Abstract
The present study, with a focus on ethnic and racial diversity, tested an implicit assumption of diversity studies that diversified workforces perform better and bring more benefits to organizations. Using data from 464 police departments of cities with more than 50,000 residents, this study found decreased crime control performance and increased employee turnover as workforces became more diversified. According to the findings in this study, managers are advised to consider introducing diversity management practices to reduce negative results of being diverse while protecting and increasing the benefits derived from diversity to make diversified workforces help enhance organizational productivity.
According to the findings in this study, managers are advised to consider introducing diversity management practices to reduce negative results of being racially diverse while protecting and increasing the benefits derived from racial diversity to make diversified workforces help enhance organizational productivity.
Introduction
Due to growing diversity in the labor pool as well as in the client population, arguments for diversity have been ‘intuitively appealing and politically popular’ (Pitts and Wise, 2010: 44). As a result, public managers seem to be interested in making their workforces more diversified, considering political pressures and legal requirements such as affirmative action programs. While hiring and retaining more diverse workforces can help achieve important public goals as in the arguments of representative bureaucracy (Brown and Harris, 1993; Krislov and Rosenbloom, 1981; Mosher, 1968;), problems may exist in the course of this endeavor because decisions for workforce diversity are generally based on the implicit assumption that diversified workforces would bring more benefits to an organization than harm. From the managerial perspective, however, public managers need to figure out what they can get from making their workforces more diversified and how to take care of possible diversity-related issues (Wise and Tschirhart, 2000). It is important to realize that the relationship between workforce diversity and organizational performance is neither direct nor simple and that having more diversified workforces does not guarantee positive consequences for an organization (Ely, 2004).
Unfortunately, not much is known about the effects of having more diversified workforces. While some studies have emphasized positive consequences that workforce diversity may bring to an organization (e.g. Cox and Blake, 1991; Wiersema and Bantel, 1992), others have focused on growing conflicts and problems in social integration among diversity groups as workforces become more diversified (e.g. Chatman and Flynn, 2001; Jehn et al., 1999; Schippers et al., 2003). Furthermore, only a few empirical studies have been conducted to examine the effects of workforce diversity in the public sector and their findings are not consistent with each other (e.g. Andrews et al., 2005; Choi, 2009; Pitts, 2005). Maybe these mixed empirical findings are related to two opposite outcomes of workforce diversity as diversity researchers argue. As a positive outcome, employees’ problem-solving ability can be increased because of more diverse perspectives, skills, and insights, and organizational productivity can be improved. However, a possible negative outcome is that social integration is less likely and more conflicts are possible among diversity groups. As a result, organizations can suffer. Overall, workforce diversity may be ‘a double-edged sword’ to an organization as Milliken and Martins put it (1996: 403).
A majority of empirical studies that examined diversity effects were conducted in educational contexts (Johansen, 2007; Meier et al., 2006; Pitts, 2005; Pitts and Jarry, 2007), although studies in new policy settings are necessary to advance our knowledge about diversity effects (Pitts and Wise, 2010: 63). The present study examines organizational consequences in municipal police departments, focusing on the effects of racial diversity that is one of the most studied topics in the diversity-effect research (Pitts and Wise, 2010; Wise and Tschirhart, 2000). Specifically this study probes the effects of sworn officers’ racial diversity on crime control performance and sworn officers’ turnover. Since this study investigates the effects of workforce diversity not only on organizational productivity but also on possible conflicts among employees, it will help enhance our understanding about comprehensive effects of racial diversity in the public sector.
Theoretical review
Diversity and organizational consequences
Changing demographics in the United States, such as the growth in the number of ethnic and racial minorities, increase the importance that public managers recruit, hire, and retain a more diverse workforce (Doverspike et al., 2000; Dychtwald et al., 2006). The working definition of diversity, as developed and used by Vice-President Al Gore’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government (formerly National Performance Review) is ‘all characteristics and experiences that define each of us as individuals’. From the NPR’s perspective, diversity includes ‘the entire spectrum of primary dimensions of an individual, including race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, disability, and sexual orientation’. Other dimensions incorporated by the NPR are communication style, work style, organizational role/level, economic status, and geographic origin (US Department of Commerce and Vice-President Al Gore, 2000). The NPR held that building diverse organizations was a moral imperative and a global necessity.
