Research on the Mechanism of Organizational Hierarchy on the

Work Attitude of Chinese Local Civil Servants based on Big Data

San Yang

, Xun Zeng

and Jian Kang

1c*

School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,

No. 2006 Xiyuan Avenue, Chengdu, China

School of Management, Sichuan University of Science & Engineering, Zigong, China

Keywords: Civil Servants, Organizational Hierarchy, Work Attitudes, General Self-efficacy.

Abstract: This paper integrates the variables of organizational hierarchy and general self-efficacy that affects civil

servants' work attitudes and constructs a hypothetical model reflecting the relationship between those three

variables. This paper collected questionnaire data from 2353 civil servants in China using the internet

snowballing methods and built a big data database. It found through regression analysis that organizational

hierarchy positively affects local government civil servants' work attitudes: the higher the organizational

hierarchy, the better the work attitudes of local government civil servants; general self-efficacy plays a

mediating role between organizational hierarchy and local government civil servants' work attitudes. The

empirical results of this paper suggest that China needs to pay attention to the improvement of civil servants'

work attitudes at the grassroots level, improve the treatment of civil servants at the grassroots level, improve

the promotion mechanism of civil servants at the grassroots level, and strengthen the humanistic care for civil

servants at the grassroots level, so as to enhance the general self-efficacy of civil servants and achieve the

improvement of civil servants' work attitudes.

1 INTRODUCTION

The work attitude of civil servants in government

departments is one of the important aspects affecting

the effectiveness of service-oriented government

construction, and the study of civil servants' work

attitude has received extensive attention(Zhu 2017）.

In 2004, the Chinese government's work report

proposed for the first time that service-oriented

government is the main goal of Chinese government

reform. Many studies have shown that government

performance is significantly influenced by the work

attitudes of government civil servants (Kang 2017).

Many studies have shown that government

performance is significantly influenced by the

attitude of government employees. Currently,

Chinese local government civil servants are facing

multiple political and administrative pressures, which

makes it more challenging to maintain a good work

attitude of local government civil servants. This

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0466-5125

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5585-7325

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8448-3534

brings the government a realistic question: whether

local government civil servants can maintain good

work attitudes despite the increased intensity of

pressure and thus maintain the level of public

satisfaction with the government. Previous studies on

the factors influencing civil servants' job attitudes

have found that job stress significantly affects civil

servants' job attitudes. However, civil servants at

different organizational levels are subject to different

levels of work stress, so it can be further explored

whether organizational level affects civil servants'

work attitudes. In the real work situation, civil

servants at the grassroots and window level often face

transactional stress, which lasts for a short period of

time and disappears with the processing of affairs,

while civil servants at the top level of the

organizational hierarchy face coordination and co-

ordination stress, which often follows them

throughout their career. In view of this, this paper will

delve into the relationship between organizational

Yang, S., Zeng, X. and Kang, J.

Research on the Mechanism of Organizational Hierarchy on the Work Attitude of Chinese Local Civil Servants based on Big Data.

DOI: 10.5220/0011153900003437

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis (PMBDA 2021), pages 69-74

ISBN: 978-989-758-589-0

hierarchy and civil servants' work attitudes and its

mechanism of action, to enrich the related field

research. According to the general self-efficacy

theory, general self-efficacy refers to individuals'

evaluation of their own work ability, including work

competence and work confidence, which will directly

affect people's behaviours. General self-efficacy is

derived from work experience, social experience, and

other aspects (Dong 2010). The first is successful

work experience, the second is alternative experience,

the second is motivation, and the last is emotion. This

paper introduces general self-efficacy in the process

of discussing the influence of organizational level on

civil servants' work attitudes, which has certain

innovative value and exploratory nature, and provides

reference value for other scholars to study the

relationship between organizational level and civil

servants' work attitudes, thus enriching the existing

civil servants' work attitude related models, and also

provides theoretical support for local governments to

improve civil servants' work attitudes and build a

service-oriented government..

2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

2.1 Organizational Hierarchy and Civil

Servants' Work Attitudes

Stephen P. Robbins is representative of the concept of

work attitude, stating that work attitude is the attitude

displayed at work, which focuses on various types of

employee perceptions and evaluations of the work

itself and the environment (Robbins 1996). Conte and

other scholars believe that job attitudes consist of job

satisfaction, work engagement and organizational

commitment (Conte 2005). At present, scholars

generally divide job attitudes into job satisfaction,

organizational commitment and work engagement

and apply these three dimensions to develop relevant

scales. Thus, civil servants' job attitudes refer to the

attitudes shown by civil servants at all levels of local

governments in the face of their jobs and work units,

including three major dimensions of job satisfaction,

organizational commitment, and work engagement.

