Research on Public Service Motivation and Leadership: A Bibliometric Study

Abstract

Using a bibliometric approach, this quantitative study collects and analyses 61 publications on Public Service Motivation and Leadership simultaneously, within the public administration field, published in Web of Knowledge/SSCI database until 2018. This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the topics by complementing conventional qualitative literature reviews. The results demonstrate that, recently, a continuous increase of the research has occurred, and the US is the country driving the research. Thus, other parts of the globe should be cautious when adopting the conclusions of studies from such a different cultural context. Moreover, the transformational leadership research emerge from the results. Nevertheless, other leadership approaches are welcome, such as responsible leadership. Based on the review, the article suggests directions for further research endeavors.

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Research on Public Service Motivation and
Leadership: A Bibliometric Study
Tânia M. G. Marques
To cite this article: Tânia M. G. Marques (2020): Research on Public Service Motivation
and Leadership: A Bibliometric Study, International Journal of Public Administration, DOI:
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Research on Public Service Motivation and Leadership: A Bibliometric Study
Tânia M. G. Marques
School of Technology and Management, CARME –Centre of Applied Research in Management and Economics, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria,
Leiria, Portugal
ABSTRACT
Using a bibliometric approach, this quantitative study collects and analyses 61 publications on
Public Service Motivation and Leadership simultaneously, within the public administration field,
published in Web of Knowledge/SSCI database until 2018. This article seeks to contribute to
a better understanding of the topics by complementing conventional qualitative literature
reviews. The results demonstrate that, recently, a continuous increase of the research has
occurred, and the US is the country driving the research. Thus, other parts of the globe should
be cautious when adopting the conclusions of studies from such a different cultural context.
Moreover, the transformational leadership research emerge from the results. Nevertheless, other
leadership approaches are welcome, such as responsible leadership. Based on the review, the
article suggests directions for further research endeavors.
KEYWORDS
Public service motivation;
leadership; bibliometrics;
citation analysis; co-citation
analysis
Introduction
Scholarly interest in the public sector has grown con-
siderably, especially in the social sciences, management
and finance (Juliani & De Oliveira, 2016). The first study
specifically on the public sector topic using the concept
of Public Service Motivation was published almost three
decades ago focusing on U.S. public employees (Perry &
Wise, 1990). Since Perry and Wise’s(1990) study, multi-
ple works on public service motivation have been pub-
lished across an international, multidisciplinary and
multi-sectored range (Ritz et al., 2016), thus highlighting
that international research on public service motivation
is growing (Kim et al., 2012). Almost 30 years after Perry
and Wise (1990) study on public service motivation, this
research field is still vibrant and manifested by scholarly
attention in the concept across disciplines and countries
(Wright et al., 2013). Still, some scientific gaps exist
concerning the public service motivation (Juliani & De
Oliveira, 2016).
Public service motivation is “a means to improve per-
formance and overcome incentive problems in the public
sector”(Homberg et al., 2015, p. 711), thus it becomes
a crucial concept for the public organizations’success.
The existence of multiple publications on the public sec-
tor (generally) and on public service motivation (specifi-
cally) is of great importance for public administration
students, public employees and public managers.
However, the vast amount of studies on public service
motivation may also demand a structured assess of the
research progress, reason why several literature reviews
have been recently appearing. Ranging from systematic
reviews (see Ritz et al., 2016), to narrative reviews (see
Perry & Vandenabeele, 2015), to meta-analyzes reviews
(see Homberg et al., 2015), to reviewing specific contexts
such as Public Service Motivation scholarship in Africa
(see Bawole et al., 2019), scholars have been trying to
review and summarize the extant literature on the topic
of public service motivation.
Additionally, never before has so much attention been
paid to leadership as in the last century (Avolio et al.,
2009). Several transformational based leadership
approaches, such as the case of authentic leadership
development (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999), have been
attracting much research attention. Moreover, the speci-
fic case of leadership in the public sector is capturing
researchers’attention (Vogel & Masal, 2015). Similarly
to the public service motivation topic, due to the
immense published leadership studies, scholars have
been offering literature reviews to organize and summar-
ize the knowledge on the leadership field scattered
through numerous publications. The recent bibliometric
study by Vogel and Masal (2015) reviews the literature
on public leadership and four main approaches to public
leadership have been found: functionalist, behavioral,
biographical and reformist approaches. The review sug-
gests changing the focus from ‘leadership’to the element
CONTACT Tânia M. G. Marques tania.marques@ipleiria.pt School of Technology and Management, CARME –Centre of Applied Research in
Management and Economics, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Morro do Lena - Alto Vieiro, Leiria 2411-901, Portugal.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2020.1741615
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

