Comparison of a Multidimensional to a Unidimensional Measure of Public Service Motivation: Predicting Work Attitudes

Significant research has been conducted to understand public service motivation (PSM) in the past decades using either multidimensional or unidimensional measures. This creates uncertainty in the review process about whether findings using one approach hold when other measures are used. PSM research faces the challenge of developing a better understanding of different PSM measures and the relationships between them. This paper compares a multidimensional to a unidimensional measure of PSM, assessing the predictive validity of PSM on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and person–organization fit. The empirical test shows that there is no significant difference in the predictive capacities of PSM on the work attitudes within the data set when using the different PSM measures. It provides some evidence that unidimensional and multidimensional measures of PSM are of comparable utility, at least within the data set used.