The April 2019 issue of "The China Quarterly"

published an article titled "Serving the People:

Income, Regions, and Citizen Satisfaction with

Government Governance," which suggested that

Chinese citizens' satisfaction with government

governance is influenced by the level of government.

The findings of this study suggest that satisfaction

decreases as the level of government decreases. That

is, public satisfaction changes with organizational

hierarchy. In addition, one of the important

influencing factors in public satisfaction with

government governance is the work attitude of civil

servants. Many cases and news show that grassroots

civil servants have worse attitudes, and often also

show the worst attitudes of window civil servants.

Based on this, this study proposes hypothesis 1.

H1: Organizational hierarchy positively affects

local government civil servants' work attitudes.

2.2 The Mediating Role of General

Self-efficacy

Judge views general self-efficacy as an evaluation of

one's own abilities, including perceptions of one's

ability to accomplish work tasks and organizational

goals and to successfully deal with external

environmental challenges, and it often affects

confidence and performance (Judge 2003). Sherer

notes that individuals with different social

experiences and social exposure, especially those

who have experienced different states of success and

failure, have different perceptions of self-efficacy,

resulting in cognitive differences (Sherer 1982).

Based on this, this study argues that different

organizations have different self-efficacy. Based on

this, this study argues that the general self-efficacy of

civil servants at different organizational levels also

differs due to their past successes and failures, values,

and cognitive levels. People at higher levels in the

organization tend to have deeper experience, higher

cognitive level, and richer work experience, and they

tend to be able to confront failure and thus develop

higher general self-efficacy. People at the lower levels

of the organization tend to be more shallow, less

cognitive, and have less work experience, and they

tend to be unable to face up to failure, thus developing

a lower sense of general self-efficacy. At the same

time, the higher up in the organizational hierarchy, the

more they are responsible for decision-making, so

they are better able to summarize the successes of

others than those at lower levels. In addition, the

higher the level of responsibility, the more attentive

they are to learning from their experiences, so their

general self-efficacy is also higher. At the same time,

the higher up in the organizational hierarchy, the

stronger the emotional control they need to have in

order to solve problems better and faster, so the higher

up in the organization, the higher their general self-

efficacy. Based on this, this study proposes

hypothesis 2.

PMBDA 2021 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis

H2: Organizational hierarchy positively

influences general self-efficacy.

In a study on the relationship between general

self-efficacy and job attitudes, McDonald and Siegall

noted that general self-efficacy has a positive

relationship with job satisfaction and positively

influences organizational commitment and job

engagement. According to the main claims of social

cognitive theory, people with higher general self-

efficacy have higher self-expectations and show

higher performance in pursuit of higher goals, which

leads to more motivation (Wang 2014). Judge also

suggests that people with higher general self-efficacy

are more demanding, more courageous in the face of

challenges, and less likely to be defeated by setbacks,

thus achieving better job performance and need

satisfaction and higher job satisfaction (Judge 2003).

This leads to better job performance and demand

satisfaction, and higher job satisfaction. At the same

time, higher general self-efficacy leads to higher self-

expectations and higher need satisfaction in the

process of achieving self-expectations, which leads to

greater adherence to the organization and higher

organizational commitment (Zhang 2008). Most

researchers believe that general self-efficacy is

positively related to job satisfaction and to

organizational commitment (Zelars 2001). Based on

this, this study proposes hypothesis 3.

H3: General sense of efficacy positively affects

the attitude of local government civil servants

towards work.

In summary, this paper argues that organizational

hierarchy positively affects work attitudes,

organizational hierarchy positively affects general

self-efficacy, and general self-efficacy positively

affects work attitudes; in other words, general self-

efficacy can mediate the effect of organizational

hierarchy on civil servants' work attitudes, thus

hypothesis 4 is proposed.

H4: General self-efficacy mediates attitudes

toward work in organizational hierarchy and local

government civil servants.