of ‘public’, meaning that particularities of leadership in
the public sector should be studied Additionally, instead
of focusing on leadership, research should center on
public followership once that followers have been the
less studied element in public leadership, suggesting
a more follower-centered approach. Linking transforma-
tional leadership practices to a broad range of public
service motivations, Paarlberg and Lavigna (2010)point
up how transformational leaders create shared organiza-
tional value in the public service through: 1) the trans-
formational leadership creation and communication of
shared visions energized by strong emotions, thus inspir-
ing their teams; 2) on boarding practices through the
alignment of followers’personal values with the values of
the collective in order to act on a shared vision. Thus,
selection and socialization are two crucial processes that
help the mentioned alignment to happen; 3) setting
meaningful goals through an inspirational leaders’com-
municational system that may inspire followers to
become part of larger goals; 4) and designing significant
work that can be perceived and seen by employees as
being meaningful and having a visible impact on those
who benefit from their work.
The relationship between public service motivation
and various outcomes has received much scholarly
interest in recent years (Homberg et al., 2015). Public
service motivation and leadership are two research
topics of great importance across the world. The recent
study by Miao et al. (2018), which used a sample of 281
Chinese civil servants, concluded that to facilitate inno-
vative behaviors among employees public organizations
should include entrepreneurial leadership and recruit
employees with high levels of public service motivation.
However, despite the importance of studies on public
service motivation and on studies of leadership being recog-
nized, the disperse and vast existent literature may not allow
a global and integrated perception of what really exists. The
literature reviews on public service motivation and on
leadership, separately, allow the reader, researcher and pub-
lic manager to have a structured understanding of the
existent research on public service motivation, and on the
existent research on leadership albeit separately. Thus, to
the best of our knowledge, there are no reviews analyzing
the existent research using both topics together, studying
the interrelationships between the two literatures, as there is
in the case of the bibliometric review of the interrelation-
ships between public service motivation and human
resource management (Homberg & Vogel, 2016).
Therefore researchers, students, scholars and public admin-
istrators and employees, are not totally aware of how, when,
by whom, have these two topics being studied together.
Moreover, the lack of the use of advanced bibliometric
analysis in Public Administration may be one reason for
the rare studies on the evolution of a concept, theory, or
seminal article in Public Administration (Chandra &
Walker, 2019).
A crucial advantage of quantitatively reviewing the
extant literature is organizing the existent works and
consequently extracting its main contents, influential
works, authors and periodicals, scholarly networks
and also trends. Distinct quantitative literature
reviews of the topic of public service motivation are
available, as the case of meta-analyzes (Homberg et al.,
2015; Homberg & Vogel, 2016) or bibliometric ana-
lyzes (Homberg & Vogel, 2016). On the one hand,
although meta-analyzes are important and rely on
several statistical methods for combining different
resultsfromtheexistentstudiestoanalyzetrends,
they often focus on a single variable relationship
(Ritz et al., 2016). On the other hand, “bibliometrics
offers a complementary view of the history of
adisciplineandtheevolutionofitsresearchand
practice agendas through an analysis of its published
literature”(Ni et al., 2017,p.496).
Thus, in this study we undertake a bibliometric
approach to review the existent research that focus on
studying public service motivation and leadership, both
topics together. We aim at presenting a quantitative,
structured and objective analysis of the existent public
service motivation and leadership research fields. Based
on the results, we may to identify eventual research
gaps which may offer future research opportunities.
We use a sample of articles dealing with public service
motivation and leadership simultaneously published in
periodicals indexed in the Thomson Reuter’s ISI Social
Science Citation Index (SSCI) until January of 2018,
under the category of public administration. Several
analyzes are performed, starting with descriptive ones,
such as leading journals, authorship and authors’
national affiliation analyzes, followed by bibliometric
analyzes such as citation and co-citation analyzes of
the existing research.
The paper is structured as follows. First, the methodol-
ogy is presented, including design, sample, procedures
and analyzes. Second, the results and overall findings of
the study are put forward, focusing on the key topics and
central issues identified. Last, a broad discussion assesses
the state of research on public service motivation and
leadership and suggests future research avenues.
Method
The bibliometric methods have started in the 1960s (see
Pritchard, 1969) and it is still used nowadays to over-
view research field based on quantitative procedures.
2T. M. G. MARQUES

“Bibliometric mapping provides a powerful set of meth-
ods for tracking the creation and dissemination of
scientific information on a particular topic”(Vogel &
Masal, 2015, p. 1167). Moreover, the recognized impor-
tance and validity of bibliometric studies has been high-
light whether by the researchers themselves or by the
numerous bibliometric studies that have been pub-
lished recently in the social sciences filed in general,
such as in the management field (e.g., Teixeira et al.,
2013), in the specific field of public administration (e.g.,
Ni et al., 2017), or in the specific case of responsible
leadership (e.g., Marques et al., 2018) or academic dis-
honesty (e.g., Marques et al., 2019). In this study we
undertook a bibliometric literature review since this
method is more suitable than traditional literature
reviews for the objective of this study (Ferreira et al.,
2014) for a number of reasons. First, both topics –
public service motivation; leadership –have been
receiving scholarly attention. Second, the recognized
importance of both topics for the public sector is
assumed. Third, to the best of our knowledge, no
other study has addressed and reviewed the interrela-
tionships between both topics together.
Sample
Similar to other recent bibliometric studies in the field of
public administration the empirical data for the sample
of this study was retrieved from Thomson Reuters’ISI
Web of Knowledge. The selected index was Social
Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) for the entire timeframe
years up to 2018 (January). Web of Science and the
specific database of SSCI were chosen due to its world-
wide reputation and data availability, providing a broad
representation of publications in social sciences, being
used in several other articles focusing in Public
Administration (Juliani & De Oliveira, 2016; Ni et al.,
2017; Vogel & Masal, 2015; Zhang et al., 2018).
After the preliminary step of reviewing the existent
literature on the topics of interest, “public service moti-
vation”and “leader*”were the keywords for searching
in the “topic”field in SSCI database. When using the
“topic”field three main parts of the available publica-
tions are analyzed –the title, the keywords and the
abstract –to verify if the selected keywords are present,
thus ensuring a wider exposure (Ferreira et al., 2014).
We used the “*”wildcard character to ensure the max-
imum variation possible as it will allow to include
works about “leader”,“leadership”, etc. In order to
eliminate different spellings and typing errors, all the
extracted bibliographic data were reviewed and cleaned
when needed. Based on the mentioned procedures, the
guaranty of accurateness and completeness of the final
sample has been ensured.
The first search returned a total of 80 works which
have been published until January 2018 on the both
topics simultaneously, “public service motivation”and
“leader*”, in the categories of public administration
(64), management (18), industrial relations and labor
(12), political science (9), psychology applied (4), psy-
chology multidisciplinary (3), business (2), health care
sciences services (2), health policy services (2), ethics
(1), and planning development (1). Due to the scope of
the present study and the remarkable weight of the
category dedicated to public administration (64 studies,
80%), the present study continues focusing only on the
“Public Administration”category, similar procedure to
other related studies (cf. Vogel & Masal, 2015). Thus,
61 articles are dedicated to “public service motivation”
and “leader*”in the category of public administration,
which are the studies that compose the final sample of
the present study.
Procedures and analyzes
Several analyzes were performed: leading periodicals,
authorship, authors’national affiliation, and citation
and co-citation analyzes. We started by analyzing the
leading periodicals, the authors’national affiliation and
the authorship, aiming at giving an overview of the
research configuration within the studies that focus
on public service motivation and leadership. Thus the
computation and evolution of the number of articles
studying those two topics together and published in
each periodical are presented. The analysis of the per-
iodicals was performed to identify the periodicals that
have been publishing and disseminating research on
public service motivation together with leadership.
Then the most productive authors, studying public
service motivation and leadership in the same work,
were identified (authorship analysis). The authorship
analysis allows an understanding of who is driving the
research on this interrelation between public service
motivation and leadership. Third, an analysis of
author’s national affiliation was also computed, to iden-
tify the countries which drive the field (Ni et al., 2017).
After these descriptive analyzes, for the bibliometric
analyzes Bibexcel (Persson et al., 2009) software was
adopted. Thus, based on the study of the bibliographic
references included in the sample of articles, one may
analyze the knowledge base of the field through the
computation of the works cited more often –citation
analysis. Citations are a measure of scholarly influence
(St. Clair et al., 2017) and citation analysis is important
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 3

