Public opinion polls consistently suggest that government employment is not considered to be highly prestigious by most Americans. These negative images are likely to stifle the public sector’s recruitment and retention efforts. Scholars have suggested that individuals with high levels of public service motivation (PSM) are better equipped to work in these environments, yet no studies can be found that have directly explored the relationships between PSM and the perceptions that public employees hold regarding the images that citizens hold of their organizations. This article sought to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the extent to which perceptions of organizational prestige (POP) mediate the relationship between PSM and the job satisfaction and turnover intentions of public employees. Using a sample of federal employees working for the Transportation Security Administration in Oregon, this study found that POP fully mediated the relationship between PSM and turnover intentions and partially mediated the relationship between PSM and job satisfaction. The implications of these findings are discussed.

舆论民意测验始终表明，大多数美国人并不认为政府的工作享有很高的声望。这些负面形象可能会扼杀公共部门的招聘和保留工作。学者们提出，具有较高公共服务动机（PSM）的个人在这些环境中工作的能力更强，但没有发现直接探讨PSM与公共员工对公民形象的看法之间关系的研究。掌握他们的组织。本文试图通过探索对组织信誉（POP）的理解在多大程度上介导PSM与公共雇员的工作满意度和离职意图之间的关系，来填补文献中的空白。这项研究使用俄勒冈州运输安全管理局工作的联邦雇员样本，发现POP完全调节了PSM与离职意向之间的关系，部分调节了PSM与工作满意度之间的关系。讨论了这些发现的含义。