Reinforcement Mechanisms and Public Sector Productivity: Evidence from Makassar City Regional Research and Innovation Agency

This paper investigates how rewards and punishments influence civil servants’ performance in Makassar City Regional Research and Innovation Agency Makassar, Indonesia, with discipline acting as a mediating factor. A quantitative explanatory design was employed, surveying all 90 civil servants through structured questionnaires supported by secondary data. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the hypothesized pathways between constructs. The analysis reveals that rewards significantly improved discipline, and punishments had a moderate positive effect, but neither directly affected performance. Discipline strongly enhanced performance and mediated the effects of both rewards and punishments, confirming its pivotal role in performance management. The model explained 45% of the variance in discipline and 52% of the variance in performance, indicating moderate explanatory power. These findings support reinforcement theory by demonstrating that incentives and sanctions are effective when they foster disciplined behavior, which then drives productivity. The study contributes to public administration literature by clarifying the mediating role of discipline in performance outcomes. It suggests that performance-based allowances, recognition, and sanctions should be embedded within disciplinary frameworks to improve productivity in the civil service. Future research should broaden the scope across agencies and cultural contexts to validate and extend these results.