in order to assess the development of a discipline
(Zhang et al., 2018). The 61 articles of the sample
used a total of 3.546 references. Thus, analyzing in
detail all the 3.546 references would be almost imprac-
tical. As a result, the 20 most used references were
computed through the frequencies of use. Due to the
amount of references, we computed and analyzed only
the 20 most cited articles in the 3.546 references, to
identify the most influential works within the field
through a citation analysis (López-Duarte et al., 2016).
Despite the existence of several bibliometric techniques,
citation analysis is one of the most commonly adopted
technique (Teixeira et al., 2013).
Additionally, based on the 20 most cited works in our
sample, we conducted a co-citation analysis, counting
pairs of co-cited references. Ucinet 6 software was
adopted to graphically illustrate the co-relations emerged
from the co-citation matrix. Co-citation analysis is an
established method that relies on examining the joint
use of references in each article. The co-citation analysis
aims to draw the knowledge base of the research field,
inferring the most relevant works and the relation among
them (López-Duarte et al., 2016). Thus, a co-citation
matrix was created, which was the basis for the co-
citation graphic network among the top 20 most-cited
articles. This visual map makes visible the interconnect-
edness of the studies which form the knowledge base of
the field (Ferreira et al., 2014). Thus, we analyze the 20
most cited articles in the sample to determine their degree
of connectedness: the more often two works are co-cited
the greater the relationship between those works (Vogel &
Masal, 2015). Displaying the co-citation analysis’results
on a graphical networkallows two major analyzes. On one
hand, the lines that connect the articles correspond to the
scholarly attach between the works, thus representing the
co-citation associations: thicker lines represent works
more connected, i.e., more co-cited. On the other hand,
the position of the works in the network display the most
influential works at the core, thus being the most impact-
ful (López-Duarte et al., 2016).
Results
Based on the final sample of 61 published articles, the
timeframe of research emerges. To illustrate the sharp
interest of researchers in both topics, we computed the
frequency distribution of publications in our sample.
Results are graphically illustrated in Figure 1 and it may
be observed that there is a continuous and yearly reg-
ular from 2008 onwards, with 74% of the articles just
recently published (2014 to 2017).
Studies have been published by different journals
and reviews (Table 1). Based on the computation of
the top journals with the most publications, emerges
Public Administration Review as the leading journal
(10) followed by International Public Management
Journal (8) and Public Management Review (8) in 2
nd
place ex-aequo in the ranking.
Authorship analysis
The 61 articles were authored by 129 scholars. The
analysis of the most prolific authors (Table 2) indicates
Bradley E. Wright as the most productive author, with
a total of 5 articles, followed by Robert K. Christensen,
Sanjay K. Pandey, and James G. Caillier, who have
published 4 articles each.
We have also analyzed the authors’national affiliation
(Table 3). The country with more publications is the
United States reaching a total of 29 publications in the
Figure 1. Evolution of publications until 2018 (January).
4T. M. G. MARQUES

