Rethinking Public Service Motivation: The role of communal narcissism

Public service motivation (PSM) encompasses self-sacrifice (SS), compassion
(COM), commitment to public values (CPV), and attraction to public participation (APP)
as part of a public service ethic. The public and non-profit sectors are purported to consist
of individuals possessing other-directed, communal values, rather than self-directed,
agentic values characterizing private sector organizations. However, PSM’s positive, or
prosocial bias often discounts self-interested motives and mixed motives. Garnering
insights from personality psychology may further the development of PSM from
multidisciplinary angles. Malevolent personalities in organizations have been evidenced
by decades of research in the private sector. Yet, similar efforts delineating malevolent
types in public and non-profit organizations remain lacking. While a battery of
personality scales access general personality disorders, none has been administered
across sectors to determine if disordered individuals are more likely to be found
employed in a particular sector. The communal narcissism scale is distinct from other malevolent scales because it measures communal traits as a function of domain
specificity. Unlike the agentic version of narcissism, in which self-aggrandizement is
almost immediately apparent to others, in communal narcissism, the self-aggrandizement
component is hidden by a ‘saint-type bias’ and self-proclaimed other-orientation. Some
communal narcissism traits may mimic dimensions of the PSM scale. If a malevolent
personality can mimic public service motivation, then this research would be among the
first to illustrate a dark side of PSM, as recently suggested by PSM scholars.
This research found that CNI was, indeed, associated with PSM, particularly the
self-sacrifice, public participation, and compassion dimensions. Additionally, PSM was
positively associated with the non-profit sector and negatively associated with the private
sector. CNI, in contrast, was indirectly influenced by sector. Specifically, CNI was
positively associated with non-profit sector and negatively associated with the private
sector. An empirical analysis of two studies is presented and future research directions
are discussed.