Dehart-Davis’ “Gender Dimensions of Public Service Motivation” Essay (Critical Writing)

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Introduction

The article by DeHart-Davis, Marlowe and Pandey (2006) describes a study on gender-related issues in the dimension of public service motivation, which was defined as a predisposition to respond to motives in public organizations. The goal of the study was to determine the presence of femininity and masculinity pertinent to three dimensions of the public service motivation scale. The survey administered to public managers revealed that women score higher than men in the dimension of compassion, which was consistent with the hypothesis. However, the results also indicated lower scores for men than for women on attraction to policymaking, which contradicted the expectations of the researchers and show no statistically significant gender differences in the dimension of commitment to public service (DeHart-Davis et al., 2006).

Main body

The authors’ primary goal was to locate the possible misalignment of emphases in public administration theory due to the prevalence of masculine imagery used to describe leadership practices, personal traits of managers, and even the specificities of the bureaucratic process itself. Such a situation is understandably undesirable, as it opens up the possibility of biased assessment and distorts the relevant information on organizational performance. Therefore, the results presented in the article are important for several reasons.

First, the category of compassion, which is used as one of the dimensions for the survey, is one of the relatively complex fields in public administration. It is traditionally excluded from the theoretical framework and, therefore, resides in the informal domain. At the same time, it plays a significant role in the facilitation of policy delivery on the street level (DeHart-Davis et al., 2006). Therefore, it needs to be properly understood to perform reliable evaluation among public administration workers. The results presented in the article coupled with the implication that male respondents tend to suppress their feelings to comply with socially assigned roles allow us to identify new directions for research as well as review the previous results and metrics used for assessment.

Second, the unexpected result of a higher level of attraction to policymaking among women identifies a shift from the traditionally masculine perspective on the matter. It should be acknowledged that one of the possible explanations offered by the authors (the rapid pace of change towards a more homogenized approach) may potentially undermine not only the rest of the findings but also render the fundamental premise of predominantly masculine perspective in public administration obsolete (DeHart-Davis et al., 2006). Therefore, this result can be considered the most important in terms of directing further inquiry.

Third, the lack of statistically significant difference in commitment to public service suggests a possible change in professional performance when viewed in the context of previous research on the matter. As data from the existing literature suggests lower scores among women in this dimension, it would be reasonable to use the recent findings to corroborate the results discussed above. Simply put, of the three metrics, two can be considered as contradicting the initial suggestion.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the questions raised by the authors reveal an additional dimension in the public service field that can be useful in achieving greater precision and reliability of performance assessment of the employees. However, the obtained results do not allow for definitive conclusions and are more useful as marking directions for further inquiry on the possible effect of gender-related issues on public service motivation than for making adjustments to the established evaluation practices and policies.

Reference

DeHart-Davis, L., Marlowe, J., & Pandey, S. K. (2006). Gender dimensions of public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 66(6), 873-887.

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