sample. Several other countries from northern Europe,
Asia, Africa and Oceania mainly, have publications how-
ever it is clear that the US is the country with most
publications by far.
Citation analysis
We analyzed the knowledge base of the field to grasp its
intellectual structure. A work cited more often is more
influential to a given field (López-Duarte et al., 2016)
and citations are a measure of scholarly influence
(St. Clair et al., 2017). The 61 articles in the sample
used a total of 3.546 references. Table 4 shows the 20
most cited works by the 61 articles in the sample, which
are arguably the most influential works. The article
“The motivational bases of public service”conducted
by Perry and Wise (1990), is cited by 35 articles in the
sample (57%), followed by Perry’s(1996) work entitled
“Measuring public service motivation: An assessment
of construct reliability and validity”(28 citations, 46%).
Public service motivation and leadership are studied
directly together in the three most cited works of Wright
et al. (2012) entitled “Pulling the levers: Transformational
leadership, public service motivation, and mission
valence”(21 citations, 34% of the articles in the sample);
Paarlberg and Lavigna (2010) entitled “Transformational
leadership and public service motivation: Driving indivi-
dual and organizational performance”with a 28% of the
citations; and also the study of Park and Rainey (2008)
entitled “Leadership and public service motivation in US
federal agencies”achieving 26% of.
Co-citation analysis
Using the 20 most cited references in the 61 published
articles of our sample we generated a co-citation net-
work which is displayed in Figure 2. When a given
work cites two other works in its reference list it is
considered a co-citation, thus a co-citation suggests
a relation of some sort between the two works.
The strong connection between the works of Perry
and Wise (1990)andPerry(1996) clearly reflect these
works as being the most co-cited in the existent literature.
Moreover, the strong connections between Perry and
Wise (1990) and Pandey et al. 2008, Perry and Wise
(1990) and Wright et al. 2012, Perry and Wise (1990)
and Alonso and Lewis (2001) also demonstrate a deep
relationship thus being more co-cited by other works.
In addition, the centrality of the works authored by
Perry and Wise (1990) and Perry (1996) denotes its
seminal character, influence and importance.
Summary of the results
This study relies on a bibliometric methodology to quan-
titative review the existent research that focus on the
studying together the topics of public service motivation
Table 1. Leading periodicals.
Rank Journal title
Impact
factor
2016
5-year
impact
factor
Total
published
in the
sample
% in the
sample
(approx.)
1 Public Administration
Review
3.473 3.613 10 16%
2 International Public
Management Journal
1.723 2.276 8 13%
3 Public Management
Review
2.293 2.860 8 13%
4 Review of Public
Personnel
Administration
1.474 2.000 7 12%
5 Public Personnel
Management
0.981 0.896 7 12%
6 Public Administration 2.959 2.847 5 8%
7 American Review of
Public Administration
1.438 2.176 4 7%
8 Journal of Public
Administration
Research and Theory
3.624 4.981 4 7%
9 Public Performance
and Management
Review
0.812 1.167 3 5%
10 International Review
of Administrative
Sciences
1.350 1.471 3 5%
11 Administration and
Society
1.092 1.342 1 2%
12 Australian Journal of
Public Administration
1.072 1.016 1 2%
Source: Data collected from ISI Web of Knowledge and Journal Citation Reports.
Table 2. The most productive authors.
Rank Reference # publications
1 Wright B.E. 5
2 Christensen R.K. 4
3 Pandey S. K. 4
4 Caillier J. G. 4
5 Kroll A. 3
6 Hassan S. 3
7ImT. 3
8 Campbell J. W. 3
9 Moynihan D. P. 3
10 Perry J. L. 2
Source: Data collected from ISI Web of Knowledge.
Table 3. Authors’national affiliation.
Rank Country # publications
1 USA 29
2 South Korea 5
3 Australia 4
4UK 3
5 Taiwan 3
6 Netherlands 3
7 Belgium 3
8 Denmark 2
9 Switzerland 2
10 Germany 2
Source: Data collected from ISI Web of Knowledge.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 5

Table 4. The 20 most-cited works on the interrelationship between public service motivation and leadership.
Rank Reference
Citation
frequency
Citation %
(citation
frequency/
61)
Authors’
country Type Sample Abstract/main findings
1 Perry and Wise (1990). The motivational bases of
public service. Public Administration Review,
367–373.
35 57% USA Theoretical
article
n.a. Theories for public service motivation are reviewed
and three principal motives are presented: rational,
norm-based and affective motives. A call for more
empirical research and theory development is
launched.
2 Perry (1996) Measuring public service motivation:
An assessment of construct reliability and validity.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory,
6(1), 5–22.
28 46% USA Empirical
article
(construct
reliability
and
validity)
376 respondents
from a variety of primarily
public sector backgrounds: in-service MPA
students; public
affairs undergraduates; business executives;
department heads in
a municipal government; social work graduate
students; sheriffs’
deputies; university employees; social service and
natural
resources department employees from a state
government; county
government employees; and management
employees at a federal defence installation.
A scale to measure public service motivation is
created, thus six dimensions are conceptually
associated with the construct of PSM (public
service motivation): attraction to public policy
making, commitment to the public interest, civic
duty, social justice, self-sacrifice, and compassion.
3 Rainey and Steinbauer (1999). Galloping elephants:
Developing elements of a theory of effective
government organizations. Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory, 9(1), 1–32.
23 38% USA Theoretical
article
n.a. A theory to explain effective government
organizations is conceptually developed, which
includes several components: supportive behaviors
from external stakeholders such as political
authorities; agency autonomy in refining and
implementing its mission; high “mission valence”
(an attractive mission); a strong, mission-oriented
culture; and certain leadership behaviors. It is
posited that these factors enhance several forms of
motivation of people in the agency: task
motivation, mission motivation and public service
motivation.
4 Alonso and Lewis (2001). Public service motivation
and job performance: Evidence from the federal
sector. The American Review of Public Administration,
31(4), 363–380.
23 38% USA Empirical
article
35.000
federal, white-collar employees to the 1991
Survey of Federal Employees and the 1996 Merit
Principles Survey
The link between PSM and job performance in the
federal service is tested and results show 3 main
conclusions:
- a mixed evidence on whether PSM positively
affected grades and performance ratings;
- clearer evidence that employees who
expected to receive a material reward for
exceptional performance attained higher
grades and performance ratings;
- no evidence that the link between material
rewards and performance mattered any less
to those with high PSM.
(Continued )
6T. M. G. MARQUES

