Review article

https://doi.org/10.31297/hkju.17.3.2

Recruiting Minorities in Public Administration: Contemporary Approaches and Models

Tijana Vukojičić Tomić orcid.org/0000-0002-1791-7291 ; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb

Abstract

Recruiting minority group members for public administration positions requires a specific approach to the selection and employment of civil servants. As modern societies undergo socio-demographic changes and grow increasingly complex, this brings about the development of various policies and measures that attempt to reflect social diversity in public administration hiring practices. In addition, special models of recruiting minority group members have been developed within the scope of international anti-discrimination legislation since the 1960s. It
is by implementing special hiring policies regarding minority groups in public administration positions that discriminatory practices are sought to be avoided or reduced and diversity is sought to be integrated into the organisation. Opting for a particular hiring model depends on the reasons for this decision as well as the intended goal. Attention should also be paid to the general characteristics of the tradition of public administration in a particular society. Because there is no universally accepted definition in the available literature, nor is there a universally accepted classification or nomenclature that would encompass all aspects of such recruiting models, the paper investigates the possibility of integrating practical approaches. When it comes to minority groups, existing hiring models are divided into two basic approaches – the affirmative approach and the diversity management approach – based on the differences in their origins, their intended goals, the method of measuring their success rate, and the extent to which decision-making is centralised. Building on these two basic approaches to recruiting minority group members, various hiring policies in selected countries
are analysed. The analysis serves to develop a proposal for the classification of special policies of recruiting minority group members for public administration positions into affirmative methods and integrative methods, which are often combined in practice.

Keywords

public administration; minority groups; recruiting minority group members; affirmative approach; diversity management

Hrčak ID:

187192

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/187192

Publication date:

4.9.2017.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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