3 STUDY DESIGN

3.1 Data Collection

We collected the questionnaire data by internet

snowballing methods. The data were collected mainly

from civil servants at various levels in Sichuan,

Shandong, Yunnan, and Guangdong in China. The

questionnaires were distributed to civil servants

among MPA students of University D in the form of

online distribution, and the distribution of this paper

was assisted by the discipline inspection department

of Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, in the form of

internal official documents. The survey recovered

2353 valid questionnaires. Among them, 49.51%

were male and 50.49% were female; the number of

people aged 21-30 accounted for 37.1% of the total

number; the number of people aged 31-40 accounted

for 37.48% of the total number. In terms of marital

status, 73.6% of the respondents were married. In

terms of education level, many respondents were

bachelor's degree holders, accounting for 50.36%.

3.2 Variable Operationalization

The organizational hierarchy is divided into street

office or township department, county department,

city department, and provincial department with

reference to the section hierarchy theory. General

self-efficacy refers to the General Self-Efficacy Scale

developed by Schwarzer and his collaborator

Jerusalem and localized operation with the work style

and work characteristics of local government civil

servants in China to make it more in line with civil

servants' group responses (Zhang 2008). Job

satisfaction refers to the job satisfaction scale

developed by Kanman in 1983, and at the same time

combines with the six-factor model of job satisfaction

(Ling 2003). The operationalized definition of job

satisfaction is summarized. Organizational

commitment is based on the Affective Commitment

Scale (ACS) developed by Meyer and Allen in 1997,

and combined with the organizational commitment

scale constructed by scholars such as Ambrose Ling

in the cultural context of China, the operationalized

definition of organizational commitment of local

government civil servants is summarized (Ling

2001). The operationalized definition of work

commitment was summarized by referring to the ten-

question scale developed by Kanungo in 1982

(Kanungo 1982). The results of the reliability test

showed that the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the

questionnaire as a whole and each part of the scale

was greater than 0.8, indicating high reliability.

4 DATA ANALYSIS

4.1 Reliability Test

In this paper, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to

examine the overall reliability of the questionnaire.

The results showed that the questionnaire and each

subscale had high reliability. Principal component

Research on the Mechanism of Organizational Hierarchy on the Work Attitude of Chinese Local Civil Servants based on Big Data

analysis in exploratory factor analysis was used to test

the validity of the questionnaire. The results showed

that the validity of the questionnaire was good, and

correlation and regression analysis could be

performed.

4.2 Descriptive Statistics

The mean values of the answers given by the

respondents of each question item involved in this

paper were within the interval of 3.03 to 4.05; the

absolute values of skewness were below 2 and the

absolute values of kurtosis were below 3. According

to the viewpoint proposed by Kline, the sample data

of this study belonged to normal distribution, and it

was determined that the data of this study could be

used to do correlation and regression analysis.

4.3 Correlation Analysis

Organizational level and job satisfaction were

significantly positively correlated (r=0.401, p<0.01);

organizational level and organizational commitment

were significantly positively correlated (r=0.381,

p<0.01); organizational level and job engagement

were significantly positively correlated (r=0.329,

p<0.01); organizational level and general self-

efficacy were significantly positively correlated

(r=0.361, p < 0.01); general self-efficacy and job

satisfaction were significantly positively correlated

(r=0.423, p<0.01); general self-efficacy and

organizational commitment were significantly

positively correlated (r=0.415, p<0.01); and general

self-efficacy and job engagement were significantly

positively correlated (r=0.355, p<0.01). Therefore,

the hypotheses that organizational level positively

affects job attitude, organizational level positively

affects general self-efficacy, and general self-efficacy

positively affects job attitude of local government

civil servants are initially valid. The results of the

correlation analysis in this paper are shown in “Tables

1”.

Table 1: Correlation analysis.

Organizational Levels General self-efficacy

Job satisfaction 0.401** 0.423**

Organizational commitment 0.381** 0.415**

Work input 0.329** 0.355**

General self-efficacy 0.361** /

** The correlation coefficient was significant at the significance level of 0.01 (two-tailed test)

4.4 Regression Analysis

The regression coefficient of organizational hierarchy

on job satisfaction was 0.089 (p < 0.01), indicating

that organizational hierarchy has a significant

positive effect on job satisfaction. The regression

coefficient of organizational hierarchy on

organizational commitment was 0.068 (p < 0.01),

indicating that organizational hierarchy has a

significant positive effect on organizational

commitment. The regression coefficient of

organizational hierarchy and work commitment was

0.097 (p < 0.01), indicating that organizational

hierarchy has a significant positive effect on work

commitment. In summary, it was determined that

organizational hierarchy has a significant positive

effect on work attitudes, and therefore hypothesis 1 is

valid.