Table 4. (Continued).
Rank Reference
Citation
frequency
Citation %
(citation
frequency/
61)
Authors’
country Type Sample Abstract/main findings
5 Wright et al. (2012). Pulling the levers:
Transformational leadership, public service
motivation, and mission valence. Public
Administration Review, 72(2), 206–215.
21 34% Empirical
article
1.538 respondents
Senior managers (included both general
managers –the city manager and assistant,
deputy city managers; and functional managers –
the managers of key departments such as
finance/budgeting, public
works, human resources, economic development,
parks and recreation,
planning, and community development)
Public service motivation and leadership are
studied aiming to investigate ways in which
organizational leaders can reinforce and even
augment the potential effects of public service
motivation on employees’attraction to the
organization’s mission (mission valence).
Two main results are achieved:
- transformational leadership is an organiza-
tional factor associated with higher public
service motivation;
- transformational leadership has an important
indirect effect on mission valence through its
influence on clarifying organizational goals
and fostering public service motivation.
6 Perry and Hondeghem (2008). Motivation in public
management: The call of public service. Oxford
University Press on Demand.
21 34% USA Book n.a. Focuses on what drives the behavior of
government employees and others who are
connected to the public’s business.
7 Naff and Crum (1999). Working for America: Does
public service motivation make a difference?.
Review of Public Personnel Administration, 19(4),
5–16.
20 33% USA Empirical
article
Responses of 9.710 (8.086 valid) federal
employees to a recent survey were examined.
Significant relationships between public service
motivation and federal employees’job satisfaction,
performance, intention to remain with the
government, and support for the government’s
reinvention efforts were found. Public Service
Motivation Measures Included in MSPB Survey only
6 items of the original Perry’s scale, which means
that it has been only partially used.
8 Perry et al. (2010). Revisiting the motivational bases
of public service: Twenty years of research and an
agenda for the future. Public Administration Review,
70(5), 681–690.
17 28% USA/South
Korea +
Belgium +
USA
Review
article
n.a. A review of how (definitions, measures, etc) public
service motivation evolved since the article of
Perry and Wise (1990) was published.
The study highlight several definitions for Public
Service Motivation:
“motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public
institutions and organizations”(Perry & Wise, 1990,
p. 368);
“interests of a community of people, a state,
a nation”(Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999, p. 20);
“public, community, and social service”(Brewer
and Selden 1998, p. 417):
“belief, values and attitudes that go beyond self-
interest and organizational interest, that concern
the interest of a larger political entity”
(Vandenabeele, 2007, p. 547).
It is concluded that research directly focused on
PSM has appeared since 2000 and spanning
disciplines and countries.
(Continued )
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 7

Table 4. (Continued).
Rank Reference
Citation
frequency
Citation %
(citation
frequency/
61)
Authors’
country Type Sample Abstract/main findings
9 Paarlberg and Lavigna (2010). Transformational
leadership and public service motivation: Driving
individual and organizational performance. Public
Administration Review, 70(5), 710–718.
17 28% USA Essay n.a. Based on concepts from transformational
leadership theory and practice, a framework for
how organizational leaders can apply good
management practices to harness the positive
aspects of public service motivation to enhance
individual and organizational performance.
10 Pandey et al. (2008). Public service motivation and
interpersonal citizenship behavior in public
organizations: Testing a preliminary model.
International Public Management Journal, 11(1),
89–108.
17 28% USA Empirical
article
173 questionnaires
Employees working for state
personnel agency in the north-eastern part of the
United States.
Studying relationships between PSM and
citizenship behavior, accounting for organizational
environment (including a measure of co-worker
support), it is found that PSM has a direct and
positive effect on interpersonal citizenship
behavior in public organizations, even when
accounting for the significant role of co-worker
support.
11 Crewson (1997). Public-service motivation: Building
empirical evidence of incidence and effect. Journal
of Public Administration Research and Theory, 7(4),
499–518.
17 28% USA Empirical
article
Three secondary sources (three different surveys) Results show that there is no difference that
public-policy attitudes vary between those who
are and those who are not public service oriented.
It is concluded that public-service motivation is
positively related to organizational commitment.
12 Podsakoff et al. (2003). Common method biases in
behavioral research: A critical review of the
literature and recommended remedies. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879.
16 26% USA Review
article
n.a. To examine the common method biases in
behavioral research through a review and
recommendations to avoid it. A summary of
potential sources of common method biases, how
they can influence research and how to avoid it is
discussed.
13 Bright (2007). Does person-organization fit mediate
the relationship between public service motivation
and the job performance of public employees?.
Review of Public Personnel Administration, 27(4),
361–379.
16 26% USA Empirical
article
205 public employees randomly selected from
a public health care agency, a city government,
and a county jurisdiction located in three
different states.
Many scholars predict that as the level of
PSM increases, the performance of public
employees will also increase. Unfortunately,
existing research has yet to fully support this
hypothesis. Published studies that
tested as the level of
PSM increases, the performance of public
employees will also increase, Based on this, it is
investigated whether Person–Organization Fit
mediates the relationship between PSM and
the self-reported performance of public
employees. It is concluded that PSM had no
significant direct impact on the performance of
public employees, when Person–Organization Fit
was taken into account.
(Continued )
8T. M. G. MARQUES

