Gender and performance in public organizations: a research synthesis and research agenda

ABSTRACT

This study examines the variations among empirical findings of gender effects on the performance of public organizations; and identifies avenues for future efforts in the scholarship of gender and public administration. The meta-analysis using 72 studies published between 1999 and 2017 demonstrates that studies reporting statistical significance of female leadership and gender representation in the workforce tend to find a positive impact on performance. Study characteristics such as policy types/areas, time scopes, geographical context consistently affect the findings of gender effects, while the variance in measurement strategies and publication status do not make a difference in empirical evidence.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• representation
• diversity
• performance
• public organizations

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Kenneth J. Meier, Elizabeth Fredericksen, Helen Ingram, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions that greatly improved this work. I also thank Nishikant Kamble for his research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2020.1730940.

Notes

1. According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology (2015), sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the psychological, behavioural, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female (i.e. masculinity or femininity).

2. The diversity literature uses a variety of outcome measures including productivity, transparency, resource management, and decision-making effectiveness; yet tends to focus on financial measures such as debt, profits, and stock returns in private organizations.

3. Using the distributions of zero-order correlations (Fishers’ Z, and/or Cohen’s D and Hedges’ G for group difference) based on statistical significance and degrees of freedom is a more common strategy to estimate the effect of an intervention.

4. Administration & Society, American Review of Public Administration, International Journal of Public Administration, International Public Management Journal, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration, Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, Public Personnel Management, Public Productivity and Management Review, Public Works Management & Policy, Review of Public Personnel Administration, State and Local Government Review, and others in academic publishers such as Cambridge University Press, EBSCO host, Emerald, ISI Web of Knowledge, JSTOR, Oxford Academic, ProQuest, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, University of Chicago Press, Wiley journal list, and WorldCat.

5. Google Scholar, APA PsycNET, DSpace@MIT, ResearchGate, SSRN, and William & Mary Digital Archive.

6. As our focus is on the relationship between the dependent variable and independent variables, the empirical modelling of the primary studies is limited to multiple regression which is based on the linear combinations of independent variables. Unlike multiple regression estimating in sequential steps, structural equation modelling (SEM) evaluates all the variables in the model simultaneously and measurement errors are not aggregated in an error term.

7. The baseline results are not provided as a tabular form but summarized in note 3 in Table 2. Unlike meta-regression studies examining intervention effects, the unconditional average effect is of less interest of this study examining whether and how the covariates influence gender effect.

8. The diagonal lines represent the 95% confidence limits, which shows ‘the expected distribution of studies in the absence of heterogeneity or of selection biases’ (Sterne and Harbord 2004, 131).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sanghee Park

Sanghee Park is an assistant professor of Public Policy and Administration, School of Public Service at Boise State University. Her research efforts include public management, public sector governance, comparative public administration, and representative bureaucracy. Her articles have appeared in such journals as American Review of Public Administration, International Public Management Journal, Journal of Public Policy, Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, Public Organization Review, and Public Performance Management Review.