In addition, the regression coefficient of general

self-efficacy and organizational hierarchy was 0.083

(p < 0.01), indicating that organizational hierarchy

has a significant positive effect on general self-

efficacy, and hypothesis 2 was judged to be valid.

The regression coefficient of general self-efficacy

on job satisfaction was 0.280 (p < 0.01), indicating

that general self-efficacy has a significant positive

effect on job satisfaction. The regression coefficient

of general self-efficacy on organizational

commitment was 0.258 (p < 0.01), indicating that

general self-efficacy has a significant positive effect

on organizational commitment. The regression

coefficient of general self-efficacy on work

commitment was 0.187 (p < 0.01), indicating that

general self-efficacy has a significant positive effect

on work commitment. In summary, hypothesis 3 was

judged to be valid. The results of the regression

analysis are shown in “Table 2”. The variable names

in the table are used by their acronyms.

PMBDA 2021 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis

Table 2: Regression analysis.

Models

Unstandardized coefficient

Standardized

coefficient

t VIF

Beta Standard erro

Beta

（Constant）

3.549 0.063 - 56.402 -

JS 0.089** 0.018 0.101 4.906 1

OC 0.068** 0.017 0.081 3.937 1

WI 0.097** 0.015 0.129 6.317 1

GSSE 0.083** 0.021 0.081 3.947 1

（Constant）

2.998 0.054 - 55.694 -

JS 0.28** 0.017 0.323 16.549 1

OC 0.258** 0.016 0.315 16.075 1

WI 0.187** 0.015 0.255 12.807 1

** The correlation coefficient was significant at the significance level of 0.01 (two-tailed test)

Model 1 Dependent variable: Organizational

Levels

Model 1 Dependent variable: General Self-

efficacy

We hope you find the information in this template

useful in the preparation of your submission.

4.5 Intermediation Effect Test

We use the causal stepwise regression test method to

test the intermediation effect. The results are shown

in “Table 3”. The variable names in the table are used

by their acronyms.

Table 3: Intermediation effect test.

Independent

variable

Dependent

variable

Beta

Adjusted

OL JS 0.089** 0.16

OL→GSSE JS 0.066** 0.176

OL OC 0.068** 0.192

OL→GSSE OC 0.047** 0.181

OL WI 0.097** 0.166

OL→GSSE WI 0.082** 0.184

** The correlation coefficient was significant at the

significance level of 0.01 (two-tailed test)

We found that after introducing general self-

efficacy as a mediating variable between

organizational hierarchy and job satisfaction, the

regression coefficient decreased from 0.089 to 0.061

(p < 0.01), indicating that general self-efficacy has a

partial mediating effect between organizational

hierarchy and job satisfaction. After introducing

general self-efficacy as a mediating analysis between

organizational hierarchy and job satisfaction, the

regression coefficient decreased from 0.068 to 0.047

(p < 0.01), indicating that general self-efficacy has a

partial mediating effect between organizational

hierarchy and job satisfaction. After introducing

general self-efficacy as a mediating variable between

organizational hierarchy and job attitudes, the

regression coefficient decreased from 0.097 to 0.082

(p < 0.01), indicating that general self-efficacy has a

partial mediating effect between organizational

hierarchy and job attitudes. In conclusion, general

self-efficacy has a partial mediating effect between

organizational hierarchy and job attitudes, and

hypothesis 4 is judged to be valid.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND

DISCUSSIONS

This paper analyses the role of organizational

hierarchy and general self-efficacy in influencing

civil servants' work attitudes, drawing on section

hierarchy theory and general self-efficacy theory. The

results show that the higher the organizational

hierarchy, the better the work attitudes of civil

servants. At the same time, the higher the

organizational hierarchy, the better the general self-

efficacy of civil servants, which positively affects

their work attitudes. The results of this study show

that the lower the organizational hierarchy, the worse

the work attitude of civil servants. Therefore, the

focus of improving civil servants' work attitudes

should be placed on grassroots civil servants. Ⅰ, pay

attention to the improvement of the work attitude of

grassroots civil servants. Ⅱ, improve the education

and training mechanism of grassroots civil servants.

Ⅲ, improve the treatment of grass-roots civil servants

and strengthen the humanistic care for them. Improve

the promotion mechanism of grassroots civil servants'

positions. Ⅴ, pay attention to improving the general

Research on the Mechanism of Organizational Hierarchy on the Work Attitude of Chinese Local Civil Servants based on Big Data

self-efficacy of civil servants and realize the

improvement of general self-efficacy by improving

the self-confidence and emergency response ability of

civil servants, to realize the improvement of civil

servants' work attitude. VI, Improve civil servants'

ideal beliefs and goal consciousness. VII, Enhance

civil servants' sense of professional honour. VIII,

Strengthen the professional competence training of

civil servants.

