While previous studies have identified transformational leadership, job autonomy, and innovative organizational culture as key factors influencing employees’ innovative work behavior within public organizations, the interactive effects remain underexplored. To address this gap, this study draws on leader–member exchange, self-determination, and job characteristics theories to examine how these elements synergistically contribute to employees’ innovative work behavior. Using survey data from 4,133 South Korean public servants in central and local government, this study employs partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the moderated mediation framework. The findings reveal that transformational leadership is positively associated with innovative work behavior, with job autonomy partially mediating this relationship. It also suggests that an innovative organizational culture has not only direct and moderating effects of transformational leadership on job autonomy but also on innovative work behavior. Ultimately, it highlights that when public employees perceive a high level of innovative organizational culture, the indirect effect of transformational leadership on innovative work behavior, mediated by job autonomy, becomes more pronounced. This study concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, as well as future research, and emphasizes the critical role of public organizations in creating environments that support innovation among public employees.

This article investigates the factors that discourage employees from engaging in formal complaining behavior within government agencies, particularly in response to workplace misconduct such as sexual harassment. The data used in this study were obtained from the Merit Principles Survey (MPS) 2021, and covariance structure analysis (CSA) was applied to examine the relationships between variables. Guided by social identity theory (SIT), the study tests hypotheses related to perceived disincentives that may inhibit employees from submitting formal complaints. A key contribution of this research lies in its integrated analysis of three critical deterrents—non-disclosure agreements, non-disclosure policies, and the perceived seriousness of threats—which have not previously been examined collectively in the context of complaint behavior. The results offer valuable insights for public sector administrators aiming to foster transparent and responsive organizational cultures.

Public employees working away from the office has become more common in recent years, but the impact of these changes is not fully understood. This study considers whether out-of-office work culture impacts how employees come to make sense of their organizations, jobs, and work life, and, in turn, how this may affect job satisfaction. Using Stata 15’s random sampling tool, the authors employ Structural Equation Modeling of three random samples of 2,000 respondents from the 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Findings indicate that employees are likely to perceive more goal clarity and support for work–life balance where out-of-office work proliferates, leading to higher job satisfaction. By altering how employees interact with their colleagues, working away from the office often leaves employees with clearer perceptions of organizational goals and boundaries around their work lives. In turn, this supports higher job satisfaction as public servants have a stronger understanding of their work identities. This adds further dimension to understanding how the push toward telework or similar arrangements impacts organizations and employees in the public sector.

In recent years, growth-oriented leadership (GOL) has come to the fore as a salient predictor of positive employee outcomes in public sector contexts. This empirical paper examines the role of GOL in shaping perceptions of quantitative demands as a product of an evolved New Public Management (NPM) context and the subsequent impact on stress and well-being for 419 local government employees working in Western Australia. While latent in previous GOL-oriented studies, this paper is the first to explore the intersection of GOL and quantitative demands, noting that the former has an established positive effect on employee wellbeing, and the opposite case for the latter. Drawing on the challenge-hindrance framework, this article argues that GOL helps to shape employees’ primary appraisals of demands as challenges, rather than hindrances, in the post-NPM environment. The results indicate strong, direct negative relationships linking GOL with quantitative demands and stress, and a strong positive relationship between GOL and well-being. This study establishes GOL as a relevant capability for public leaders in supporting employees to deal effectively with public service demands and subsequently grow. Understanding how leadership capability, and particularly GOL, can shape the employee experience is important in ensuring the effective delivery of public services.

Employee performance management (PM) can benefit employees, organizations, and wider stakeholders, but it is often done poorly, and public administrations pose contextual constraints to doing it well. It has inherent tensions between the goal of accountability and development, is complex, and requires alignment across both a formal administrative level and an informal psychosocial level. In public administration, three contextual factors add complexity and difficulty—competing goals, red tape and public service motivation. This study examines how line managers—a neglected group in PM studies—“do” performance management in practice. Data were collected via interviews with public sector managers in the “new public management” influenced New Zealand public sector. Competing goals and red tape make PM difficult, offer little accountability, and inhibit employee development, which often must run parallel to formal practices. They also limit managerial skill development. Failings in one practice, such as setting employee goals, impact subsequent formal and informal practices. Public service motivation provides workarounds. To work well, modern performance management could be reconstrued less as a compliance activity and more as a psychosocial process reinforced by a formal, prescribed organization system. Practical insights into barriers and opportunities, to improve performance management, are identified.

Diversity and social equity efforts have two core dimensions: talk and walk. Social equity is directly related to the democratic principle of justice. Hiring and retaining a diverse, representative public sector workforce is an important factor in achieving social equity. There are several current concerns that impact future diversity efforts in federal employment. It is important to expand the emphasis on diversity in federal government in agencies that offer the most employment opportunities to do so. Finally, but perhaps most ironically, the federal agency upon which many of the reader rely for diversity data, the US Census Bureau, comprises a senior leadership group that is overwhelmingly White. A commitment to representative bureaucracy remains a vitally important component of public personnel management. Several recent Executive Orders have made important contributions to strengthening the commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in federal employment.

This chapter focuses to leadership succession management and strategic HRM in nonprofit organizations. It explores how HR can strategically contribute to the organizational goal of having a succession plan contingent on different circumstances. In summary, the chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of HRM in nonprofit organizations, with a focus on the unique challenges and considerations faced by these organizations. Many people believe nonprofit organizations are exempt from state and federal employment laws, but this is a misconception. Non-profit organizations rely heavily on volunteers as a crucial part of their human resources. Nonprofits face unique labor relations challenges since they are mission driven rather than profit driven, which can affect staffing and compensation. Leadership management and succession planning pose unique challenges to nonprofits, particularly smaller organizations. Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) emphasizes the importance of understanding the strategic orientation of a nonprofit organization and how HR can plan accordingly to contribute to that strategy systematically.

This chapter reviews the five types of organizational justice: distributive; procedural; informational; interpersonal; and overall or global justice perceptions. It describes why fair treatment in the workplace is important, how fairness perceptions are formed, and why justice violations can be psychologically damaging. The chapter uses examples from federal court cases on various forms of discrimination to demonstrate how justice violations are present in discrimination claims. It uses key cases from the US federal courts on different forms of discrimination to demonstrate how different types of justice violations led to discrimination complaints. Court cases on discrimination represent both legal violations and violations of perceived organizational justice. Justice violations are seen as a threat to a person’s identity. One strategy organizations can pursue is to include issues of fairness in their supervisory training. While employees and managers may be skeptical about another training on diversity, investments in fostering a fairer workplace can provide multiple benefits, including reducing discrimination.