Predictors of work engagement: Drawing on job demands–resources theory and public service motivation

Abstract The scholarship on work engagement has proliferated in the past several decades, building a solid body of evidence for its role in positive achievements at, and attitudes to, work. Similarly, public service motivation (PSM) became a permanent fixture in the public sector management research, having generated insights on predisposition to serving the public and its impact on performance of civil servants. However, there is limited evidence on the relationship between PSM and work engagement. To address this gap, we surveyed 218 civil servants occupying mid‐level management positions in the civil service of a small European country of Moldova. Using moderation analysis, we find that higher PSM strengthens the positive impact of some job resources, such as perceived social impact on work engagement, whereas lower PSM makes the negative effect of some job demands, such as red tape, more pronounced. This highlights the importance of PSM in work engagement of mid‐career managers, and its role as both an enhancer and a coping mechanism. We find that high public service motivation (PSM) strengthens the positive relationship between work engagement and job resources, whereas low PSM makes the negative impact of job demands on work engagement more pronounced. To improve work engagement, public agencies should help employees understand how their individual efforts contribute to the overall prosocial impact of the public service.