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MASLOW AND THE MODERN PUBLIC SERVANT: A LATERAL APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE AND INTEGRITY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR WORK ENVIRONMENT
Author(s) -
Stretton Simon
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8500.1994.tb01870.x
Subject(s) - maslow's hierarchy of needs , public sector , ethos , public relations , new public management , duty , managerialism , scrutiny , sociology , business , political science , psychology , social psychology , law
Modern public sector management faces greater challenges today than ever before. The public are requiring outcomes that exhibit efficiency, integrity and equity from all levels of the public sector, and new managerialism is trying to achieve these disparate outcomes under increasing scrutiny. Focus is increasingly upon achieving and motivating organisational vision or ethos that will enable the desired principles and other outcomes to be pursued in an otherwise less regulated public sector. This paper examines behaviour in the public sector workplace in terms of Maslow's scale of human needs, for two reasons. First, while it is only one of several theories of human motivation, it was uniquely specific about what causes people to do what they do; and second, the theory represented a prescription for the achievement of the perfect “self‐actualised” public servant for whom public duty and personal motivation became synthesised into one.