Organizational Fairness and Diversity Management in Public Organizations

Abstract

Globalization, migration, initiatives for social justice, and other developments have made the representation of diverse groups and relations among them an important issue for organizations in many nations. In the United States, government agencies have increasingly invested in managing demographic diversity effectively. This study examines how perceived organizational fairness combined with diversity management relates to employees’ job satisfaction in public organizations. To test these relationships we analyze data drawn from the 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey (FHCS) using hierarchical regressions—hierarchical ordered logistic regressions and hierarchical linear regressions. The results indicate that in an agency where members perceive higher levels of organizational fairness, and where employees perceive that diversity is more effectively managed, employees report higher satisfaction with their jobs. Interestingly, while high organizational fairness in association with diversity management efforts enhances the overall job satisfaction of employees, its positive impact was smaller for racial/ethnic minorities than Whites. In contrast, women tend to report higher job satisfaction than men when they perceive that their agency manages diversity effectively, and has just and fair procedures, whereas the relationship was not significant in the hierarchical linear regression model.

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

“…Although there is debate about the connection between satisfaction and performance (Kim ), there is agreement that it is associated with an array of outcomes, such as motivation, absenteeism, and turnover (Wright and Davis ), which are thought to be contributors to performance. Also, satisfaction has been used as a test of the business case for diversity management in three of the prior six public sector studies (Choi ; Choi and Rainey ; Pitts ). To measure satisfaction, the article uses an index variable that combines employees’ responses to two questions: “Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job?” and “Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your organization?” For both questions, respondents answered on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).…”

“…This index has been used by several prior diversity management studies (Choi ; Choi and Rainey , ; Pitts ); it has sufficient content validity because the three questions provide an expansive measurement of one of the main goals of diversity management, creating an inclusive diversity climate. The first question focuses on the success of managers’ interactions with employees of “different backgrounds.” As such, it measures respondents’ perceptions of how managers handle personnel differences.…”

“…There are half a dozen peer‐reviewed articles that examine the business case for diversity management in the public sector (Choi ; Choi and Rainey , ; Groeneveld ; Groeneveld and Verbeek ; Pitts ). Because performance in the public sector is a much harder concept to define and measure (Meier and O'Toole ; Radin ), these studies tend to examine diversity management's association using subjective performance indicators such as satisfaction, turnover intent, and perceptions of work quality .…”

“…For example, one study shows that the mere presence of a diversity policy in a public organization is negatively related to employee turnover intent (Groeneveld ). Others demonstrate that when public sector employees agree that diversity is managed well, they are more likely to perceive their work unit as doing quality work (Pitts ), to be satisfied with their work (Choi ; Choi and Rainey ; Pitts ), to be committed to their organization (Ashikali and Groeneveld ), to remain in their organizations (Choi ), and to perceive their organization as performing well (Choi and Rainey ).…”

An indisputable “holy trinity”? On the moral value of equality, diversity, and inclusion

“…In some cases quite explicitly (Fujimoto et al, 2013), but mostly in an implicit way, a state of equality is equated with a state of fairness and (social) justice (Brewis, 2017;Choi and Rainey, 2014). Depending on the form or type of equality in question, this perceived justice can then occur in the form of interactional justice (Bies, 2015), distributive justice (Villanueva-Flores et al, 2017), or procedural justice (Kim and Siddiki, 2018).…”