Case 11 1. In your own words, can you describe the Wise concept of “public service culture”? What does the author mean by that term? What assumptions about human nature does her motivational concept rest on? Do you believe these are valid assumptions? a. Public service culture is a human need. Unfortunately, these days that means where the money is, employees will go. People use to be satisfied with helping the public, but now without appropriate compensation it is hard to keep some employees. Healy’s assumptions are that people will do no wrong and what is best for their community, I think, but I do not agree that is always true. People, especially in the political world, usually have ulterior motives if they are not going to be financially reimbursed. 2. Why does Wise argue that public service motivation is found more often in government than business or elsewhere? Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? b. Wise thinks that public service motivation is found more in the government than business because it focuses on serving the people. I do agree because the government is here to help and protect the public. 3. Regarding the foregoing case study, “Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?”, describe the various cross-pressures and multiple responsibilities that Healy faced. Why do these persisting cross-pressures and responsibilities make it so difficult to frame a clear, consistent motivational system in government or nonprofits? c. Healy faced a lot of pressures throughout her career. Healy was hired to change things within the company, but her seniors did not give her the opportunity to make positive change. I think what ended her career was the rejection and feelings of being unwanted while she was there. These pressures make it difficult for companies because it is hard to be motivated when you are hired to do a job your employers do not even trust you to do. 4. Are public sector motives rooted in rational, norm-based, affective categories, as Wise’s essay theorizes? Why or why not? d. I think that public sector motives are rooted in rational, norm-based, affective categories. If you are in a customer/social service occupation, you help and form relationships with the public. In order to do this you have to be motived and make decisions that will most benefit the people. 5. Given the difficult realities of the contemporary working environment of public administration today, how would you develop and implement an effective “public service culture” for a government agency? Assess some of the strengths and weaknesses of this system that you envisioned, as well as the difficulties in establishing it. e. To develop and implement an effective “public service culture”, I would focus on the hiring aspect of the process. We would need to make sure the people hired are truly interested and committed to serving the public. They would need to pay attention to public interests and care more about that than they do the money. Also, They’d need to commit themselves to sticking with the job for a while instead of leaving before they’re 100% trained. They need to be loyal to what they are doing and to their superiors. It will be difficult to find these qualities in people without giving them the pay the probably deserve, though. 6. Select any one of the prior cases in this text and examine carefully the motivations of one or more of the public officials. How do these motives compare and contrast with those discussed in Case 11—are they the same or fundamentally different? Explain why. f. I think that in the NASA case (case 4), the public officials were more motivated with being successful and concerned with the launch than the issues the shuttle was actually having. There was no communication barely between officials and the engineers, and maybe if there were the launch would have been successful. I think the same thing could possibly be related to this case. If there was maybe more communication between the officials and Healy, she would have had a better idea of what they wanted and they would have had more trust in her. Both cases dealt with someone being pressured to be successful, but neither had anyone really communicating or listening to their concerns.