Table 4. (Continued).
Rank Reference
Citation
frequency
Citation %
(citation
frequency/
61)
Authors’
country Type Sample Abstract/main findings
14 Park and Rainey (2008). Leadership and public
service motivation in US federal agencies.
International Public Management Journal, 11(1),
109–142.
16 26% USA Empirical
article
Over 6,900 federal employees’responses to the
Merit
Principles Survey 2000.
Examines the influences of leadership and
motivational variables especially public service
motivation –on job satisfaction, perceived
performance, quality of work, and turnover
intentions.
Transformation-oriented leadership and public
service-oriented motivation show strong positive
relations to job satisfaction, and perceived
performance and work quality, and negative
relations to intent to turnover.
15 Moynihan and Pandey (2007). The role of
organizations in fostering public service motivation.
Public Administration Review, 67(1), 40–53.
16 26% USA Empirical
article
Data were collected as part of Phase II of the
National Administrative Studies Project
(NASP-II) during 2002–03, 274 responses of state
government health and human service managers.
Based on Perry’s theory, the role that
organizational factors play in shaping public
service motivation is studied.
Results highlight that public service motivation is
positively related to level of education and
membership in professional organizations.
The results also show that red tape and length of
organizational membership are negatively related
to public service motivation, whereas hierarchical
authority and reform efforts have a positive
relationship.
16 Wright and Pandey (2008). Public service motivation
and the assumption of person –Organization fit:
Testing the mediating effect of value congruence.
Administration & Society, 40(5), 502–521.
15 25% USA Empirical
article
206 responses
Survey of managerial and professional employees
in seven public sector organizations in two
American states.
It is concluded that the relationship between
employee public service motivation and job
satisfaction is mediated by the extent to which the
employee perceives that their values are
congruent with those of the public sector
organization they work for.
17 Perry (1997). Antecedents of public service
motivation. Journal of Public Administration Research
and Theory, 7(2), 181–197.
14 23% USA Article Self-administered survey with 375 usable surveys. The article investigates the relationship of PSM to
five sets of correlates: parental socialization,
religious socialization, professional identification,
political ideology, and individual demographic
characteristics.
Hypotheses are generally confirmed by the results.
18 Kim et al. (2012). Investigating the structure and
meaning of public service motivation across
populations: Developing an international
instrument and addressing issues of measurement
invariance. Journal of Public Administration Research
and Theory, 23(1), 79–102.
14 23% International Empirical
article
In most countries, authors used approximately
250 responses.
Focus on the degree to which the theory and
research developed in one country can contribute
to the understanding of PSM in other counties.
A four dimensional 16-item measure of PSM is
developed and tested in 12 countries.
(Continued )
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 9

Table 4. (Continued).
Rank Reference
Citation
frequency
Citation %
(citation
frequency/
61)
Authors’
country Type Sample Abstract/main findings
19 Wright et al. (2013). Measuring public service
motivation: Exploring the equivalence of existing
global measures. International Public Management
Journal, 16(2), 197–223.
13 21% USA Empirical
article
Five separate data sets Multidimensional scales of PSM have frequently
been used, but also short unidimensional or global
measures of PSM. This study provides stronger
evidence of the usefulness of the existing global
measures of PSM. The evidence for the use and the
equivalence of the two measures is the strongest:
a five-item measure of PSM and a four-item
measure of pro-social motivation.
Future research should investigate the differences
between the commonly used single-item and five-
item measures of PSM and the full four dimension
24-item measure developed by Perry (1996).
20 Vandenabeele (2007). Toward a public
administration theory of public service motivation:
An institutional approach. Public Management
Review, 9(4), 545–556.
13 21% Belgium Theoretical
article
n.a. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, joining
elements of institutional theory and motivational
psychology, a more operational theory of PSM is
proposed, composed of three theoretical
propositions:
(1) To the degree that institutions respond to
the individual psychological needs of relat-
edness, competence and autonomy, institu-
tionalized public service values will be
internalized more autonomously in the indi-
vidual identity.
(2) To the degree that a public service identity is
more autonomous, it will result in a more
consistent and intense public service
behavior.
(3) To the degree that a public service identity is
more autonomous, it will result in a more
consistent and intense public service beha-
vior, given that the institution in which the
individual operates embraces the public ser-
vice values.
Source: Data collected from ISI Web of Knowledge.
10 T. M. G. MARQUES

and leadership. Despite the research assumptions that
require cautious consideration, results show that the
interrelated studies of public service motivation and
leadership have started mainly in 2003 and have been
a relatively marginal issue in the first decade of this
research. Only recently, from 2008 onwards, do
researchers seem to have devoted more attention to the
questioning and joining of these issues, and in the last
few years, between 2014 and 2017, 45 papers have been
published relating these two subjects, representing
approximately 74% of the entire sample. Public
Administration Review appears as the leading journal
in terms of number of works on the topics (16%). The
author that has been publishing more works is Bradley
E. Wright that has 5 articles studying public service
motivation and leadership. Authors’national affiliation
has also been analyzed and the US is found to be the
country which most impel the field. After these initial
analyzes, citation analysis revealed that the most cited
study is “The motivational bases of public service”
authored by Perry and Wise (1990), is cited by 35 articles
in the sample (57%), followed by Perry’s(1996)work
entitled “Measuring public service motivation: An
assessment of construct reliability and validity”(46%).
Concerning the study of public service motivation and
leadership, these topics were studied directly together in
the three most cited works of Wright et al. (2012)
entitled “Pulling the levers: Transformational leadership,
public service motivation, and mission valence”reaching
34% of the most co-cited articles; Paarlberg and Lavigna
(2010) entitled “Transformational leadership and public
service motivation: Driving individual and organiza-
tional performance”with a 28% of the co-citations; and
also the study of Park and Rainey (2008)entitled
“Leadership and public service motivation in US federal
agencies”achieving a 26%.
Concerning the co-citation analysis, results clearly
identify the works of Perry and Wise (1990) and
Perry (1996) as being the most co-cited in the existent
literature. Moreover, the thicker connection between
Perry and Wise (1990) and Pandey et al. 2008, Perry
and Wise (1990) and Wright et al. 2012, Perry and
Wise (1990) and Alonso and Lewis (2011) also demon-
strate a strong relationship thus being more co-cited by
other works. The centrality of the works authored by
Perry and Wise (1990) and Perry (1996) denote their
seminal character and influence capacity.
Discussion and concluding remarks
This article aims at being a comprehensive quantitative
literature review based on bibliometric techniques,
focusing on the relevance of public service motivation
and leadership within the public administration
Figure 2. Co-citation network among the top 20 most-cited articles.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 11

