IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/fbbsrw/v9y2020i1p9-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Versus Private Employees: A Perspective on the Characteristics and Implications

Author

Listed:
  • Dimple Sunayna Johnson

Abstract

'You’re fired!' Infamous words spoken by Donald Trump from prime-time television to the White House. Trump, businessman turned politician, has carried over his characteristics from the private sector to the public sector. Are Americans experiencing the Trump effect or is this a result of the businessman turned politician effect? From work motivation to demographics, this commentary highlights key characteristics and associated implications about the public sector and the private sector employees by discussing the following questions: What are the characteristics of the public and private sector employees? What are the implications of these characteristics? Specifically, public service motivation, organizational, commitment, level of effort, intrinsic factors, job content, pay, job security, and work-life balance are discussed. Review of the literature suggests that while similarities do exist between the public sector and private sector employees, there are sufficient characteristic differences that warrant supporting Appleby’s (1945) doctrine that government employees are indeed different.

Suggested Citation

  • Dimple Sunayna Johnson, 2020. "Public Versus Private Employees: A Perspective on the Characteristics and Implications," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 9(1), pages 9-14, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:fbbsrw:v:9:y:2020:i:1:p:9-14
    DOI: 10.1177/2319714519901081
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2319714519901081
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2319714519901081?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert E. Hall, 1972. "Turnover in the Labor Force," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 3(3), pages 709-764.
    2. Hayo C. Baarspul & Celeste P.M. Wilderom, 2011. "Do Employees Behave Differently In Public- Vs Private-Sector Organizations?," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(7), pages 967-1002, October.
    3. Rebecca M. Blank, 1985. "An Analysis of Workers' Choice between Employment in the Public and Private Sectors," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 38(2), pages 211-224, January.
    4. Annick Willem & Ans De Vos & Marc Buelens, 2010. "Comparing Private and Public Sector Employees' Psychological Contracts," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 275-302, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kankaanranta, Terhi & Nummi, Tapio & Vainiomaki, Jari & Halila, Hannu & Hyppola, Harri & Isokoski, Mauri & Kujala, Santero & Kumpusalo, Esko & Mattila, Kari & Virjo, Irma & Vanska, Jukka & Rissanen, P, 2007. "The role of job satisfaction, job dissatisfaction and demographic factors on physicians' intentions to switch work sector from public to private," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 50-64, September.
    2. Christofides, Louis N. & Pashardes, Panos, 2002. "Self/paid-employment, public/private sector selection, and wage differentials," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(6), pages 737-762, December.
    3. Diebold, Francis X & Neumark, David & Polsky, Daniel, 1997. "Job Stability in the United States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(2), pages 206-233, April.
    4. Panchanan Das, 2023. "Creation and Destruction of Jobs in Urban Labour Market: Role of Gender, Caste and Religion in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(1), pages 225-237, March.
    5. Steiner, Viktor & Kwiatkowski, Eugeniusz, 1995. "The Polish labour market in transition," ZEW Discussion Papers 95-03, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Wouter Vermeulen & J. van Ommeren, 2006. "Compensation of regional unemployment in housing markets," CPB Discussion Paper 57, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    7. Terri Menke, 1987. "Economic Welfare and Urban Amenities Across Race-Sex Groups," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 24(2), pages 151-161, April.
    8. Andrew Figura, 2003. "The effect of restructuring on unemployment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-56, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. David Giauque & Frédéric Cornu & Karine Renard & Yves Emery, 2023. "Opportunity to Use New Ways of Working: Do Sectors and Organizational Characteristics Shape Employee Perceptions?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-21, July.
    10. Prümer, Stephanie, 2019. "Ist der Staat der bessere Arbeitgeber? Arbeitsqualität im Öffentlichen und Privaten Sektor in Deutschland," Discussion Papers 107, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    11. Jarkko Turunen, 1998. "Disaggregated wage curves in the United States: evidence from panel data of young workers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(12), pages 1665-1677.
    12. Garibaldi, Pietro & Gomes, Pedro & Sopraseuth, Thepthida, 2021. "Public employment redux," Journal of Government and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(C).
    13. Inmaculada Garcia-Mainar & Victor Montuenga-Gomez, 2003. "The Spanish Wage Curve: 1994-1996," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(9), pages 929-945.
    14. Wouter Vermeulen & Jos Van Ommeren, 2009. "Compensation of Regional Unemployment in Housing Markets," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 71-88, February.
    15. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2005. "The Wage Curve Reloaded," NBER Working Papers 11338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Kertesi, Gábor & Ábrahám, Árpád, 1996. "A munkanélküliség regionális egyenlőtlenségei Magyarországon 1990 és 1995 között. A foglalkoztatási diszkrimináció és az emberi tőke váltakozó szerepe [Regional unemployment rate differentials in H," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 653-681.
    17. Benjamin Austin & Edward Glaeser & Lawrence Summers, 2018. "Jobs for the Heartland: Place-Based Policies in 21st-Century America," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(1 (Spring), pages 151-255.
    18. Aleksey Oshchepkov, 2007. "Are Interregional Wage Differentials in Russia Compensative?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 750, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Hall, Robert E, 1988. "Fluctuations in Equilibrium Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 269-275, May.
    20. Jens Suedekum, 2005. "Increasing returns and spatial unemployment disparities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(2), pages 159-181, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:fbbsrw:v:9:y:2020:i:1:p:9-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.