The study provides empirical and practical contributions to the public administration field and these findings add to the
debate concerning the value of public service ethos theory for public sector occupations (see Pratchett and Wingfield
1996; Hebson et al. 2003; Le Grand 2003). We also suggest that the findings will be of interest to policymakers who
seek to introduce radical changes to the delivery of public services. It cannot be assumed that reforms will have no
impact upon the values and behaviors of those public sector professionals whom the reforms affect. Whether this is of
concern to policy makers is, of course, another matter. The dynamic nature of the variables conceptualized in
the present study show an interesting and complicated picture due, in part, to the multifaceted nature of the constructs under examination. The pragmatic outcome for public sector organizations and their managers is the
empirical evidence of the propensity of these value systems and attitudes (conceptualized here as independent variables), to predict OCB. As discussed earlier, OCB is related to organizational and group performance as well as overall
efficiency, customer satisfaction, and performance, and negatively related to waste (e.g., Podsakoff and Mackenzie
1997; Waltz and Niehoff 1996; Podsakoff et al. 2009). It is also reported that managers are willing to place a monetary
value on this type of helpful and discretionary behavior (Orr et al. 1989). It is well established that, for example,
fairness, leader support, and conscientiousness predict OCB (Podsakoff et al. 1990; Organ and Ryan 1995) and
recent empirical evidence has started to emerge to show that public service motivation is also an antecedent to OCB
(Kim 2006, 2009; Moynihan and Pandey 2008; Pandey et al. 2008). In line with these findings, the public service
belief and public interest dimensions are positively associated with OCBI. Interestingly, the finding that public
service practice dimension is unrelated to OCBI may be that this dimension is concerned, in part, with bureaucracy
and formalization and may act in a way to prevent OCBI. Further, it is concerned with organizational practices that
are perceived to support motivation towards public service and may give some credence to those who argue that the
public sector reforms of recent years have undermined traditional values. As positive associations with OCB are
beneficial to all organizations in many ways this research represents tangible evidence for claims in the literature that
such an ethos or motivation is related to OCB and notably with the focus towards individuals. As such, this supports
the work of others who indicate that public service values and motivations need to be nurtured (e.g., Brereton and
Temple 1999; O Toole 1993; Perry and Hondeghem 2008; Moynihan 2008). It is claimed that this ethos is valuable
(Pratchett and Wingfield 1996; Le Grand 2003) and the present study demonstrates this through empirical evidence
of its power to predict OCBI. As theorized, the three dimensions of public service ethos do not have a rela-
tionship to OCB directed towards the organization.