Accounting for Time: Comparing Temporal and Atemporal Analyses of the Business Case for Diversity Management

Abstract

Public management strategies have an inherent temporal component: managers take action at one time, and employees or organizations respond at a later time. However, it is common to study such strategies using atemporal research. Concerns about the inadequacy of this approach have led scholars to advocate for public management research that incorporates time. Because following this advice is difficult, it is important to evaluate how the omission of time affects the understanding of public management strategies. This article compares temporal and atemporal analyses of the business case for diversity management—the expectation that organizations that manage diversity well will also improve their performance. Using survey and personnel data drawn from U.S. federal government subagencies, the article shows that both analyses support this general expectation. However, the cross‐sectional analysis, by failing to account for organizational inertia, portrays diversity management as more potent than the analyses taking time into account.

Assessing the Past and Promise of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey for Public Management Research: A Research Synthesis

“…In recent years, several researchers have used three FEVS survey items to examine the business case for diversity management in the public sector (see the ) . Most studies used a latent variable created by adding individuals’ responses to all three questions (Choi , ; Choi and Rainey , ; Oberfield ; Pitts ); one study used a latent variable built from respondents’ answers to the last two questions (Jung ).…”

“…Finally, a longitudinal, organizational‐level analysis of FEVS data further supports the causal relationship between diversity management and perceived performance. When agencies improve in diversity management over time, they are also likely to experience improvements in cooperation, satisfaction, and quality (Oberfield ).…”

“Justice for all”: An examination of self‐identified LGBT job satisfaction in the US federal workforce

“…His study suggests that diversity management first involves recruitment strategies targeting women and minorities in the workplace. As Oberfield (2014) argues, diversity management enhances employee and organizational performance by eliminating social barriers and promoting a sense of inclusion among workers. The last group of policies involves the integration of managerial employee-friendly-flexible policies that support the satisfaction and retention of diverse groups of employees in public sector organizations (Pitts, 2006).…”

Whither Power in Public Administration? Attainment, Dissipation, and Loss

“…As Albert Einstein once said, “Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Long feared precisely this development in public administration if administrative science failed to incorporate considerations of the budgeting of power cross‐sectionally and longitudinally. Indeed, Carpenter's (, ) work illustrates how incorporating time and agency comparisons can produce different results from cross‐sectional analyses (see also Oberfield ) and, thus, how useful it can be for confirming, refining, or elaborating and extending the findings of existing studies and administrative theories. Arguably, expanding our research design horizons in these ways will create a more robust empirical basis for informing the study of power in the future, as well as a firmer test of what we think we know presently about the budgeting of power.…”