Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A large number of literature has investigated determinants of government employees’ satisfaction with job, pay, and organization. Many studies explore how individual and organizational characteristics could affect individual job satisfaction. Yet, few articles put a focus on considering the satisfaction score as an organization-level variable for explanations. Research also shows that the internal processes of agencies are likely to change following an external political change. This presentation focuses on organization-level workplace satisfaction and answers two research questions: How does workplace satisfaction in the U.S. Federal Government adapt to external political changes? What, if any, subagency- and agency-level characteristics can help to explain the relationship between political changes and workplace satisfaction? Our data comes from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) conducted from 2002 to 2016. We aggregate subagency- and agency-level variables, create the panel data, and generate three-level interrupted time series models to explore the possible relationships. The dependent variable is a combined average outcome of an agency’s workplace satisfaction. Time-level variables include a survey-year variable and a political-change variable measuring the adaptation of workplace satisfaction when a new administration took office. Subagency-level variables are generated from the responses to questions regarding work unit. Agency-level variables are generated from the responses to questions regarding agency. This presentation provides a methodological perspective of time series hierarchical linear models to measure indicators of workplace satisfaction, therefore help understanding the complex relationship between workplace satisfaction and external political changes.