ABSTRACT
The more accurately public sector managers can answer the question of what motivates their employees, the more effective they will be at maximizing productivity, enhancing performance, and advancing the notion of public sector accountability. Four of the five original municipalities, as well as one supplemental municipality, participated in the study and allowed access to employees in each department: public works, fire, police, and administration. Creating opportunities for advancement, deemphasizing the motivational rhetoric of receiving a reward through benefiting society, and realizing that municipal employees face the same influences, reference groups, and external threats as private sector employees are just possible initial steps to improve the congruence between what is desired and received. Such an examination of wants versus gets by individual municipalities may, as many private sector companies have discovered, improve the quality of service and professionalism of the organization as a whole.
