Given that public service motivation (PSM) has been shown to increase performance in public organizations, it is very relevant to ask what managers can do to enhance their employees’ PSM. In this paper, we investigate whether and under what conditions transformational leadership is positively related to PSM. The existing literature has found positive associations between transformational leadership and PSM, but we do not know whether value conflict between employees and managers moderates the relationship. This is investigated for Danish University Colleges, using a mixed-methods design. These colleges educate teachers, pedagogues, nurses and social workers, and their strong public service oriented missions and potentially conflicting public values make this sector a well-suited case to test whether (at least some) consensus on public values is a precondition for a positive association between transformational leadership and PSM. Based on qualitative interviews concerning specific public values, we used a survey among 968 employees to investigate the employees’ PSM and public values combined with managers’ values and leadership style. We found that the less value conflict, the stronger is the positive relationship between the direct managers’ level of transformational leadership and the employees’ PSM. This is also the case for the top management. This implies that transformational leadership might be a way for managers to enhance PSM, but only if there is not severe value conflict. In other words: Only if employees and managers agree on key public values.
