Suchergebnisse

Representation in service-providing organizations is vital to the inclusion of ethnoracial minorities in a democratic society. The political contexts that encompass these organizations can influence the equity of services that historically underserved groups experience. These contexts are especially meaningful for Latino communities, where bureaucratic representation is a growing venue of responsiveness in American democracy. Yet relatively little attention has been devoted to understanding how this politics – bureaucracy intersection influences their outcomes. This study focuses on this intersection against the backdrop of Latinos and education governance. Combining data from various sources, the empirical analysis examines the relationship between political contexts and group representation among managers and street-level personnel. The findings reveal that factors such as community partisanship significantly affect Latinos' representation and educational outcomes. They also highlight the need for a deeper understanding of how such factors influence the representation and inclusion of Latinos and other ethnoracial minorities across an array of organizational settings.

AbstractThe link between expenditures and organizational performance is central to our understanding of public sector governance. Despite various empirical and theoretical accounts of how organizations buffer or exploit financial situations to stabilize outcomes, the literature remains split on how money influences organizational performance. This study sheds new light on this puzzle by developing an analysis of clientele contexts, and how such contexts intervene in the relationship between expenditure and performance. We analyse competing hypotheses for the heterogeneous effects of clientele contexts on funding and performance—one in which these contexts strengthen the relationship, and one in which they weaken the relationship. Through district‐level empirical analyses of public education data over a 17‐year period, we find that instructional spending changes influence student performance, and that the impact is conditioned by the socioeconomic mix of students. Organizations that serve low‐income communities see the greatest performance gains from increased monetary resources.

A now well-established link exists between passive representation of racial and gender minorities in certain bureaucracies and substantive benefits for the represented groups. However, few quantitative studies have distinguished between the multiple possible mechanisms by which passive representation might produce such effects. We conduct a novel set of empirical analyses aimed at determining whether or not passive representation produces effects only for those clients who directly interact with bureaucrats who share their demographic characteristics or if passive representation produces broader organizational-level effects. We find strong evidence that minority clients' outcomes are positively associated with representation in portions of the bureaucracy with which they do not directly interact. This suggests that either passive representation produces substantial bottom-up, organizational-level effects or that managers who recruit minority personnel also adopt policies that are favorable toward minority clients.

Gender inequities in public organizations manifest in various forms, including gaps in leadership roles and compensation. Increasing women's representation in elected offices may reduce gender inequities in the public sector. This study examines whether women's representation in local elected offices reduces gender wage disparities among men and women serving in Brazilian municipal executive bureaucracies. The findings suggest that municipalities with women mayors and larger proportions of women on the city council have smaller gender wage gaps in the municipal executive bureaucracy than those with men mayors and few women councilors. Furthermore, statistical models that account for diversity among men and women mayors in terms of their age, education, and partisanship suggest that even men mayors that likely hold progressive attitudes do not reduce gender disparities to the same degree as most women mayors. These findings underscore the importance of women's representation for reducing gender inequities in the public sector.

What drives budgetary support for minority-targeted policies? This question is increasingly salient because the public sector serves numerous minority clientele. One perspective suggests that budgetary decisions are grounded in need or demand, while another contends that political pressures will result in the allocation of resources to those with political power. This article presents a theory of budgetary allocation based on the interaction between politics and professionalism, two seemingly disparate perspectives. Furthermore, we separate professionalism into two dimensions—demand and need. Through an analysis of budgeting decisions for bilingual education, we find that political representation leads to more positive budgetary changes for low-demand and, conversely, high-need environments. These findings support not only the interaction between politics and professionalism as a driver of budgetary outcomes but also the theory of two dimensions of professionalism.

The creation of organization-level performance goals has evolved into a ubiquitous facet of the study and practice of public management. In this article, we theoretically and empirically examine the relationship between unattainable organizational goals and collective frontline employee turnover, and consider the moderating role of a public organization's performance context on the relationship. While the findings indicate a positive relationship between unattainable goals and collective frontline employee turnover, the effect is conditional on organizational performance. The research offers nuanced insights into the establishment of goals in public organizations and has important implications for managing personnel on the frontlines of public service delivery.

AbstractDuring a global pandemic, individual views of government can be linked to citizens' trust and cooperation with government and their propensity to resist state policies or to take action that influences the course of a pandemic. This article explores citizens' assessments of government responses to COVID‐19 as a function of policy substance (restrictions on civil liberties), information about performance, and socioeconomic inequity in outcomes. We conducted a survey experiment and analyzed data on over 7000 respondents from eight democratic countries. We find that across countries, citizens are less favorable toward COVID‐19 policies that are more restrictive of civil liberties. Additionally, citizens' views of government performance are significantly influenced by objective performance information from reputable sources and information on the disproportionate impacts of COVID‐19 on low‐income groups. This study reinforces the importance of policy design and outcomes and the consideration of multiple public values in the implementation of public policies.