Employees' engagement in the public sector: the impact of externally focused organizational climate

Recent governmental reports emphasize that, as public services face the prospect of declining growth in investment, the quality of service citizens expect can be achieved only by putting the engagement and commitment of civil servants at the top of delivery strategies. We investigate the impact on work engagement of the organizational climate models introduced with the most recent wave of public sector reforms in Italy, requesting a switch of the focus of the public sector from the traditional inward focus of the bureaucratic model to an external focus towards citizens. We further consider the possible role of mediation of such organizational climate models between engagement and transactional and transformational styles of leadership.