THE STUDENTS’ REPRESENTATIONS OF CIVIL SERVANTS’ NORMATIVE ORIENTATION

The concept of the normative personal orientation seeks to specify how personnel motivation should be organized in the value-motivational sphere for professional activity execution in accordance with its social purpose. Based on the priority of the civil service social purpose, the hierarchical structure of the personal normative orientations was theoretically validated. Social motives related to serving for the benefit of the Fatherland as well as work motives associated with the achievement of some role positions are the major motives. The subordinate motives are the monetary rewards and self-development. Development of the future civil servants’ orientation is based on a conscious idea about the required motives’ subordination, that is, about the normative civil servant’s orientation. The study involved 63 students of the 2nd and 4th year studying at the Russian management institute in the specialty “Customs” and 51 students of the 1st and 2nd year studying at the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia, as well as 4 experts (two from Russia and Armenia) having long-term experience in the civil service. The method is an author’s closed-questions’ inventory containing a list of 18 personal goals, that should guide the civil servant in professional work. The instruction required the selection of five most important goals. An absolute majority (from 66 to 90%) of Russian and Armenian students has the motives’ subordination that is inconsistent with the normative orientation. According to the students’ view, self-development, self-creation and material benefit are the leading motives of a civil servant. The expert motives’ representations are identical to the required content of civil servant normative orientation. The authors defined the need to develop a special psychological and educational program for promoting required representations about the normative orientation of future civil servants.