Why Do Public Employees Lose Motivation to Serve? Psychological Contract Breach, Psychological Distance, and Public Service Motivation

Why do some people experience a decline in public service motivation (PSM) after entering the public sector? Using construal level theory, we explain this self‐demotivation phenomenon by examining the effect of psychological contract breach on PSM and open the black box of related psychological mechanisms. A mediation model is proposed using a sample of 233 Chinese public sector employees and empirically tested using partial least squares‐structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA). The results show that psychological contract breach is negatively associated with PSM and that temporal and spatial distance partially explain this association. The analysis also indicates a partial mediating effect of temporal and spatial distance. Contrary to expectations, the mediating role of social distance and hypotheticality is insignificant.