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PPMXXX10.1177/0091026014559430Public Personnel ManagementKo and Jun
Article
Public Personnel Management
2015, Vol. 44(2) 192213
A Comparative Analysis The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0091026014559430
Career Preference of Asian ppm.sagepub.com
Undergraduate Students
Abstract
This article examines how various job motivators and perception toward public
service affect university students tendencies to choose public sector jobs in a
comparative context. We address this question using survey data collected from
undergraduate students in China, Singapore, and Korea. The findings indicate that a
positive association exists between motivation to benefit society and public sector
job preference among Singaporean and Korean students, although such a relationship
does not exist among Chinese students. Job security and salary are commonly
important motivators for students who prefer either public or private sector jobs.
Finally, the divergent characteristics of students career goals serve to emphasize the
importance of comparative studies in identifying context-specific and context-general
factors that motivate students toward public service careers.
Keywords
job motivation, public sector careers, comparative study
Corresponding Author:
Kilkon Ko, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanak-ro
Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Korea.
Email: kilkon@snu.ac.kr
Ko and Jun 193
Previous studies in the Western setting reports mixed findings according to which
job motivation, especially within the context of public service motivation (PSM),
affects students career intentions (Chetkovich, 2003; Karl & Peat, 2004; Ng &
Gossett, 2013; Rose, 2013; Taylor, 2005; Vandenabeele, Hondeghem, & Steen, 2004).1
In the Asian context, however, researchers observe that meritocracy based on aca-
demic achievement is the golden rule for recruiting talented employees (Frederickson,
194 Public Personnel Management 44(2)
2002; Tan, 2008), a finding which does not fully address the nature of the motivating
factors that lead individuals to careers in the public sector. Although scholars have
been studying career motivations for college students in the United States and in
Western contexts in recent years, there has been limited research on Asian students,
especially in a comparative setting. Our analysis of job motivation focuses on Asian
students, and it controls for heterogeneous perceptions of the government, to provide
a better insight into their motivations in relation to public sector job choice.
Using unique survey data collected from university students in China, Singapore,
and South Korea, we conduct a series of quantitative analyses to address these research
objectives. The present study contributes to our empirical understanding of job moti-
vation in a number of ways. First, there are only a handful of studies that explore Asian
students job motivations and career preferences, especially in a comparative context.
Our main research contribution is to fill this gap in the literature which focuses on
Western contexts. Second, comparative analysis is crucial for two primary reasons. On
one hand, students career preferences for the public sector may reflect national differ-
ences in the perception and effectiveness of public administration. On the other hand,
we cannot exclude the possibility that some motivators have a broad appeal that mani-
fests itself in different countries. Finally, where previous studies have focused on
PSM, which predominantly measures intrinsic motivational factors, this study consid-
ers both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors in investigating students career
intentions. By addressing this empirical question in a comparative setting, we further
inform the development of job choice and motivation theories that have primarily been
studied in the Western context.
associated with public service (Crewson, 1997; Frank & Lewis, 2004; Houston, 2000;
Liu, 2009; Perry, 1996). In their seminal work, Perry and Wise (1990) implicitly
argued that PSM is a unique motivator found mainly in the public sector. Perry and
Hondeghem (2008), however, modified this thesis by arguing that PSM may charac-
terize motivations in other arenas of society that involve pursuit of public good (p. 3)
and thus it might exist outside the public sector. Among the four dimensions of PSM,
some studies have mainly focused on norm-based motive that entails commitment to
public interest and the community (Brewer & Selden, 1998; Rainey & Steinbauer,
1999). But if serving public interest is, as these researchers suggest, a ubiquitous moti-
vator among job seekers, it is important to explore whether students seeking public
sector jobs are more affected by such motivation than private sector job seekers.
Various empirical studies have based their investigation around these theories of
motivation in the public sector, using a single survey item to measure the norm-based
public service motives of college students and their job preferences. Findings are
mixed, however, in the Western context. Some students who favor public service were
motivated by intrinsic factors, such as commitment to the public interest, but this find-
ing was not consistent for all countries. In the United States, Chetkovich (2003) found
that public policy graduate students who pursue public sector jobs hope to make a
difference in society more so than those who choose private jobs, and that those who
prefer private sector jobs are more often motivated by financial resources and profes-
sional development. More recently, Ng and Gossett (2013) studied the career choices
of Canadian Millennialsstudents born after 1980and find that the desire to con-
tribute to society exists a priori to actual employment in the public sector (p. 352,
Italic emphasis added). In their study of the work values and PSM of students major-
ing in business and public service, Karl and Peat (2004) reported that public service
majors consider extrinsic values (such as, wages and benefits) to be as important as
ones chance to benefit society. Finally, studying 297 Australian university students
job motivation, Taylor (2005) stated that public sector job seekers are most concerned
about job security and fair salary; opportunity to benefit the wider community does not
appear to be a significant motivating factor for Australian students.
