Eureka! Institutional Repository

Public administration in Greece has been subject to many legislative reform processes in order to be upgraded and so that public organizations and legal entities perform competitive advantages against the competitive market environment, in line with the economic downturn. The human factor is the basis upon which all the necessary correlations between various factors can be made in order for satisfactory services to be provided to the citizens. The purpose of this research is to investigate the importance of factors considered crucial to the performance of public officials under the scope of the recent economic crisis and also to capture the views and trends in the officers perceptions about their work and the leadership of the public administration. It also aims to investigate the correlations between employees’ performance and their motivation, their commitment to their service and their satisfaction in terms of their financial gains. Finally, an effort is made to relate different opinions by examining the factors that may affect them. For the above purposes, empirical research was carried out using a questionnaire addressed to employees and executives of the Public Administration throughout the country of Greece. The population of the sample consisted of 209 participants. The statistical analysis of the data provided important information about the importance of the factors affecting the performance of public servants, highlighting mostly factors that have to do with internal motivation issues such as "Having interest in the position’s tasks" and "Getting satisfaction from the performance of duties", rather than material goods and financial gains. Other important information that has emerged from the survey is that the perceptions of civil servants do not differ significantly among the different groups of the participants. Of significant importance is also the conclusion drawn from the statistical analysis is that public servants with high levels of work motivation as well as with a strong sense of dedication show high levels as well. On the contrary, performances are not influenced by the degree of their earnings satisfaction. After conducting this research, it would not be unreasonable to claim that the economic crisis has not affected to a significant degree the performance of public servants and that their main motivation pillar has to do with internal motivation factors rather than external ones. Lastly, it is worth suggesting further research to be carried out in order to validate the findings of the present study, having a better sample size and using more data collection methods.