Public entities can achieve important public goals when workforces become more diversified as scholars argue in representative bureaucracies (Brown and Harris, 1993; Bradbury and Kellough, 2008; Krislov and Rosenbloom, 1981). Numerous scholars argue that the composition of governmental bureaucracies should be reflective of the demographic characteristics of the communities served because diverse groups are likely to be involved in making policies and allocating scarce resources when workforces become more diverse (Alkadry, 2007; Kelly, 1998; Riccucci and Saidel, 1997). However, more diverse workforces may bring challenges as well as opportunities to an organization. Opportunities, such as accessibility to a wider array of viewpoints and increased tolerance for different work styles, may lead to greater productivity and improved performance. Challenges, such as organizational factionalism and miscommunication due to language differences or cultural misunderstandings, are also likely to arise (Elmuti, 1993; Mathews, 1998; Seymen, 2006; Trenka, 2006).
Although it is necessary and urgent to understand organizational consequences of public workforce diversity, given our growing attention to workforce diversity, only a few empirical studies have been conducted in the public sector, mainly focusing on the effects of race (e.g. Andrews et al., 2005; Choi, 2009; Pitts, 2005; Pitts and Jarry, 2007) and gender (e.g. Antonova, 2002; Choi, 2009; Johansen, 2007; Meier et al., 2006). 1 While public administration has made little contribution to understanding diversity effects, business schools and psychology departments have been leaders in this body of research (Wise and Tschirhart, 2000). Among the little research carried out on the public sector, objective measures such as student dropout rates and student pass rates in standardized exams were used as organizational consequences in studies conducted in educational contexts (Johansen, 2007; Meier et al., 2006; Pitts, 2005, 2007; Pitts and Jarry, 2007), whereas only subjective measures such as changes in employee perceptions or satisfaction were used as organizational consequences in other studies (Andrews et al., 2005; Antonova, 2002; Choi, 2009).
Racial diversity has been the center of workforce diversity efforts in the public sector, but ironically its effects have not been well documented and only mixed results were found by a few studies. For example, Pitts (2005) generally found positive effects of racial diversity, using data from Texas public school districts. 2 According to his research, fewer students tended to drop out of their high schools and more students passed the standardized graduation exam in Texas when teachers were more reflective of demographics in educational districts. On the contrary, Andrews et al. (2005) found significant but negative effects of representative bureaucracy. In their study conducted on English local authorities, they found that citizen satisfaction decreased as workforces in local authorities became more reflective of communities in terms of race and ethnicity. Overall, more research is needed to understand organizational consequences of workforce diversity in the public sector, and understanding the effects of racial diversity is urgent given the focus of our attention in diversifying workforces in the public sector.
Diversity, conflicts, and employee turnover
Growing conflicts among diversity groups can be an issue when workforces become more diversified, as scholars warned (e.g. Chatman and Flynn, 2001; Jehn et al., 1999; Polzer et al., 2002; Schippers et al., 2003). Different social categories such as race and gender lead to social category diversity and members in the same social category tend to establish positive social identity among themselves and show hostility to other social category members (Jehn et al., 1999; Pelled, 1996). Therefore, employees in different diversity groups may not cooperate with each other; victims of conflicts tend to quit; and organizational productivity could be negatively affected in the end. In law enforcement agencies, a staff shortage due to high turnover rates among sworn officers has been one of the major concerns of most police chiefs (e.g. Gettinger, 1984; Manili and Connors, 1988; Webster and McEwen, 1992; Yearwood and Freeman, 2004). Turnover can be even more detrimental to small police departments because some law enforcement services could be curtailed in their communities while new employees are being recruited or are receiving basic training (Harris and Baldwin, 1999; Warrell, 2000).
Turnover decisions can be affected by various factors such as individual characteristics and perceptions, organizational characteristics, and economic-labor market situations (Mobley et al., 1979). Major reasons for resignation include low job satisfaction (e.g. Coomber and Barriball, 2007; Hellman, 1997; Larrabee et al., 2003; Mobley, 1977) and more opportunities for alternative jobs (e.g. Hulin et al., 1985; Michaels and Spector, 1982; Mobley, 1982). When employees are exposed to growing conflicts, it is not hard to predict that their job satisfaction levels become low. As a consequence, they are likely to quit.
