Perceived Public Participation Efficacy: The Differential Influence of Public Service Motivation Across Organizational Strata

Given the crucial role of bureaucrats in determining the success of participatory policy-making efforts, understanding the factors that influence their beliefs about public participation is an important research goal. Building on public service motivation (PSM) and organizational echelons theory, this study develops a model of perceived participation efficacy for civil servants and tests it using data from a survey of South Korean central government employees. Ordered logistic regression analysis suggests that PSM plays a differential role in determining beliefs about participation across organizational strata. Monte Carlo simulations are used to better understand this effect. The results suggest that PSM is a significant factor in determining perceived participation efficacy for high-level civil servants but plays little role for lower level, frontline employees. A number of implications of this study, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.