Our main argument is that, if we are to gain a genuine understanding of students
career intentions, we must control for other extrinsic job motives that may affect stu-
dents career intentions. An intrinsic factor such as norm-based motivation is only one
of many various job motives that affect students career preferences. For employees in
the public sector, previous studies suggest other extrinsic factors that may affect their
career choice, such as job security (Baldwin, 1990; Bellante & Link, 1981; Jurkiewicz,
Massey, & Brown, 1998; Schuster, 1974), social status and prestige (Jurkiewicz et al.,
1998; Lyons et al., 2006; Rainey, 1982; Wittmer, 1991), opportunities for promotion
(Gabris & Simo, 1995; Houston, 2000; Karl & Sutton, 1998; Wittmer, 1991), and a
friendly work environment (Khojasteh, 1993; Lyons et al., 2006; Wittmer, 1991).
In the Asian context, only a handful of studies investigate the relationship between
students job motivations and career intentions. Liu, Hui, Hu, Yang, and Yu (2011)
argued that, for Chinese students, the norm-based motivecommitment to public
interestis not significantly related to occupational intentions whereas the
196 Public Personnel Management 44(2)
in the public sector. During the period when the Korean military controlled the civil
service system from 1961 to 1987, a stable merit-based civil service system was suc-
cessfully developed. As a result, technocrats were able to competently guide economic
development throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Ha & Kang, 2011; Hwang, 1996). In
the decades since, the Korean government has continuously adopted a variety of
administrative reform measures. Reflecting such progress, the World Banks (2009)
government effectiveness indicator ranks South Korea in the 86th percentile among
212 countries in the world.
Finally, Singapore has developed a highly efficient and transparent administrative
system, which is well known to comparative public administration scholars (Quah,
2010; Bellows 2009). While the Peoples Action Party has dominated political power
since 1959, the entire civil service management process is firmly grounded on the
merit principle. The Singapore government actively recruits highly competent workers
by paying high salaries. Singaporean public servants are paid wages that compete
with, and sometimes exceed, the wages offered by private companies. In 2008,
Singapore was ranked as having the most effective government in the world, by the
World Banks (2009) government effectiveness indicator.
Despite these different contexts in terms of the stage of administrative development
and the levels of government effectiveness, all three countries students, in general,
consider public service as a highly attractive career choice. Singapores civil service
has been respected by its citizens because of its efficiency and its freedom from cor-
ruption (Quah, 2010; Schneider, 1987). In Korea, public servants are considered as
the pillars of development in society and are credited for the countrys rapid eco-
nomic development (World Bank, 1993). Although Korean bureaucracy came under
heavy criticism for its policy failure during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, few
Koreans deny that civil servants are still powerful in making crucial decisions affect-
ing the economic and social lives of citizens. And in China, 1.4 million applicants took
the National Public Servant exam in December 2010 and, among them, only 1 in 64
found a job in the public service (Shaobin, 2010). The competition rate in China was
slightly lower than that in South Korea (1 in 82.8) for the same year (H. Lee, 2010).
In this research, our main argument is that the divergent empirical findings con-
cerning students career intentions and job motivations can be explained from a
comparative perspective, which suggests a dissimilar impact of different administra-
tive contexts (Giauque et al., 2011). By broadening Herzbergs (1966) notion of
hygiene factors that deal with job context and lead to job dissatisfaction, we note that
the administrative contexts in which public sector jobs are embedded will also affect
whether students are attracted to careers in the public sector.
More importantly, the strengths and weaknesses of administrative contexts are
reflected in students perception toward public officials. When a countrys civil service
loses public confidence, students will be less likely to be favorably disposed toward
public sector employment. It is probable that negative perception of government may be
a hygiene factor.2 One example is China, where students are well aware of the prevailing
corruption of public officials. Some of them might not want to work for the government
because they believe that working for the government may not be the best way to
198 Public Personnel Management 44(2)
promote public interests. Hence, we argue that students perception toward government
work in different administrative contexts is critical in examining the relationship between
job motives and career intentions in the public sector. To reflect these contextual differ-
ences of three countries, we controlled for students perception of the integrity, commit-
ment, competency, and professionalism exhibited by the civil servants in each country.
