The public administration literature makes many assertions
that the motivations of individuals who pursue public service
careers differ in important ways from other members of American
society. This research advances the study of these assertions by
This is a revised version of a paper
delivered at the Berkeley Symposium on
Public Management Research, sponsored
by the American Society for Public
Administration Section on Public Administration
Research, July 19, 1993. The
author would like to thank Ramon Aldag,
Gary Brumback, Allen Cassady, Danny
Lam, Lany Lane, Ted Miller, Frank
Sherwood, Don Schwab, Tom Sinclair,
and Alex Weiss for their helpful comments
and suggestions. I am especially
grateful to David Coursey, Susan Paddock,
and Dennis Wittmer, who
facilitated pretesting and final
administration of the survey, and to
Karen Goldman, Daniel Johnson, and
James Comeaux for their research
assistance