Organizational Fairness and Diversity Management in Public Organizations

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.