Time's Up: Equity, Fairness, and Public Administration

Frontline employees cope with high workloads and limited resources by directing their work attention and efforts toward particular clients. Yet, the role of client attributes in frontline employees’ efforts to help clients remains undertheorized and empirically understudied. Using a survey experimental vignette design (2 × 2 factorial) among 1,595 Danish caseworkers, the authors of this article provide new knowledge on how two generic nondemographic client attributes—competence and motivation—shape frontline employees’ willingness to help their clients. We found that both the competence and motivation of clients affect caseworkers’ willingness to exert extra time and effort helping clients. Specifically, caseworkers are most willing to help a client appearing both competent and motivated. Moreover, our data suggests that client motivation is more important than client competence for caseworkers’ willingness to help. We end the article with a discussion of policy implications and directions for future research.

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confidence: 99%

Creaming among Caseworkers: Effects of Client Competence and Client Motivation on Caseworkers’ Willingness to Help

Guul

Pedersen

Petersen

2020

“…The extent to which public organizations engage in discrimination varies across studies. An obvious reason for this might be that the extent of discrimination varies with organizational characteristics (e.g., agency type, as suggested by Battaglio and Hall []). However, the question of which organizational features explain differences in discriminatory behavior have largely been considered a “black box” in previous studies (Gooden ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Does Good Performance Reduce Bad Behavior? Antecedents of Ethnic Employment Discrimination in Public Organizations

Guul

Villadsen

Wulff

2019

Equal treatment is a key feature of modern bureaucracy. However, several studies have shown that public organizations discriminate against ethnic and racial minorities to different degrees. Which organizational features explain differences in discrimination is largely unknown. This article proposes that organizational performance relates to an organization's likelihood of engaging in employment discrimination and argues that poor‐performing organizations tend to be less open to new ideas and that decision makers in such organizations are more prone to stereotyping behavior. The study combines a field experiment in which applications were sent to real job vacancies in 71 Danish public schools with administrative data on the schools. Bayesian analyses show that minority applicants generally faced discrimination but that they experienced a higher callback rate from better‐performing schools than from poorer‐performing schools. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

“…Consequently, identification of these gendered norms and ameliorating their influence becomes another role for practitioners to fulfill. “As scholars and practitioners, we have a duty to the discipline to unravel the causes and consequences for the persistence of discrimination in the workplace” (Battaglio and Hall 2018, 336).…”

Section: Implications For Practitionersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Slippery Slope: Struggling for Equity in the Academy in the Era of #MeToo

Knepper

Scutelnicu

Tekula

2020

The complexity of the sexual harassment language of the #MeToo movement creates discontinuities that may muddy intended communications. Yet understanding this language provides a fuller picture of the experiences that women face. Gender harassment has persisted in the workplace despite long-standing antidiscrimination policies, perhaps because of a universal failure to recognize all forms of it-some of which are more pervasive and common than sexual abuse. This article considers the ability of the academy to affect sexual harassment in public administration. It discusses the implications of gender harassment, the least recognized form of sexual harassment, and makes recommendations for overcoming gender barriers in the academy and in practice. Evidence-based guidance for advancing women in the academy may create more equitable and just spaces for teaching and learning. Public administration classrooms and scholarship represent critical opportunities to recognize patterns of organizational practice and systematically redress gender harassment in the workplace.