Public Service Motivation and Employee Change-Supportive Intention: Utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract

Implementing change is considered as a difficult task for public organizations. Some individual dispositional factors have been suggested to influence recipient responses to change in public organizations. Past research has shown a link between public service motivation (PSM) and employee positive responses to organizational change. However, the psychological processes underlining this relationship are not specified. Building on the PSM theory and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study examines the role of psychological variables (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) in mediating the relationship between PSM and change-supportive intention. A sample of 143 employees is collected from a public university in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq that was going through a change initiative. The results revealed that PSM predicts change-supportive intention, and the relationship between PSM and change-supportive intention is mediated by change-related attitude and subjective norm. The implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed.