Public Service Motivation and Morale: Exploratory Study of Former Agents of the National Security Intelligence of Korea

This article examines the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and morale by surveying former bureaucrats from the National Security Intelligence (NIS) of Korea. Despite decades of research, there is still much room for exploring the effects of PSM and morale by extending the scope to government retirees. Our data demonstrate that the higher the level of PSM, the higher the level of morale both before and after retirement. We also find that recent political turmoil surrounding the agency influences the former agents of the agency. With the present study, we make theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature by addressing the PSM and morale of government retirees, who have been underrepresented in the literature to date, using empirical data from former agents of the NIS, which has also been rarely presented in previous research.