From Work Motivation to Technology Acceptance in Public Organizations: Cognitive Pathways and Institutional Conditions

Digital transformation in public organizations depends not only on technological implementation, but also on how public employees interpret and respond to organizational change. This study examines how work motivation shapes public servants’ evaluative responses to technological systems by integrating Self-Determination Theory with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Using survey data from 317 civil servants of the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service collected during the implementation of a new information system, we test a mediation model using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that work motivation does not exert a significant direct effect on attitude toward technology use. Instead, its influence is fully transmitted through performance expectancy and facilitating conditions, while effort expectancy and social influence do not show significant effects. These findings indicate that motivation acts as a distal psychological condition whose impact depends on employees’ perceptions of performance gains and organizational support. By clarifying the cognitive pathways linking motivation to employees’ evaluations of technological change in mandatory-use public-sector contexts, this study advances research on digital transformation and employee-level dynamics in public organizations.