The Public Service Motivation's Impact on Turnover Intention in Korean Public Organizations: Do Perceived Organizational Politics Matter?

Increasing turnover intention among public employees in Korean public sector organizations endangers both organizational sustainability and public service quality. Although prior research highlights job stress, compensation systems, and organizational culture as key drivers of turnover, scholars in limited empirical studies directly examine the role of public service motivation. In this study, we address this gap by investigating whether public service motivation reduces turnover intention and how perceived organizational politics may moderate this relationship. Using survey data from the 2023 Korean Public Employee Viewpoints Survey-conducted by the Korea Institute of Public Administration and including responses from central and local government employees-we employ stereotype logistic regression for analysis. Results show that public service motivation significantly lowers turnover intention, but its positive effect diminishes when employees perceive high levels of organizational politics. When employees believe that power and resources are distributed based on political interests rather than merit, they experience diminished reciprocity toward their organization. As a result, their intention to leave the organization increases. These findings underscore the need to sustain and enhance public service motivation while mitigating perceived organizational politics. Enhancing fairness, transparency, and trust-while reducing political interference-can preserve public service motivation's positive impact and reduce turnover intention within public sector organizations.