Although the literature calls for more comparative studies (Kim & Vandenabeele,
2010; Vandenabeele et al., 2006; Vandenabeele & Van de Walle, 2008), cross-national
studies are rare, and little is known about cross-national variations of the relationship
between the job motivations and university students public sector job preference.
Thus, we arrive at our second set of research questions: Do the administrative contexts
reflected in students perception of civil service impact their public sector career inten-
tions? Are there cross-national differences in students motivations and job choices?
Research Design
This research examines factors that are related to the level of interest undergraduates
show in public sector jobs. We also analyze country-specific differences in the impact
of job motivationin particular, a norm-based motive, the chance to benefit society
on students career intentions toward public sector jobs. Using a unique set of survey
data collected in China, South Korea, and Singapore, we conduct a series of logistic
analyses to address our research questions.
Sources of Data
This research targets the undergraduate students in China, South Korea, and Singapore.
Three Asian countries were selected based their different stages of administrative
effectiveness according to the World Banks (2009) Governance Indicator. We sur-
veyed 9 out of the 16 first-class universities in China. In Singapore, we surveyed the
National University of Singapore, which boasts the greatest number of graduates who
opt to work in the public sector and is one of the most prestigious and largest universi-
ties in Singapore. Finally, we conducted surveys at 10 Korean universities located in
Seoul and other regions. All the selected universities are among the most prestigious
in their respective countries. Data were collected between 2009 and 2011. We also
considered students majors in the sampling design because prospective civil servants
usually major in political science, public administration, economics, business manage-
ment, law, and other related fields.
One significant limitation of our data collection is the difficulty in adopting prob-
ability sampling. A sampling of students at elite universities does not adequately rep-
resent entire undergraduate student populations. According to the National Bureau of
Statistics of China, China has approximately 2,442 regular institutions of higher edu-
cation, as of 2013. In Korea, there are 340 colleges and universities. Due to the practi-
cal limitations of data collection, we targeted a limited number of prestigious
universities in three countries based on researchers subjective judgments. Hence, the
interpretation of the findings should be done with care.
Ko and Jun 199
Independent Variables
The primary independent variables in this model are job motivators, including an
intrinsic norm-based motivator, which is measured as the chance to benefit society.
Because students pursue their careers based on both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators,
we include other job motivators such as salary, promotion opportunities, job security,
self-development, and availability of leisure time. Based on Jurkiewicz et al.s (1998)
comprehensive list of intrinsic and extrinsic job motivators, which is used in other
motivation research, we adopt 15 motivators in our research to examine students
career intentions. The respondents were asked to rank 15 job motivations using a scale
numbering 1 to 15; a ranking of 1 was used to indicate the most important factor, and
15 to indicate the least important factor.
We also include students perceptions of government in the model as a hygiene fac-
tor. For instance, seeing that the Chinese government suffers from a high level of cor-
ruption, this would deter Chinese students from choosing public sector jobs. We
measure students attitudes toward government using five heuristics. Four of these
measures involve evaluating the work of civil servants; these evaluate their commit-
ment to their work, their incompetence, their level of lethargy, their professionalism,
and their level of corruption. These perception variables were measured by a series of
questions that ask whether the respondents agreed to the statement, such as Civil
servants are committed to their works (yes = 1; no = 0). The final measure evaluates
the students level of trust in governmental decision-making. This variable was
200 Public Personnel Management 44(2)
Note. The response rate is based on all returned responses. Percentages in parentheses are the column
percentages.
Findings
The impact of job motivation on students career intentions in the public sector and the
differences of such impact are tested across three countries. Our findings suggest that
cross-country variation is significant, and that the degree of self-selection of students
with higher norm-based motivators differs in three countries. In addition, we also find
that extrinsic motivators, such as job security and high salary, are important factors
which serve to induce university students to enter the public sector.
Note. F test for sectoral differences (private vs. public). CI = confidence interval.
*p < .1. **p < .05. ***p < .01.
Note. Trust is measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale, others are measured on the binary scales (yes =
1, no = 0). CI = confidence interval.
