Pay-for-performance, job attraction, and the prospects of bureaucratic representation in public organizations: evidence from a conjoint experiment

Mogens Jin Pedersen, Nathan Favero and Joohyung Park

Public Management Review, 2025, vol. 27, issue 1, 273-296

Abstract: Does pay-for-performance – a hotly debated compensation scheme for incentivizing public service efficiency – induce inadvertent heterogeneity in job attraction that is counteracting the prospects of bureaucratic diversity and representation? Using data from a pre-registered conjoint experiment among US residents (n = 1,501), we examine whether pay-for-performance (compared to fixed pay) affects attraction to a public service job differently across race, gender, and age. Contrary to theoretical expectations, we find that pay-for-performance does not diminish attraction to a public service job within or between demographic groups. In fact, we find indications that pay-for-performance may enhance job attractiveness among individuals identifying with minority racial groups.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14719037.2023.2245841 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpxmxx:v:27:y:2025:i:1:p:273-296

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rpxm20

DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2023.2245841

Access Statistics for this article

Public Management Review is currently edited by Stephen P. Osborne

More articles in Public Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().