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Chapter 5 In the Service of Others? Motivation, Altruism, and Egoism After he had worked for two years inside the welfare department, I asked Terrell what was driving him to stay in his job. Without missing a beat he responded, “I would say that it really is just to have a job and have income come in. You know what really? I just go to work and do what I’m guided to do to get through the day. I’m not really big on serving the clients ’cause a lot of it is BS. But right now my main motivation for being there is really just an income.” As readers will recall from Chapter 3, this motivation closely matches those articulated by experienced caseworkers. What explains these motivations? Did Terrell feel that way at entry, or is he an example of a burned-out bureaucrat? This chapter aims to answer questions like these by tracing and exploring workers’ motivations—the internal psychological forces that guide and compel their behavior (Perry and Hondeghem 2008). Motivation matters in public service, perhaps even more than in the private sector, because public managers are relatively constrained in their ability to reward and punish behavior (Rainey 2003; J. Wilson 1989). As a result, there has long been interest in understanding what exactly motivates public work. In recent years there has been growing attention to public service motivation. This concept has various meanings, but generally refers to the service side of motivation or, put another way, altruistic motives (Perry and Vandenabeele 2008). Though public workers appear to have high levels of this type of motivation compared to their private-sector counterparts (Crewson 1997; Houston 2000), it would be misleading to see them as motivated solely by service—bureaucrats also appear to be driven by a desire for the stability, benefits, and the social standing conferred by a government position (Golden 2000; Perry and Hondegheim 2008). Therefore, motivation is conceived of as a spectrum ranging from altruism, a subjective concern to help or serve other people, to egoism, 88 Chapter 5 a desire to help oneself or satisfy a personal desire. Like all people, bureaucrats are probably driven by various motives and may not fit neatly into categories like “altruist” and “egoist.” Also, their motives may evolve over the course of their careers based on various influences and life changes. To explore these possibilities, this chapter tracks entrants’ motivations during their first two years on the job. Each section begins by discussing entrants’ responses to interview questions about their motives. Following that, it presents descriptive findings from survey data. Since the survey data are readily quantifiable , each section concludes with a statistical analysis of workers’motivations. In short, the findings here show that police officers and welfare caseworkers entered their organizations with different motivations. Police were more motivated by the chance to give back whereas many caseworkers simply needed a steady job. The chapter shows that both groups, though differing in why they sought out public work, remained strongly connected to their entering motivations. Police Officers’ Motivations Interviews When I first spoke with police entrants, they were just beginning their academy training. At that time, I detected a mixture of altruism and egoism. Many cadets voiced altruistic motives like wanting to give back to society at large or their neighborhoods in particular. For example, David commented, “Me as a person, I wanted to get into this because I really wanted to protect people. That’s my thing . . . I wanted to provide people with the same protection that I’ve felt growing up.” Carl indicated that his power was limited, but that he felt he could help out in particular situations: I’m real fascinated by police work, by everything about it. Police officers’ position in society, you know, you can really affect problems and just being in situations like the situations you’ll be called to handle it’s really like no other job. The whole point of your job is to go in and resolve the situation that most people, most sane people, in society think they’ll want to get out of it. Tense situations, anything from car accidents to robberies to murder and all this kind of stuff and all these things that go on in society and most people try to avoid, you get in there and try to have a positive influence on it and whatever and it’s really amazing. It’s this hands on job [3.137.185.180...

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