research. We thus aim at complementing the conven-
tional qualitative literature reviews. Relying on the
established importance of both topics, it is assumed
that more scientometric studies on public administra-
tion research are needed (Bozeman, 2012). Therefore,
this study relies on all the published articles in SSCI
database until 2018 (January) in the category of Public
Administration, focusing the interrelations between
public service motivation and leadership. The final
sample is composed of 61 articles.
Distinct results of our bibliometric review emerge.
Recently, a continuous increase in the research has
occurred and several papers studying these two subjects
together, with Bradley E. Wright emerging as the most
productive author and the US as the country driving
the research. The most cited study is “The motivational
bases of public service”authored by Perry and Wise
(1990), followed by Perry’s(1996) work entitled
“Measuring public service motivation: An assessment
of construct reliability and validity”.
National affiliation results show that the US is the
most productive country leading the ranking of
authors’national affiliation of this study by far.
Countries from the Latin Europe, for instance, do not
rank high in publishing on these topics, despite of the
public administration sector being well known as hav-
ing been living some serious issues in the last decade.
Although rankings should be carefully interpreted
(López-Duarte et al., 2016), the US nationality of pub-
lications on these topics leads us to the statement of
Boyacigiller and Adler (1991, p. 262) where “cultural
values of the United States underlie and have funda-
mentally framed management research”. Thus, Europe
and other parts of the globe should be extremely cau-
tious when directly adopt the conclusions of studies
from such a different cultural context as the US. More
research apart from American samples should be con-
ducted in order to promote a fully and global under-
standing of the public service motivation and
leadership phenomenon. Besides, based on the exper-
tise of American researchers, future cross-cultural net-
works of researchers may benefit the field of research.
The present study also analyzed the knowledge base
of the research field. Based on the citation analysis, the
study that has received most citations is the seminal
work “The motivational bases of public service”pub-
lished in 1990 authored by Perry and Wise. More than
half of the papers in our sample cite Perry and Wise
(1990) work, thus indicating that the importance and
centrality character of Perry and Wise’s work still
remain in the 21
st
century. Perry’s(1996) work entitled
“Measuring public service motivation: An assessment
of construct reliability and validity”is the second most-
cited work (46%), denoting the influence of measuring
the public service motivation scale based on its original
scale.
The most-cited studies that directly and empirically
study public service motivation and leadership are the
works of Wright et al. (2012) entitled “Pulling the levers:
Transformational leadership, public service motivation,
and mission valence”;PaarlbergandLavigna(2010)
entitled “Transformational leadership and public service
motivation: Driving individual and organizational per-
formance”; and also the study of Park and Rainey (2008)
entitled “Leadership and public service motivation in US
federal agencies”achieving a 26%. Based on these works,
transformational leadership is able to be used in man-
agement practices enhancing individual and organiza-
tional performance taking advantage of public service
motivation (Paarlberg & Lavigna, 2010) once that this
transformational leadership approach is assumed to be
an organizational factor associated with higher public
service motivation (Wright et al., 2012). Moreover,
a transformation-oriented leadership and public service-
oriented motivation show strong positive relations to job
satisfaction, and perceived performance and work qual-
ity, and negative relations to intent to turnover (Park &
Rainey, 2008).
However, scholars call for more research in public
leadership (Van Wart, 2003; Vogel & Masal, 2015).
Ospina (2017) noted that transformational theory has
dominated the behavior of public leaders as well. In our
study, transformational leadership also appears leading
the leadership approaches within the research on public
service motivation and leadership. However, other lea-
dership approaches are welcome to be studied together
with motivational issues in the public administration
sector. Besides formal positions within the organiza-
tion, leaders exist in everywhere in the organization
and communities (Crosby & Bryson, 2018). Moreover,
today’s field of leadership focuses not only on the
leader, but also on several different actors such as
followers, peers, supervisors, work setting/context, and
culture (Avolio et al., 2009), thus a wider range of
leadership theories and approaches are welcome,
indeed “leadership of public leadership research mat-
ters”(Crosby & Bryson, 2018, p. 1).
The recent responsible leadership research avenue
might be a potential example to be studied in the public
administration sector. Joining public leadership scho-
lars with business management scholars was suggested
by Crosby and Bryson (2018). Responsible leadership is
“a relational and ethical phenomenon, which occurs in
social processes of interaction with those who affect or
are affected by leadership and have a stake in the
purpose and vision of the leadership relationship”
12 T. M. G. MARQUES