From these results, we can conclude that students judgments about the competency
and integrity of the government significantly differ based on the developmental stage
of public administration that their nation is experiencing. Our argument is that
Ko and Jun 203
204
Independent variables B (SE) Odds ratio B (SE) Odds ratio B (SE) Odds ratio
Job motivators
A stable and secure future 0.03 (0.04) 1.03 0.14 (0.05) 1.15*** 0.16 (0.04) 1.17***
Chance to learn new things 0.10 (0.05) 0.91** 0.05 (0.04) 0.95 0.05 (0.04) 0.96
Chance to benefit society 0.02 (0.04) 1.02 0.13 (0.04) 1.14*** 0.15 (0.04) 1.16***
Chance to exercise leadership 0.09 (0.05) 0.91** 0.06 (0.04) 0.94 0.07 (0.04) 0.94
Working as part of a team 0.01 (0.05) 0.99 0.01 (0.04) 0.99 0.01 (0.04) 0.99
Variety in work assignments 0.14 (0.05) 0.87*** 0.02 (0.04) 0.98 0.02 (0.04) 0.98
High prestige and social status 0.04 (0.04) 1.04 0.01 (0.04) 0.99 0.04 (0.04) 0.97
Friendly and congenial associates 0.09 (0.04) 0.92** 0.06 (0.04) 0.94 0.05 (0.04) 0.95
High salary 0.04 (0.04) 0.96 0.14 (0.04) 0.87*** 0 (0.04) 1
Chance to use my special abilities 0.08 (0.04) 0.92** 0.06 (0.04) 0.94 0.03 (0.04) 1.03
Chance to make important decisions 0.02 (0.05) 0.98 0.12 (0.04) 1.13*** 0.04 (0.04) 1.04
Chance to engage in leisure activities 0.08 (0.05) 0.92 0.01 (0.05) 0.99 0.01 (0.04) 0.99
Freedom from pressures to conform 0.06 (0.05) 0.94 0.01 (0.05) 0.99 0.04 (0.05) 0.96
Opportunity for advancement 0.06 (0.04) 0.94 0.02 (0.04) 1.02 0.07 (0.04) 0.93*
Perceptions of government
Commitment (yes = 1) 0.14 (0.20) 1.15 0.35 (0.21) 1.42 0.14 (0.24) 0.87
Incompetence (yes = 1) 0.57 (0.20) 0.57*** 0.59 (0.23) 0.55** 0.43 (0.28) 0.65
Lethargy (yes = 1) 0.23 (0.2) 0.79 0.03 (0.22) 1.03 0.37 (0.22) 0.69*
Professionalism (yes = 1) 0.30 (0.21) 0.74 0.3 (0.21) 1.36 0.21 (0.26) 1.24
Corruption (yes = 1) 0.01 (0.20) 1.01 0.64 (0.21) 0.53*** 1.1 (0.49) 0.33**
Trust toward government (Likert-type scale) 0.36 (0.15) 1.44** 0.04 (0.12) 0.96 0.05 (0.15) 1.05
Control variables
Public administration education (yes = 1) 0.18 (0.19) 1.2 0.53 (0.22) 1.7** 1.53 (0.25) 4.6***
Gender (male = 1) 0.16 (0.20) 0.85 0.02 (0.21) 1.02 0.31 (0.23) 0.73
Intercept 4.35 (4.24) 77.82 0.73 (3.76) 2.07 1.56 (3.56) 0.21
n 549 605 636
Nagelkerkes Max-rescaled R2 .25 .35 .36
Third, with respect to the impact of public administration education on career pref-
erences for the public sector, we find a statistically significant and positive impact
among Korean and Singaporean students. This is not the case for Chinese students.
Considering that the public administration discipline became an independent field
from political science in the major Chinese universities in China, this finding is par-
ticularly interesting and further research needs to be done.
Fourth, in tension with the common sense explanation that female students of Asian
countries may prefer to choose public sector jobs to avoid gender discrimination, gen-
der is not the statistically significant factor in students preferences for public service
careers. This statistically insignificant result is at odds with findings in Western coun-
tries, where female students tend to prefer government jobs more than their male coun-
terparts (Lewis & Frank, 2002; Ng & Gossett, 2013).
Finally, in our investigation of the impact of perceptions of civil service on career
intention, we find mixed results. That is, students perceptions of civil service, which
reflect the different administrative contexts, can be considered as additional extrinsic
factor that may motivate students to or deter students from preferring a career in
thepublic sector. The interesting finding, however, is that this impact differs from one
country to another: The more students view civil servants as being incompetent, the
less likely they will be to choose public sector jobs. This finding is statistically signifi-
cant only for Chinese and Korean students. And our research about the perception of
corruption yields another interesting result: The coefficients for Korean and Singapore
students are negative, which shows that students are less likely to prefer public sector
jobs if they have the impression that their civil servants are corrupt. In other words,
corruption in government deters Korean and Singaporean students from preferring
careers in public service; however, this was not the case for Chinese students. Finally,
trust in government has a positive impact on prospective public sector employment
among the Chinese students.
