Representative Bureaucracy, Organizational Strategy, and Public Service Performance: An Empirical Analysis of English Local Government

The theory of representative bureaucracy suggests that organizationsperform better if their workforces reflect the characteristicsof their constituent populations. The management literatureimplies that the impact of representative bureaucracy is contingenton organizational strategy. Our empirical evidence on Englishlocal government is inconsistent with the basic theory of representativebureaucracy but supports a moderating effect of organizationalstrategy. Representative bureaucracy is negatively associatedwith citizens' perceptions of local authority performance. However,organizations pursuing a prospector strategy are able to mitigatethis negative relationship.