Sementelli, Arthur J.

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.

The term profession is found throughout the scholarly literature; despite frequent
use of the term, there exists little or no means of providing a common conception of the
term. Consequently, calls for increasing professionalization of public administration
appear to be premature. Therefore, this dissertation utilizes inductive research to generate
theory, which synthesizes the inchoate concept of the professional public administrator.
The motivation to pursue this line of inquiry stems from a personal need to weigh
in on the perennial debate about what skills, knowledge, and information should be
communicated to future generations of public administration thinkers and practitioners.
To that end, this research will provide a theoretical framework grounded in the literature,
which federates the term professional and the professional concept in such a way that
purposeful debates can be had. It is, as will be shown, an attempt to link understanding
and interpretation.

Recent concern in the United States about human trafficking has been directed
primarily on the foreign victims that are brought into the United States rather than on U.S.
citizenship who become involved. However, the topic has broadened and has significant
impact on the daily lives of U.S citizens. Taking a human rights perspective, this
dissertation explores how human trafficking has been used as a “brand” to achieve
political and/or economic objectives. Human trafficking has taken away the human rights
for individuals and threatens their security. This dissertation is grounded in Critical Theory
and uses narrative analysis as a methodological framework. Using 99 public documents
from Global Report on Trafficking in Persons by the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime, International Labor Organization, and Office for Victims of Crime and other
Departments of the U.S working on human trafficking issues, with the support of Nvivo
software, the dissertation insists that human trafficking violates human rights, has no
capacity to support human emancipation, and causes human beings to be treated as animals or objects or commodified a brand. Even though a brand is a mark and logo in economic
development and refers to objects, not human beings. Human development is the objective
that everyone wants to achieve. Regardless of development, the welfare of all human
beings must be the chief concern; every effort to halt all human emancipation must be
initiated immediately.