Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The demographic composition of the workforce in the US government has been diversified with respect to women and racial/ethnic minorities. People believe that the US government’s efforts to create an atmosphere that values social equity through civil rights legislation and affirmative action programs has led to greater access to the public sector for women and racial minorities (Cornwell and Kellough 1994; Choi 2010; Fredrickson 1971). Also, in general, while the public sector has provided a greater share of jobs to women and racial minorities, previous findings suggest that its demographic distribution varies by department (Riccucci and Saidel 1997). Particularly, scholars have found that redistributive agencies—government organizations whose missions are to redistribute wealth and power in society—attract more women and racial minorities (Newman 1994). While previous studies have suggested that the public sector and redistributive agencies attract women and minorities, limited empirical evidence has been provided as to whether the public sector, particularly redistributive agencies signal diversity and inclusion to employees when they make job decisions.

This study focuses on organizational reputation to explain why people are attracted to jobs in the public sector, particularly redistributive agencies. We define organizational reputation for diversity as peoples’ beliefs of organizations that they treat and protect under-privileged groups equally; the beliefs are constructed based on organizations’ mission, history, and obligation (Carpenter, 2010; Roberson and Park 2007; Riccucci 2009). According to Signaling theory, organizational reputation is important information that influences people deciding jobs who experience constraints accessing the full and accurate information about organizations’ tasks, benefits, and culture (Spence 1974). By understanding how an organizational reputation for diversity is associated with women and minorities’ job decisions, we can have an empirical hint of why the public sector and redistributive agencies have signals of the workforce diversity and attract a particular pool of applicants.

The primary goals of this study are to explore whether the organizational reputation of diversity can provide relevant answers to the question of why people, particularly women race minorities decide to work in the public sector or redistributive agencies. To address the research issues above, we used survey data of 700 public managers in the US. With the data, we also were able to select females and racial minorities as sub-samples for the empirical analysis to identify whether these less privileged groups process considerations differently in selecting their jobs than do their white male counterparts. The results support that the public sector, especially redistributive agencies, attract people who concern more of organizations’ reputations for workforce diversity. The findings shed lights on the importance of an organizational reputation in people’s job decisions.