The Relationship between Public Service Motivation and Work Outcomes: The Moderating Role of Pay Cut Hemin Ali Hassan* 1 , Xiaodong Zhang 1 , Ahmad Bayiz Ahmad 2,3 and Safeer Ullah Khan 1 1 Donlinks School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing-100083, P.R. China 2 School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, 3 University of Raparin, Kurdistan Region, Iraq Tel: +8615501117588, +8618701363005, +9647504125414, +8615652811515 Email: hemin.dmpf@yahoo.com, xdzhang@manage.ustb.edu.cn, ahmad.bayiz@uor.edu.krd, Safeer89@outlook.com ABSTRACT Despite the increase in research on Public Service Motivation (PSM) in recent years, there is still a lack of empirical research testing factors that may moderate the relationship between PSM and work outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to fill the gap in the literature by empirically exploring the role of salary reduction on the relationship between PSM and work outcomes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) of public employees. A sample of 257 employees is collected from 15 public organizations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The results revealed that PSM is positively associated with organizational commitment, but not with job satisfaction. In addition, pay cut did not show any significant moderating effects on the relationships between PSM and the two work outcomes. However, the pay cut is significantly and negatively related to job satisfaction. CCS Concepts Social and professional topics → Project and people management Keywords PSM; Job satisfaction; organizational commitment; Pay cut; Public Sector; Kurdistan Region 1. INTRODUCTION In the last two decades, Public Service Motivation (PSM) research has grown in public administration [1]. However, more than 80% of PSM research has been conducted in the United States and Europe [2], and until lately, the PSM literature was mainly based on American research [3]. Yet, the PSM research focus is still on the developed countries [4]. Based on a search conducted by Van der Wal [5], most of the research in the developing world started after 2005 and most of it has been conducted in Asian countries. Particularly, there is not much research about PSM and its correlates in the Middle Eastern countries. Since the development of its construct, PSM has become one of the most important research topics [6]. Research has shown that PSM is linked to various positive work outcomes such as job satisfaction [7-9]; organizational commitment [10-12]; organizational citizenship behavior [13]; intention to remain [6, 14]; and organizational efficiency [15]. However, mixed or neutral results were reported in some research conducted on PSM and its outcomes [2]. Therefore, it is important to study variables that may have an impact on the relationship between PSM and its outcomes. In their seminal article, Perry and Wise [16] stated that public service motivated employees value monetary rewards less than the opportunity to serve society. Therefore, from the PSM perspective, money is not the priority of people who want to work in the public sector [17]. However, the importance of money cannot be totally ignored [18], because empirical studies show that money is important for both public and private employees [8]. Therefore, this study would explore the moderating impact of pay cut on the relationships between PSM and two work outcomes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment). Within that frame, this study specifically examines the role of pay cut on the relationships between PSM and employees outcomes based on the notion that pay cut may negatively influence employees’ outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This study aims to contribute to the existing literature on PSM and motivation in public organizations by analyzing the link between PSM and employee outcomes in the Kurdistan Region, an area where relevant research is scarce. In response to the financial difficulties, the Kurdistan Regional Government has taken some austerity measures [19]. One of the measures was a new salary structure called ‘salary-saving system’ for public employees by which public employees’ salaries were reduced by 15 to 75 percent, the higher the salary, the higher the cut-rate. The system adapted from early 2016 to the end of 2018. During that period and from time to time, civil servants have struck over the austerity measures. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 PSM and Work Outcomes PSM is defined as “the beliefs, the values and attitudes that go beyond self-interest and organizational interest, that concern the interests of a larger political entity and that motivate individuals to act accordingly whenever appropriate” [20]. Perry and Hondeghem [6] stated that PSM could be seen as a driver that motivates individuals to contribute to society and to help others. Past research has shown that PSM is associated with many work- Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions@acm.org. ICMSS 2020, January 17–19, 2020, Wuhan, China © 2020 Association for Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-7641-9/20/01…$15.00 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3380625.3380671 229