Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Sector differences in prosocial motivations and behaviors among workers receives a great deal of attention in public administration scholarship. Extant literature consistently finds public sector workers are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as volunteering, than their peers in the private sector. Less attention has been paid to the sector gap in volunteerism along the intensive margin. Using time-diary data, which accounts for potential social desirability bias, from a nationally representative sample, this study investigates the gap between public sector workers and their private sector counterparts. The results suggest that public sector workers spend more time, on an average day, volunteering than observably similar private sector peers, and the difference cannot be explained by other observable differences between public and private sector workers. The gap in volunteer intensity is largest at the local level and among teachers. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.

AbstractPublic service motivation (PSM) theory suggests that the alignment of values may explain sorting into public service work. Evidence suggests that people with high PSM cluster in government and nonprofit organizations. However, reliance on cross‐sectional data leaves open the question of whether observed patterns are the result of public and nonprofit organizations attracting and selecting high‐PSM people or cultivating PSM through socialization within the sector. Using longitudinal data, this article analyzes the relationship between motivational bases, such as PSM, and sorting into the public, for‐profit, and nonprofit sectors. The results indicate that PSM‐related values, measured before labor market entry, predict the sector a person will select for employment. Moreover, the effect on sector selection does not operate through some commonly cited alternative predictor of sector employment, such as college completion. Rather, PSM predicts sorting into college majors in a manner consistent with sector sorting in the labor market.

AbstractRepresentative bureaucracy theory is central to public administration scholarship due to the likely relationship between the demographic composition of the public workforce and both the actual and perceived performance of public organizations. Primary school classrooms provide an ideal context in which to test the predictions of representative bureaucracy theory at the micro (student) level. Specifically, as parents have at least some agency over primary school students' daily attendance, absences partially reflect parental assessments of their child's school, classroom, and teacher. Ensuring students attend school each day represents an effort at coproduction on the part of parents. The representativeness of the teacher workforce, and specifically that of the student's classroom teacher, is therefore likely to influence student absenteeism. Similarly, student suspensions reflect students' relationships with their teacher, students' comfort level in the classroom, and teachers' discretion in the referral of misbehavior. These academically and socially important outcomes provide convenient, objective measures of behaviors that are likely influenced by street‐level representation. Using longitudinal student‐level administrative data from North Carolina, we use a two‐way (student and classroom) fixed effects strategy to identify the impact of student–teacher demographic mismatch on primary school students' absences and suspensions. We find that representation among street‐level bureaucrats significantly decreases both absenteeism and suspensions and that these effects can be given a causal interpretation. This pushes literature forward by establishing the importance of demographic representation in shaping productive relationships between individual bureaucrats and clients.

AbstractIn recent years, public service motivation (PSM) research has grown substantially, but is still largely limited to the field of public administration. To be able to export the theory and measures of PSM to other disciplines, we need more conceptual clarity. Some suggest PSM is analogous to altruism, whereas others warn not to confound the two concepts. Is PSM separate from altruism? How does each motivational construct relate to prosocial behaviors? We use a nationally representative panel of respondents to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) to measure both altruism and PSM among respondents before the 2016 election and measure respondents' participation in prosocial behaviors after the 2016 election. Using linear probability models with state fixed effects, we find that although PSM and altruism predict prosocial behaviors separately, altruism has no effect after controlling for PSM. PSM is a more consistent predictor of some prosocial behaviors than altruism, particularly in more formal contexts such as volunteering with an organization.

Representative bureaucracy theory suggests that demographic representation among street‐level bureaucrats will improve outcomes for minority citizens receiving a given public service. Scholars of representation in public bureaucracies argue that the effect of bureaucrats' demographic profile on outcomes for minority citizens becomes particularly salient in contexts where bureaucrats exercise relatively high amounts of discretion. Empirical evidence has documented this relationship in education, policing, and a variety of public programs. We extend this literature to the context of prisons, where street‐level corrections staff exercise considerable discretion over inmates' daily lives. Using prison violence and disciplinary actions to proxy for the potential effects of a representative staff on the experiences of prison inmates, we find that prisons with greater representation have fewer assaults and exercise fewer disciplinary actions. We offer evidence that the positive effects of demographic representation may not hold in privately managed prisons. We speculate that differential organizational socialization and managerial incentives may help to explain this result.

AbstractOne mechanism by which teachers might affect student learning is through the grading standards they set for their classrooms. However, the effects of grading standards on student outcomes are understudied. Using administrative data that links individual students and teachers in Algebra I classrooms from 2006 to 2016, we examine the effects of teachers' grading standards on student learning and attendance. High teacher grading standards increase both contemporaneous student achievement in Algebra I and performance in subsequent math classes. Heterogeneity analyses find that these impacts are positive and similar in size for students of different backgrounds, aptitudes, and school contexts.

Millennials are a substantial segment of the workforce; they are perceived to be driven by higher pay, quick to be dissatisfied and leave a job, and committed to volunteering. This article examines how these perceptions translate to job mobility in terms of job switching within and across sectors, without drawing cross-generation comparisons. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort (NLSY97) from 2008 to 2013, we notice a trend among millennials of frequent job switching within rather than across sectors. Job dissatisfaction is the strongest predictor of public-sector employees switching jobs within the sector. For sector switching, we find some variation: Low pay corresponds with exiting the nonprofit sector, whereas job dissatisfaction is the strongest predictor of leaving the public sector. Millennials working in the public and nonprofit sectors are less likely to switch sectors if they volunteer. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

AbstractAlthough demographic diversity has been of paramount concern to researchers and practitioners in public management, studies exploring managerial strategies to capitalize on and respond to the needs of diverse client populations are scarce. This article examines strategies for managing diversity as a way to buffer environmental challenges in service delivery and performance resulting from heterogeneous client demands. Findings suggest that administrators prioritize diversity efforts when faced with higher levels of regulatory violations (a performance measure). A higher percentage of black residents is associated with lower service quality. However, the effect of managerial strategies for diversity on performance is conditioned by the racial composition of the clients: as the percentage of black nursing home residents increases, diversity management efforts are associated with a lower number of regulatory violations. Similarly, at higher levels of racial heterogeneity, diversity management efforts are associated with fewer regulatory violations.