The Assessment of the Employment Relationship by Civil Servants. Theoretical and Empirical Insights From a Study in District Courts in Lower Saxony**

Zusammenfassung

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Civil servants in Germany are commonly considered to have special privileges particularly with regard to their employment conditions. This belief is based on the fact that German civil servants ("Beamte") cannot be discharged, which is an aspect of their employment relationship that attracts attention especially in times when the state of the economy is weak. But does security of employment actually play such an important role in the consciousness of employees? Is security of employment really an outstanding determinant of work behaviour or only one factor amongst many others? And: compared to other employees and due to the security of employment civil servants enjoy, do they assess their work situation and their employment relationship differently? In this article we deal with these as well as some further questions. To explain the attitudes towards the employment relationship we present a general model and discuss how the attributes of different types of employment can be incorporated in this model. Theoretical considerations will play a major role in our article. We take this focus deliberately, because the analysis of empirical results demands theoretical interpretation, and because we want to make a contribution to theory development. Our empirical study is based on surveys in eight district courts in Lower Saxony, in twenty-six small and medium sized enterprises and on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel.

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Auszug

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The Assessment of the Employment Relationship by Civil Servants. Theoretical and Empirical Insights From a Study in District Courts in Lower Saxony**

1. Introduction

There have been very few studies on the work attitudes of civil servants. A fact that is somewhat astonishing because the employment relationships of civil servants in Germany have some peculiarities that are often viewed as strongly affecting the attitudes and the behaviour of this distinct group of employees. Of special interest are, of course, the differences between German civil servants and employees working in the private sector of the economy. We present the results of two studies, which were conducted at eight district courts in Lower Saxony and at twenty-six small and medium sized enterprises in the region of Hamburg. To attain comparability we used identical methods of data collection. For the analysis and interpretation of the empirical results we employed an integrative theoretical approach that - despite the obvious differences in the employment conditions - allowed us to examine whether the fundamental causal relations between the work attitudes remain the same.

2. The civil service: attributes and reasons for a satisfying employment relationship

With the term "civil servants" we mean employees who in Germany are called "Beamte". They are a special group of employees in the civil service in Germany, who should not be mistaken for those civil service employees, who principally have the same status as employees in the private sector of the economy. With regard to the labour law, the employment relationship of civil servants substantially differs from the employment relationship of other employees. So, for example, civil servants have to fulfil special duties and the state has special obligations towards their servants (Scheerbarth et al. 1992; Werres/Boewe 2006). The civil servants have to guarantee the governmental capacity to act, they are strictly bound by the law and they have to show special loyalty to the state. Furthermore, civil servants are not allowed to enter into industrial dispute with their employers, for example, by going on strike. The employment conditions are not determined by labour agreements, but by law. The state has to ensure the economic independence of its civil servants and give them adequate pension provisions. Civil servants are entitled to life-long employment, which is a distinctive feature in a world of volatile labour markets.

Considering the job security civil servants enjoy, it would be surprising if the civil servants did not evaluate their employment relationship very positively. In addition, civil servants normally have superior jobs with high motivational potential and therefore the evaluation should be significantly better than that of other employees. Furthermore, the special relationship between the state and its servants should induce an extraordinary work ethos giving the work experience a positive accentuation.

However, the legislatively regulated employment of civil servants also has its downside. The special duties of civil servants usually go along with special burdens (inconvenient work time, relocation, demanding clients etc.). The power of the employer to dete...

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