Purpose: Public service organizations may improve the quality of services they offer citizens by instilling proactive behavior in their employees. This study aimed to provide insights on how high-involvement work practices may indirectly facilitate proactive behavior in frontline government employees via employee commitment.
Methods: A time-lagged approach was used to collect data from 542 frontline employees in three waves at 3-week intervals. We tested the hypothesized moderated mediation model using a PROCESS macro bootstrap approach.
Results: A moderated-meditation model was applied in which public service motivation was theorized to increase the mediating effect of employee commitment on the relationship between high-involvement work practices and employee proactive behavior. As predicted, the findings show that supervisor’ deviant behavior attenuated the mediating effect of employee commitment on the relationship between high-involvement work practices and employee proactive behavior.
Conclusion: The findings of this research contribute to the emerging literature on public management and have implications for public sector organizations seeking to improve the quality of services they offer citizens.
Keywords: public service motivation, supervisors’ deviant behavior, employee commitment, high-involvement work practices, employee proactive behavior, public sector