Methods
Data were collected from three different sources. Data such as racial proportion among sworn officers, sworn officers’ turnover, and numbers of sworn officers came from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) data that have been collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics every two or three years (US Department of Justice, 2006). Four hundred sixty-four municipalities with more than 50,000 residents were chosen for this study from the LEMAS data. 3 The Federal Bureau of Investigation provided Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Part 1 crimes data that have been the most widely used criminal statistics in the US. Sociodemographic data such as population, education level, poverty level, and in-labor force percentage came from the US Census Bureau. Separate regression analyses were run to probe racial diversity effects on crime control performance as well as on conflicts among employees, using measures explained in the following sections.
Racial diversity level
This study focused on the effects of racial diversity as previously mentioned, and used the Blau index to gauge a racial diversity level in municipal police departments. Having being created by Gibbs and Martin (1962), the Blau index has been one of the most common indicators to determine the variation in categorical data. As seen in the formula, 4 when only one racial group of employees is found in an organization (e.g. white employees only), the Blau index is zero, whereas the index is close to one when most employees are different from each other in their race. In this study, the Blau index was constructed with race of sworn officers such as White, Black, and other. This study focused on the effects of racial diversity among sworn officers because they are directly involved in crime control that comprises a major part of the police service as explained in the following section.
Crime control performance
Organizational performance (or productivity) in the public sector is generally defined as effective and efficient use of resources to achieve organizational goals (Berman, 1998; Rosen, 1993). Unlike for-profit organizations that have profit maximization as a clear goal, governments pursue several objectives and suffer from goal ambiguity and unclear goal priority (Chun and Rainey, 2005; Lee et al., 2010; Pandey and Wright, 2006). Therefore, it can be ‘essentially a judgment call’ to select the outcomes of public entities for tracking (Hatry, 1999: 43).Despite the multiplicity of their tasks, however, the organization of police departments and the self-image of their officers are rooted in crime fighting (Reiss and Bordua, 1967), and crime control comprises a major part of police service (Bratton, 1998; Moore and Braga, 2004). Since police departments have more control over crime clearance, compared with crime occurrence, this study employed crime clear up rates 5 as an indicator of crime control performance among possible performance indicators such as crime occurrence rates, clearance rates, and fear of crime (Drebin and Brannon, 1992). This choice of performance measure was made based on Hatry’s (1980) suggestion that the more control government agencies have over a performance measure, the more they can be held accountable for performance. Specifically, this study used clearance rates for Part I violent and property crimes in the Uniform Crime Reports. 6
Conflicts among employees
To understand possible conflicts among employees as an effect of racial diversity, this study examined employee turnover as did other diversity-effect studies (e.g. Choi, 2009; Naff and Kellough, 2003; Tsui et al., 1992). Specifically, this study used separation rates among sworn officers as a common measure of employee turnover, and separation rates were calculated by dividing total number of separated sworn officers by the average number of sworn officers on the payroll during the given year. In this study, sworn officers’ turnover was divided into voluntary (i.e. resignation) and involuntary (i.e. dismissal) turnover and separately examined according to the suggestions from the turnover literature that voluntary and involuntary turnover have different etiologies and consequent effects (e.g. McElroy et al., 2001; Mobley, 1982; Price, 1977; Shaw et al., 1998). 7
Control variables
Population, poverty, education, and labor force were employed as sociodemographic variables. Specifically, logged value of population, household percentage below the poverty level, percentage of bachelor’s degree or higher among residents over 25 years old, and percentage of in-labor force (16 years and over) were selected as indicators of sociodemographic variables. In addition, the number of sworn officers was included as a major indicator of police efforts, based on the suggestion from the crime control literature (e.g. Deutsch et al., 1990; Greenberg and Kessler, 1982; Zhao et al., 2002). The number of sworn officers was per 10,000 residents in this study.