The report of the 19th National Congress of the

Communist Party of China clearly puts forward the

modernization of government governance,

transforming government functions,

comprehensively promoting the simplification of

government and deepening reform of supervision

methods, and building a service-oriented government

that satisfies the people. Civil servants are the key to

the construction of service-oriented government, and

the work attitude of civil servants is important for

their work goals and organizational goals to achieve.

However, news about poor attitudes of grassroots

civil servants are common in real life, so it is

important to explore the influence of organizational

hierarchy on the attitudes of local government civil

servants and make corresponding suggestions based

on this to improve the work attitudes of local

government civil servants.

The study of organizational hierarchy on the work

attitudes of local government civil servants is

innovative, and this paper proposes a new perspective

to explore the work attitudes of local government

civil servants, while introducing a new variable of

general self-efficacy. At present, most scholars'

research on general self-efficacy has mainly focused

on the study of corporate employees, and less

research has been conducted on the effect of general

self-efficacy on civil servants' work attitudes.

Therefore, this study is exploratory in nature, but

there are certain shortcomings of the study due to its

own subjective and objective conditions. First, the

main respondents come from Sichuan, Shandong,

Yunnan, and Guangdong provinces. Therefore, the

uneven distribution of sample size becomes a

problem. The diversity of respondents can be

increased appropriately in the future. Second, this

study mainly considered the influence of

organizational level on the work attitude of local

government civil servants. Other variables can be

considered in future studies.

REFERENCES

Conte J M, Dean M A, Ringenbach K L, et al. (2005). The

relationship between work attitudes and job analysis

ratings: do rating scale type and task discretion matter?

Human Performance.18, 1-21.

Dong H., Gong J. (2010). Exploring the factors influencing

students' self-efficacy in university English teaching.

Journal of Beijing University of Aeronautics and

Astronautics (Social Science Edition). 4, 104-106.

Judge T A, Erez A, Bono J, Thoresen C J. (2003). The core

self- evaluations scale: development of a measure.

Personnel Psychology. 56,302-331.

Judge T A, Erez A, Bono J, Thoresen C. J. (2003). The core

self- evaluations scale: development of a measure. 56,

303-331.

Kang J., Zhu X. 2017, Research on the Impact of

Government Organizational Culture on Paternalistic

Leadership Based on Competitive Values Framework.

Proceedings of 2017 International Conference on

Public Administration (12th) & International

Symposium on West African Studies (1st). UESTC

Press.

Kanungo R. N. (1982). Measurement of job and work

involvement. Journal of Applied Psychology. 67, 341-

349.

Ling W.C., Zhang Z.C., Fang L.L. (2001). A study of

workers' organizational commitment in China. Chinese

Social Sciences.2, 90-102.

Ling, W.C., Fang, L.L. (2003). Psychological and

Behavioural Measurement. Machinery Industry Press,

Beijing.

Robbins, S. (1996). Organizational behaviours: concepts,

controversies, applications. Prentice Hall, Upper

Saddle River. 7th edition.

Sherer M, Maddux J E, Mercandante B, et al. (1982). The

self-efficacy scale: construction and validation.

Psychological Reports.51, 663-671.

Wang Y., Shi K. (2014). A multi-channel model of factors

influencing innovative behaviours of knowledge-based

employees. Journal of Xiangtan University (Philosophy

and Social Sciences).3,7-10.

Zelars K L, Hochwarter W A, Perewe P L, Miles A K,

Kiewitz C. (2001). Beyond self-efficacy: interactive

effects of role conflict and perceived collective efficacy.

Journal of Managerial Issues. 13, 483-499.

Zhang H. (2008). A study on the correlation between

general self-efficacy, work stress and work attitude of

corporate employees. Northeast Normal University.

Changchun.

Zhang H. (2008). A study on the correlation between

general self-efficacy, job stress and work attitude of

corporate employees. Northeast Normal University.

Changchun.

Zhu X., Kang J., Liu Y. (2017). Research on the relationship

between local government organizational culture,

leadership behaviours and civil servants' work attitudes.

Journal of Sichuan University (Philosophy and Social

Science Edition). 2, 124-133.

PMBDA 2021 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis