Prospects of Mortality Salience for Promoting Sustainable Public Sector Management: A Survey Experiment on Public Service Motivation

The United Nations has established 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global initiative to achieve a more sustainable future. Within these goals, SDG16 emphasizes the significance of sustainable public sector management, which profoundly influences the accomplishment of other SDGs. Enhancing public service motivation is a critical element in advancing sustainable public sector management. This study explores the potential of mortality salience as an intervention to bolster public service motivation, aiming to provide valuable insights for SDG16. Specifically, the study investigates the varied effects of mortality salience on public service motivation using a survey experiment and employs machine learning techniques. The findings reveal a significant positive impact of mortality salience on public service motivation. Furthermore, this study highlights that this impact is more prominent in organizations characterized by high levels of servant leadership and extrinsic rewards, as well as low levels of organization-based self-esteem. These findings have practical implications for fostering sustainable public sector management in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.