The Fundaments of Applying the Concept of Public Service Motivation in the South-Eastern European States

Public Service Motivation (PSM) is a relatively recent concept, defined for the first time in the 1990s in the United States by Perry and Wise as being the general predisposition of an individual to respond to motives, values which are to be encountered only in public institutions. These values, which represent the basis for the construction of PSM are not institutionalized in the same degree and in the same manner everywhere, which creates differences according to the specificity of the region, the state or the organizational environment. European studies regarding PSM have mainly focused on Western Europe: France, The Netherlands, Belgium. For this reason, in this article we aim to analyze the concept of PSM and set the basis for a thorough research in order to make it operational in the countries of South-Eastern Europe: Romania and Bulgaria. Thus, we wish to bring our own contribution to the development of a theoretical and methodological framework for PSM in Romania and in South-Eastern European countries. The objectives of the article focus on: formulating an exhaustive definition of the concept, analysing Perry's measurement scale based on 24 items and the relevance of these items in the above-mentioned countries, adapting/adjusting the measurement scale according to the national/regional specificities of the public service values.