(Maak & Pless, 2006, p. 103), focusing in a broader
relationship than leader-subordinate, thus assuming
that relationships are the center of leadership and all
the stakeholders have a role in that net of relationships.
The recent call for more studies on sustainability and
responsibility might be explored within the public lea-
dership field, and it might probably benefit from study-
ing the responsible leadership approach, adjusting it to
the public administration field.
Additionally, results of the co-citation analysis
recognize the works of Perry and Wise (1990) and
Perry (1996) as being the most co-cited in the existent
literature. Moreover, the thicker connection between
the three pairs of works of Perry and Wise (1990) and
Pandey et al. 2008, Perry and Wise (1990) and Wright
et al. 2012, Perry and Wise (1990) and Alonso and
Lewis (2001) also demonstrate a strong relationship
thus being more co-cited by other works. Interpre
tation of these results highlight that, despite of having
faced some criticism (Wright et al., 2013), the multi-
dimensional scale composed of four dimensions devel-
oped by Perry (1996) to integrate the public service
motivation dimensions of Perry and Wise (1990),
remains as the most co-cited frequently used measure-
ment of public service motivation within the litera-
ture, thus standing for their seminal character and
influence capacity in the research field of public ser-
vice motivation and leadership.
The strong relationship between the pairs of studies
of Perry and Wise (1990) and Pandey et al. 2008, Perry
and Wise (1990) and Wright et al. 2012, Perry and
Wise (1990) and Alonso and Lewis (2001), indicate
that they were jointly cited often. Thus, leading public
teams demands for a full and accurate understanding of
the drivers and effects of/on public service motivation.
They have in common the US as national affiliation of
their authors, their empirical character and the study of
distinct motivators and effects of public service motiva-
tion on several outcomes. Thus, transformational lea-
dership is found to be an important factor associated
with higher public service motivation, suggesting that
public service motivation can be reinforced by trans-
formational leadership (Wright et al., 2012). The link
between public service motivation and job performance
(Alonso & Lewis, 2001) or public service motivation
and citizenship behavior (Pandey et al., 2008) has been
studied and it is concluded that public service motiva-
tion is positively correlated with citizenship behavior in
public organizations (Pandey et al., 2008). Thus, when
studying drivers and/or consequences of public service
motivation, the seminal work of Perry and Wise (1990)
seems to be an important and used reference and
theoretical base.
The contribution of this study is providing several
results that may guide researchers and scholars to
explore and navigate the disperse and fragmented topics
of public service motivation and leadership in the public
administration category. This study may be also impor-
tant by encouraging scholars’networks across multiple
institutions and perspectives. Furthermore, by using bib-
liometric methods of citations and co-citation analyzes
of the intellectual network, the references that authors
cite in their publications are reflected, and the pairs of
works that were cited together (co-citation) are also
depicted. By adding the final bibliometric diagram it
allows a better understanding of the intellectual structure
of the field.
A bibliometric study does not intend to be an in-depth
literature review but rather to present the intellectual struc-
ture of the research field. As Ni and colleagues stated,
“acting as meta-analysts, bibliometricians whose role is to
present results and not to speculate on their meaning, we,
instead, turn to you reader, the experts in the field, to
interpret or evaluate these results”(Ni et al., 2017, p. 505).
Nevertheless a bibliometric study allows identifying several
areas of future research. Based on the youth and scant
number of publications interrelating public service motiva-
tion and leadership in the public administration field in the
last years, more research is demanded for the future.
Limitations and future research
The first limitation is concerned with the method.
Avery common limitation associated with bibliometric
studies is concerned with the sample that could, even-
tually, include more categories, more type of publica-
tions, or a different search procedure. Similar to other
bibliometric reviews, we have focused on the document
type “Article”. However, future bibliometric studies of
the field may include a comprehensive search in pro-
ceedings, theses and books, so that a broader perspec-
tive of the field can be achieved.
A second methodological limitation is the data
source. For this study, Web of Knowledge was the
used database. Albeit this research includes journals
indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge/SSCI, for future
bibliometric studies a wider range of databases
(e.g., Science Direct; SCOPUS) may be adopted.
Third, this study adopts analyzes of structural ana-
lyzes instead of longitudinal analyzes that could identify
possible shifts over the time. The structured analyzes
were selected due to the scarcity of articles that focused
on both topics. Future studies may adopt a longitudinal
analysis procedure.
Concerning future research, researchers, master and
PhD students may have in this research field high
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 13

potential for developing distinct research avenues. First,
in the future, Southern and Latin Europe countries
would benefit from more research, conducted by their
researchers, on these topics. Results of author’s national
affiliation showed that Southern and Latin researchers
are inexistent. Besides nationality of researchers, using
samples of Southern and Latin countries should be
often used. As Kim et al. (2012) concluded comparing
directly public service motivation across countries raise
certain concerns, once that different cultural context is
an important issue when researching and universalism
in academic management should be carefully included
(Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991). Second, based on the
results of the most-cited studies, transformational lea-
dership appears leading the leadership studies within
the research on public service motivation and leader-
ship. However, changes in society and organizations
molds today’s field of leadership, which is not only
focused on the leader and its followers, but also on
several different actors such as followers, peers, super-
visors, work setting/context, and culture (Avolio et al.,
2009). Thus, the recent responsible leadership research
avenue may be suitable to be studied in the public
administration sector (Marques et al., 2018). The recent
but important call to adopt the concept of responsible
leadership in schools (Oplatka, 2017) suggests that
maybe it could be useful to launch a call for the adop-
tion of responsible leadership in the public administra-
tion field, relating it with the public service motivation.
Therefore, future research may use the responsible lea-
dership approach to advance the knowledge in the
public administration field. By testing the relationship
between responsible leadership and public service moti-
vation, all public servants, public managers and scholars
could extend the knowledge and understanding of these
topics, hence enriching the public sector practices in
terms of organizational behavior.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Ethical approval
This article does not contain any studies with human parti-
cipants or animals performed by the author.
ORCID
Tânia M. G. Marques http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0492-
6233
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