Representative Bureaucracy and Organizational Justice in Mediation

Studies of representative bureaucracy (RB) argue public organizations reflective of the public they serve exhibit better outcomes, especially when serving underrepresented groups. RB theory attributes improved outcomes either to the actions representative bureaucrats take (active representation), or a greater perception of trust and legitimacy toward them by service recipients (symbolic representation), largely treating active and symbolic representation as separate phenomena. We explore the intricate relationship between bureaucracies and the populations they serve by observing the cross-influence between active and symbolic representation, as revealed by self-reported outcomes in discrimination complaints (N = 1,372) referred for voluntary mediation in the United States Postal Service, the REDRESS© program, a context in which mediators are highly limited in representing a claimant's interests given the requirement of impartiality. In exit surveys measuring employee perceptions of organizational justice, we observed the impact of race and gender representation by gauging changes in reported satisfaction when a mediator's race or gender matched the nature of the complaint in cases of race or sex discrimination and sexual harassment, via multivariate regression estimation. These analyses support RB theory regarding sexual harassment complaints, where complainants rated outcomes significantly more favorably for female mediators. We found a negative correlation between female mediators and sex discrimination complaints, as well as African American mediators and race discrimination complainants. To explain this discrepancy, we argue that interactions between symbolic and active representation determine the expectations and perceptions placed on bureaucrats. When a bureaucrat does not meet those expectations, service recipients tend to have a more negative view of organizational justice outcomes.