Findings
Descriptive statistics for variables that were included in regression analyses are displayed in the Appendix. As seen in the table, average clearance rates for violent crimes were about three times higher than those for property crimes and this may be due to greater public attention paid to violent crimes and more urgency given to violent crimes by the police, compared with property crimes. In addition, clearance rates for violent crimes showed larger variation (standard deviation: 18.87) than those for property crimes (standard deviation: 7.97). A big difference was also found between resignation rates (i.e. voluntary turnover) and dismissal rates (i.e. involuntary turnover), and average resignation rates were about six times higher than average dismissal rates. Average total separation rates were higher than resignation and dismissal rates because total separation rates included retirements, deaths, and others in addition to resignation and dismissal.
Correlations and their implications
Correlation matrix
p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Organizational consequences of racial diversity
Regression analysis results for diversity effects on crime clearance rates
Notes: +p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Standardized coefficients are displayed.
Regression analysis results for diversity effects on employee turnover rates
Notes: +p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Standardized coefficients are displayed.
If coefficients are less than .005, they are displayed as .00.
Before the effects of racial diversity on sworn officers’ turnover were examined, turnover was divided into resignation, dismissal, and total separation rates as the turnover literature suggests. Again, as seen in Table 3, only sociodemographic variables and number of sworn officers were included in Model I, and the Blau index for race was added in Model II to see the effects of racial diversity on employee turnover. Regardless of turnover categories, the adjusted R-square values were increased by adding the Blau index for race, and racial diversity had a significant effect on turnover in that more sworn officers left their police departments as they became more racially diverse. Since growing conflicts among diverse racial groups could lead to problems in cooperation, police departments are likely to suffer from reduced crime control performance in the end.
Discussion and conclusion
While questions about diversity effects can be answered only through conducting empirical research in diverse policy contexts, we have not adequately tested propositions related to diversity effects in the public sector and are still at an early stage in this field (Pitts and Wise, 2010: 45). As one of only a few empirical studies that has examined diversity effects in the public sector, this study contributed to this field by probing effects of racial diversity in law enforcement contexts using objective measures such as crime clearance rates and turnover rates. With a focus on both organizational performance and possible conflicts among employees, this study found that crime control performance declined and conflicts among employees rose as sworn officers were racially more diverse.
According to the findings in this study, reduced crime control performance appears to be related to growing conflicts among diverse racial groups when sworn officers became more racially diverse as some scholars warned (e.g. Chatman and Flynn, 2001; Jehn et al., 1999; Schippers et al., 2003). However, these findings do not indicate that racial diversity among sworn officers brings only negative consequences to municipal police departments. Rather, positive consequences such as more diverse perspectives, skills, and insights might be overshadowed by negative consequences such as organizational factionalism and miscommunication among diverse racial groups. Therefore, a challenge for managers may be how to reduce the negative effects of being diverse while protecting and increasing the benefits derived from workforce diversity (Ely, 2004: 756).
To make workforce diversity more beneficial to their organizations, public managers may need to pay attention to managing diversity rather than simply trying to achieve workforce diversity. The term ‘diversity management’ carries a variety of meanings but generally refers to organizational efforts to actively recruit, hire, and retain individuals from a variety of backgrounds and facilitate good working relationships among them (Miller and Rowney, 1999). To respond to a changing workforce, diversity management has become a critical human resource management tool (Agars and Kottke, 2005) and numerous scholars assert that planning for diversity and managing for diversity is the key to addressing changes in the demographic make-up of the workforce (Charles, 2003; Kellough and Naff, 2004; Thomas, 1990).
While this study has made an important contribution to understanding the effects of racial diversity in the public sector, there are limitations. First, this study could not take a comprehensive approach to understanding the effects of overall diversity that includes gender, age, cultural origin, and so on because the sample size was not big enough and data availability was limited. Second, this study could not consider all major factors that may affect crime clearance and turnover propensity due to data unavailability. To fully understand the effects of racial diversity, future research needs to answer some important questions. For example, it is not certain whether we need to wait some years before seeing more positive effects of racial diversity. In addition, we are not sure what level of racial diversity is optimum for the benefits of organizations. Therefore, more studies need to be conducted in diverse settings, particularly using longitudinal data with a large number of observations.
