Revisiting public service motivation: A context-specific exploration of its linkages to job performance pre- and post-COVID-19

This study examines how public service motivation (PSM) influences job performance, with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as a mediating factor and the COVID-19 pandemic as a moderating factor. It intends to revisit the relevance of PSM in the Korean public sector, particularly focusing on trends observed before and after the pandemic. Using 19,700 observations from South Korea’s public employee perception surveys (2017–2021), this study employs a mediation regression model with the moderating impact of the pandemic, while controlling for variables related to administrative routines and workplace environments. The results found that PSM positively influences job performance through OCB; however, the pandemic insignificantly moderates the PSM-job performance link. With a deeper understanding of the recent dynamics of the PSM-OCB-job performance sequence in the Korean public sector, this study implies that strengthening motivational constructs can consistently drive sustained improvements in job performance, even in the face of external disruptions.