Attractiveness of public sector employment at the pre-entry level - a hierarchical model approach and analysis of gender effects

摘要

Understanding what characterizes individuals who choose to work for the public sector is critical to public management research and practice. This article explores the effect of Big Five personality traits, PSM, and work values on the attractiveness of public sector employment. The hierarchical model approach allows disentangling possible existing relationships between those concepts and provides answers to whether specific work values and PSM dimensions drive the attractiveness of public sector employment or whether the variance is accounted for by deeper level personality traits. Multi-group analyses revealed important gender effects, suggesting that considering gender as a control variable may be insufficient.