Control and motivation in task performance of public servants at home office in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great turmoil throughout the world. Although it is epidemiological in nature, its impact has extended beyond the health domain (Sotola, Pillay, & Gebreselassie, 2021). To prevent the spread of the virus, as a result of the thousands of confirmed cases worldwide, national and international health authorities have adopted a variety of strategies (Peci, Avellaneda, & Suzuki, 2021) and recommended the implementation of social distancing policies to contain the spread of the virus that causes the disease (Cunha, Domingos, Rocha, & Torres, 2021; Tabari, Amini, Moghadami, & Moosavi, 2020; World Health Organization, 2020).

After this recommendation, organizations increasingly adhered to home office since organizational workplaces may lead to large gatherings of people (Nexo Jornal Ltda, 2020). After this preventive measure was adopted, there have been changes to working time, e.g. workers perform their activities at home and work outside of working hours, i.e. they work either more or fewer hours than stated in their contract (Stirpe & Zarraga-Oberty, 2017).

For that matter, both public and private organizations have implemented home office arrangements to stop the spread of COVID-19 (Oliveira, Abranches, & Lana, 2020) and have been successful in allowing employees to balance their personal life and work activities, thus increasing the well-being of the organization (Richardson & McKenna, 2014).

At home office, job performance is important for both employees--in terms of psychological and tangible incentives--and for the organization as a whole (Sonnentag & Frese, 2002), so that the latter can continue to pursue its purpose. The literature has recognized that human behavior is one of the determining factors for performance (Widener, 2007). In this context, behaviors related to autonomous motivation and controlled motivation have become a recurrent topic in business magazines.

Autonomous motivation indicates a state of nonregulation in which there is no intention or motivation to perform a behavior (Ryan & Deci, 2000). In turn, controlled motivation involves behavior resulting from perceived pressure to act in such way (Rigby & Ryan, 2018).

Task performance indicates how effectively individuals perform activities that contribute to the technical core of the organization (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993) regarding quantity, precision and quality of work performed, operational efficiency, ability to meet delivery deadlines, productivity, work planning among other aspects.

However, literature on home office brings a consensus that managers are challenged by not being able to follow the actions of workers with regard to task performance, placing more emphasis on production controls (Felstead, Jewson, & Walters, 2005; Kurland & Egan, 1999), and this assumption is in line with control theory.

Control theory is concerned with the processes used by organizations to ensure that employee actions are aligned with objectives (Snell, 1992), but it also suggests that, when direct monitoring of employees is impossible, production controls will gain importance (Eisenhardt, 1985; Snell, 1992), that is, managers will emphasize goals, performance indicators, results and employee management.

In the practice-oriented literature, different authors have claimed that autonomous motivation is linked to several positive outcomes, such as employee engagement, employee productivity and task performance (Pink, 2011). Both controlled motivation and autonomous motivation are highly volatile, but they differ primarily in the fact that autonomous motivation is based on interest and pleasure, i.e. people adopt these behaviors because they are considered engaging or even fun, whereas controlled motivations are based on a sense of value; people consider activities to be valuable, even if they are not enjoyable (Slemp, Field, & Cho, 2020).

From this reflection, the question is what is the influence of output control of autonomous motivation and controlled motivation in task performance of public servants at home office when facing COVID-19?

This question is the guiding principle of this study, whose objective is to analyze the influence of output control, autonomous motivation and controlled motivation on task performance of public servants at home office in the face of COVID-19. The analysis will be made based on the perception of public servants and intends to contribute to the field in three separate ways.

The first contribution is to offer potential information that is required to improve both professional autonomy and managerial control in home office activities, as well as discuss how this information can indicate informational demands and benefits of control in the interaction among managers, employees and organizations. It also aims to provide a parameter of how motivations are related to professional performance and managerial control, by integrating previous research studies addressing the connections among home office, control, performance and motivation.

The second contribution is to show that most studies on home office and COVID-19 have focused on telework experiences, future perspectives, personal and professional characteristics (Baert, Lippens, Moens, Weytjens, & Sterkens, 2020), use of mobile technologies, complementary control system, employee autonomy and management control (Porter & Van den Hooff, 2020). On the other hand, prepandemic studies on task performance investigated role conflict, role ambiguity, emotional quotient (Amilin, 2017), performance measurement system, psychological empowerment, job satisfaction (Souza & Beuren, 2018), goal orientation, task complexity (Sanusi, Iskandar, Monroe, & Saleh, 2018), internal communication and engagement of public servants (Castanha, Beuren, & Gasparetto, 2020). Therefore, little is known about the analyses and combinations of the constructs: output control, autonomous and controlled motivations, and how last two reflect on the task performance of public servants in the context of home office in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last but not least, the third contribution is to test the hypotheses--using the findings from this research--that managers will prioritize output controls by allowing their employees to home office, when dealing with unfamiliar and adverse circumstances. If this is the case, the study will provide a foundation for deeper understanding of how managers deal with the challenges of managing workers at "home office" amid a pandemic crisis.

Theoretical background

2.1 Control mechanisms and home office

Performance targets are unclear and management techniques used in the private sector are often seen as inappropriate for the public sector (Boyne, 2002). However, at present, control mechanisms have gained importance in public institutions as these are supposed to work properly to make institutional governance more effective. These mechanisms are implemented with the aim of increasing efficiency, effectiveness and resource savings, reducing the risk of asset value loss and, consequently, ensuring the reliability of financial statements and compliance with current laws and regulations; in summary, they must be supported at the highest institutional level (Pena, 2014).

Control is the process of aligning the actions of employees with the interests of the organization and, when the company defines its strategic objectives, it must inevitably achieve them, with estimation and application of control mechanisms (Anthony & Govindarajan, 2007; Snell, 1992), called managerial controls (Merchant & Van der Stede, 2012) or organizational controls (Flamholtz, 1996).

In Ouchi's understanding (1979), control mechanisms are defined in formal or informal terms, and such definition includes the ways in which employees interact with one another. These control mechanisms enable various functions/activities to be carried out, including the coordination of tasks and activities in different parts of the organization (Velez, Sanchez, & Alvarez-Dardet, 2008), and they can also influence the behavior of individuals to help them align with the organization's objectives (Lorange & Scott, 1974; Otley, 1999; Ferreira & Otley, 2009; Tessier & Otley, 2012; Langevin & Mendoza, 2013; Chenhall & Moers, 2015; Young, Du, Dworkis, & Olsen, 2016).

In this case, public organizations may apply various categories of controls, depending on their management needs, especially to define and assign tasks, providing public managers with various possibilities or mechanisms to control task performance of public servants, thus making positive interventions towards their performance. Goal setting provides guidance for the team to perform their tasks (McDonough, 2000), thus helping them to increase commitment (Davila, 2000) and to reduce conflicting interpretations about the expected results (Zhang & Doll, 2001), which enables the execution of the organization's strategic objectives.

However, the direction of work must be flexible enough to provide space for creative problem-solving and local autonomy. In addition, strategic objectives encourage employees to undertake challenging tasks (Sundbo, 1996), especially nonroutine ones, and specific goals are established for achievement of high performance (Campbell & Furrer, 1995). Complex nonroutine tasks, including those remotely performed by public servants, pose a challenge to goal setting because performance is difficult to measure accurately (Latham & Yukl, 1975).

In this sense, high expectations are placed on team leaders, who are responsible for managing operations, leading the team, and using their ability to influence the surrounding organization. The team, in turn, must have a diverse composition in terms of cross-functional experience, attitudes and motivation for success, as well as a sufficient knowledge base to complete their work satisfactorily (Snell, 1992).

For Merchant (1982), output control is the...