Merit, Diversity, and Performance: Does Diversity Management Moderate the Effect of Merit Principles on Governmental Performance?

• Date: 01 March 2020
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Author: Jiaqi Liang,Sanghee Park
• DOI: 10.1177/0091026019848459
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026019848459

Public Personnel Management

2020, Vol. 49(1) 83 –110

© The Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0091026019848459

journals.sagepub.com/home/ppm

Article

Merit, Diversity, and

Performance: Does Diversity

Management Moderate the

Effect of Merit Principles on

Governmental Performance?

Sanghee Park1 and Jiaqi Liang2

Abstract

The compatibility of merit principles and diversity management is particularly

intriguing in theory and practice. Although theoretical arguments for merit-based

practices and diversity management are well established, the effect of their dynamics

on governmental performance remains an empirical issue. This article examines

the effect of merit principles, workforce diversity, and diversity management on

government performance, and inquires about whether diversity management efforts

moderate the effect of merit-based practices. Analyzing a combined data set on

federal agencies, this study finds that merit-based practices and diversity management

have independent positive impact on organizational performance, but there is no

significant relationship between workforce diversity and performance. Furthermore,

the effect of merit-based practices on organizational performance is moderated

by gender diversity and diversity management. Specifically, if an agency has a more

diverse workforce in terms of gender or more effective diversity management

efforts, the positive effect of merit-based practices on organizational performance is

strengthened.

Keywords

merit principles, workforce diversity, diversity management, performance, federal

agencies

1Boise State University, ID, USA

2The University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sanghee Park, Boise State University,1910 University Dr.1910 University Dr., Boise, ID 83725, USA.

Email: sangheepark@boisestate.edu

848459PPMXXX10.1177/0091026019848459Public Personnel ManagementPark and Liang

research-article2019

84 Public Personnel Management 49(1)

Introduction

Merit principles and diversity management undoubtedly are two of the most important

managerial policies in the contemporary public sector. Merit-based practices and

diversity management have been developed through different historical contexts with

distinct managerial emphases. Merit principles have long served as a guiding value in

public personnel management since the enactment of the Pendleton Act of 1883 and

been reinforced by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA). Merit principles

have been powerful in replacing aristocracy, neutralizing the political system, and

strengthening professionalism of the public bureaucracy (Groeneveld & Van de Walle,

2010). Institutions that stem from merit principles epitomized by competitive hiring,

protected tenure, and political neutrality constitute a core foundation of American civil

service (Ruhil & Camões, 2003).

An increasingly diverse workforce in the public sector, however, has posed new

challenges to public personnel management (Riccucci, 2002; Selden & Selden, 2001).

Scholars, practitioners, and policy makers have raised concerns about the compatibil-

ity of merit principles with policies and programs that focus on promoting demo-

graphic diversity (McCrudden, 1998; Woodard, 2005). Affirmative action policies, for

example, have been adopted in various areas, such as legislatures, universities, and

corporate boards, to promote diversity and achieve restorative justice. On one hand,

however, it has long been contested that affirmative action runs counter to meritocracy

as the former offers advantages to certain subpopulations based on ascribed character-

istics (e.g., gender, race), but not on earned qualifications. On the other hand, it has

been argued that affirmative action policies can enhance meritocracy by allowing for

fair and equal opportunity to the historically disadvantaged. As such, the compatibility

of merit principles and diversity management, two key human resource management

institutions in the public sector, is particularly intriguing in theory and practice.

Although theoretical arguments for merit-based practices and diversity management

have been well established, the effect of their dynamics on governmental performance

remains an empirical issue.

This article examines the effect of merit principles, workforce diversity, and diver-

sity management on federal agencies’ performance, and inquires about the extent to

which workforce diversity and diversity management efforts moderate the effect of

merit-based practices. Specifically, this study partials out the effect of diversity on

organizational performance by distinguishing workforce diversity and management

efforts for diversity. We argue that merit-based practices and diversity management are

not contradictory but rather complementary, and have a conditional relationship for

governmental performance. In our analysis, workforce diversity represents the degree

of demographic composition in terms of gender and race, while diversity management

refers to “a general set of human resource policies aimed at making workplaces more

tolerant and inclusive of people from historically underrepresented groups, such as

racial minorities and women” (Oberfield, 2014, p. 778).

In the following sections, we first review the literature on merit principles, work-

force diversity, and diversity management, and then develop three sets of hypotheses