Public-Service Motivation and Proactive Administrative Behavior: Organizational Commitment and Servant-Like Supervisory Behavior in the Korean Civil Service

This study examines how public-service motivation (PSM) is associated with proactive administrative behavior among Korean civil servants and identifies organizational and supervisory conditions that help translate public-service motives into work behavior. Building on a motivation-attitude-behavior framework, organizational commitment is modeled as an attitudinal conversion mechanism, while servant-like supervisory behavior is examined as a contextual condition that may enable committed employees to express their commitment through proactive administrative behavior. Using the 2021 Survey on Civil Servants’ Work and Life ( N  = 4,133), the study estimates the proposed model using partial least squares structural equation modeling with bootstrapped tests of mediation and interaction effects. PSM is positively associated with proactive administrative behavior both directly and indirectly through organizational commitment. Servant-like supervisory behavior strengthens the organizational commitment–proactive administrative behavior relationship, whereas its interaction with PSM is not statistically significant. The findings suggest that supervisory context may matter most at the attitude-to-behavior translation stage rather than as a general amplifier of public-service motives. The analysis distinguishes the measured behavioral construct from broader claims about risk-taking and accountability pressure, and treats the single-source cross-sectional design as a substantive limitation rather than as a concern that statistical diagnostics can fully eliminate.