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The Persistence of Prosocial Work Effort as a Function of Mission Match
Author(s) -
Resh William G.,
Marvel John D.,
Wen Bo
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/puar.12882
Subject(s) - prosocial behavior , persistence (discontinuity) , work (physics) , public service motivation , function (biology) , sacrifice , test (biology) , identification (biology) , psychology , social psychology , service (business) , business , political science , public sector , marketing , engineering , law , mechanical engineering , history , paleontology , botany , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , evolutionary biology , biology
Abstract The authors use an online experiment to test the proposal that “mission match” leads to persistent prosocial work effort, whereby employees go above and beyond remunerated job responsibilities to deliver a public good. First, the importance of mission match to persistent prosocial work effort in public and nonprofit organizations is discussed. Then a real‐effort experiment is used to test whether mission match is associated with the persistence of individual work effort under conditions of unreasonable performance expectations. Findings show that subjects’ narrow identification with the mission of the particular organization on whose behalf they are working is a more important determinant of persistence than the extent to which one reports self‐sacrifice as a motivation toward service. Moreover, reported self‐sacrifice does not appear to reinforce the relationship between mission match and persistent prosocial work behavior .