ORGANISATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR IN PUBLIC SERVICE: INTEGRATING PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY

Being less researched and viewed negatively, it is not known what makes police officers motivated to consistently perform public service. Public Service Motivation (PSM) can be linked to motivated action within public sector organisations. Similarly to PSM, it has been hypothesised that a sense of community (SOC) is a crucial predictor of employee engagement. The research sample was 258 members of policemen using probability sampling with a proportional random sampling technique. Furthermore, the collected data were analysed with descriptive and inferential analysis techniques using path analysis. The analysis results show that public service motivation can significantly increase the sense of community and organisational citizenship behaviour. A sense of community is proven to influence organisational citizenship behaviour significantly. Meanwhile, the sense of community's significant importance mediates public service motivation's effect on organisational citizenship behaviour. The implications of this research indicate the vital role of public service motivation in increasing the sense of community and organisational citizenship behaviour. The current study also demonstrates that SOC predicts employee engagement more accurately than PSM. The findings shed additional insight and clarity on the predictive value of PSM on employee attitudes and behaviour and highlight the utility of community experiences in public service environments.