The effects of socio-cultural factors on public service motivation: Insights from the Lebanese public service

The infusion of market and business management principles into the public sector has impeded the behaviour of public service motivated employees who are motivated by intrinsic motives. Besides, the infusion of such principles caused great threats to basic values of the civil service, like equity, fairness, justice, accountability, impartiality, public welfare and other values related to the public sector. From here, public service motivation (PSM) emanates as a reaction against these principles/techniques in the civil service. Public management scholars have studied PSM from different angles and perspectives; however, no one has studied the effects of socio-cultural factors on PSM. This study will fill this gap in PSM literature by studying how socio-cultural factors impede/block the development of this construct with lessons learnt from the Lebanese civil service.