Does Person-Organization Fit Mediate the Relationship Between Public Service Motivation and the Job Performance of Public Employees?

Public service motivation (PSM) is argued to be a meaningful predictor of the performance of employees in public organizations. Many scholars predict that as the level of PSM increases, the performance of public employees will also increase. Unfortunately, existing research has yet to fully support this hypothesis. Two published studies that tested this hypothesis have come to different conclusions. This study investigated whether Person—Organization Fit (P—O Fit) mediates the relationship between PSM and the self-reported performance of public employees, using structural equation modeling. Using a sample of 205 public employees randomly drawn from three public organizations, this study found that PSM had no significant direct impact on the performance of public employees, when P—O Fit was taken into account. The implications of this study and areas of future research are discussed.