arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

Comparing the Employability of Public and Private Employees: The Role of PSM and Red Tape in Linking Employability and Work Engagement

Rick T. Borst et al.

Public Personnel Management2025https://doi.org/10.1177/00910260241312933article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.37

What the paper says

Although the employability of employees has increasingly become an issue for both public and private employers, the employability in especially public organizations is under pressure due to its relatively aging workforce compared to the private sector. Moreover, scholars argue that employability outcomes such as work engagement are particularly under pressure among public-sector employees relative to private-sector employees because public-sector employees have to deal with red tape and experience possible hindrance of their public service motivation (PSM). At the same time, these propositions are understudied, and scholars call for more contextualized research comparing the public and private sectors. This study therefore compares the moderating effects of PSM and red tape in the relationships between perceived employability and work engagement across the public and private sectors. Based on comparative structural equation modeling on samples of Dutch government employees ( N = 9,427) and private-sector employees ( N = 2,057), it is concluded that PSM undermines the relation between perceived internal and external employability and work engagement of both public- and private-sector employees, respectively. Moreover, red tape is less undermining for public-sector employees in the relationships between respectively perceived internal and external employability and work engagement than for private-sector employees. Based on the results, contributions are discussed.

1 citation

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00910260241312933

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{rick2025,
  title        = {{Comparing the Employability of Public and Private Employees: The Role of PSM and Red Tape in Linking Employability and Work Engagement}},
  author       = {Rick T. Borst et al.},
  journal      = {Public Personnel Management},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00910260241312933},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Comparing the Employability of Public and Private Employees: The Role of PSM and Red Tape in Linking Employability and Work Engagement

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.37

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.