To illustrate the differences in the integrated logit model, Figure 1 presents the
marginal effect of chance to benefit society on the probability of public sector job
preference. Singaporean students show a lower probability of choosing public sector
Ko and Jun 207
0.9
Probability of Public Sector Career Intention
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5 China
Korea
0.4
Singapore
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Rank of Chance to Benefit Society
jobs given the same level of chance to benefit society as other countries, which is con-
sistent with our descriptive statistics analysis in Table 1. In contrast, Korean students
show a higher probability of choosing public sector jobs compared with students in
other Asian countries. The pattern of positive impact of chance to benefit society on
public sector career intentions is comparatively weaker in China.
Salary negatively affects students career preferences for public sector jobs over
private sector jobs, although this result is not found among Chinese and Singaporean
students (see Table 4 and Figure 2).5 This does not mean that salary is unimportant to
Chinese and Singaporean students public sector job preference; it only means that
salary is of roughly equal importance for both public and private sector job seekers in
China and Singapore.
Concluding Discussions
This article investigates, in a comparative context, how different job motivators and
perceptions toward government in different administrative contexts affect university
students preference for public sector careers. Our analysis results reveal that there is
208 Public Personnel Management 44(2)
0.9
Probability of Public Sector Career Intention
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5 China
Korea
0.4
Singapore
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Rank of Salary
Figure 2. Marginal effect of high salary on predicted probability of career intention in public
service.
Second, our findings suggest that the presence of a norm-based motivator such as
chance to benefit society does not guarantee that a student will prefer the public sector.
It is true that students who prefer public sector jobs rank chance to benefit to society
relatively higher that those who prefer private sector jobs. This result, however, does
not mean that the norm-based motivator is more important than salary and job security,
even to public sector job seekers. If students do not associate their government with
qualities like integrity, competence, and trustworthiness, they may not want to pursue
a career in the public sector. The mere emphasis on chance to benefit to society in the
absence of other extrinsic and intrinsic job motivators is counterproductive to the goal
of attracting talented young people, as it involves an incomplete understanding of the
job motivation of undergraduates. Therefore, it is crucial that public managers design
their recruitment policies taking into consideration diverse job motivations and other
extrinsic factors, such as the image of government, affecting students job choice.
Third, the cross-country variations in perception toward public service are not triv-
ial factors determining job choices. Students in each country have different percep-
tions of government (see Table 3). For instance, only 10% of Singapores students
answer that most civil servants are corrupt, while 57% of Chinese students do so. Such
perceptions toward civil service efficiency and degree of trust in government, affects
students career intentions in China but not in Singapore and Korea. We believe that
this dissimilar impact of perception toward government on students career intentions
is primarily due to the different administrative developmental stages that the students
are embedded in.
Finally, our analysis demonstrates that public sector job interests of students in each
country are affected differently by gender and public administration education. Thus,
there is a greater need for comparative and empirical job motivation research to devise
effective recruitment strategies for the public personnel management agencies in each
country.
Our research is not without limitations. First, the representativeness of the sample
may pose an issue. Due to the exclusion of students majoring in engineering and natu-
ral sciences, and the failure to acquire a probability sample, a word of caution is neces-
sary in generalizing our findings to all university students. Second, university students
job motivations can differ by region, time, and sector. But why is it that we observe
such heterogeneous job motivations in these various contexts? This question, which
our article leaves unanswered, would be a critical question for future studies to address.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
210 Public Personnel Management 44(2)
Notes
1. In the Western context, some findings suggest the importance of an attraction to policy
making and other findings stress the motivating role of serving ones community and con-
tributing to society.
2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this crucial point.
3. In addition to the descriptive statistics, correlation matrices are available upon request.
4. In the SAS PROC LOGISTIC procedure, we can test the differences in regression coef-
ficients by using CONTRAST statement. We tested whether the interaction terms, such as
Public service motivation (PSM) Country dummy coefficients, are statistically the same.
5. Figure 2 shows a similar pattern. Korean students who are highly motivated by salary tend
to choose the private sector job. The pattern is not statistically significant in Singapore and
China, however.
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Author Biographies
Kilkon Ko is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul
National University, and editor-in-chief of the Asian Journal of Political Science. He received
his PhD in public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. His major research
topics are administrative reform of the Chinese government, corruption, comparative public
administration, and decision-making theory.
Kyu-Nahm Jun is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Wayne State
University in Detroit, Michigan. She holds a PhD in public administration from the University
of Southern California. Her research focuses on community-based citizen participation and
local government responsiveness. Other research interests include job motivations of under-
graduate students and the role of information technology in changing relations between citizen
and government agencies in urban governance.
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