational commitment. In this regard, Taylor (2007) also found in his study as "the effect of public service motivation on job outcomes in Australia" that employees with a higher public service motivation were satisfied, were committed to their organizations and were motivated to perform better. Finally, the results of the study showed that organizational commitment has a positive effect on organizational citizenship behavior. This finding is consistent with the results of many researches, such as Colquitt et al (2013), and Pooja et al (2016). According to the results of this research, managers are proposed to increase their employee’s public service motivation and organizational commitment to encourage them to conduct organizational citizenship behaviors. Determining the range of stimulations and motives that are exclusively exist in public and governmental organizations and especially Jihad Organization, can help managers to improve public service motivation of employees and increase their willingness to conduct citizenship behaviors. In this regard, efforts to create and strengthen the feeling of compassion and sacrifice and commitment to public interest in employees have special importance. Managers need to use effective mechanisms such as employee’s participation in setting organizatioanl goals and plans related to public interest as well as providing the concepts of public service motivation in checklists of employees ' performance evaluation.