Commitment To the Disadvantaged Among Urban Administrators

Abstract

This paper examines potential correlates of attitudinal commitment to minority hiring among urban personnel officials. The authors hypothesized that sociopolitical beliefs concerning equality would be particularly powerful predictors of attitudes toward recruit ing nonwhites, but that work-related beliefs, professional characteristics, community relationships, and personal attributes would explain additional variance in commitment to hiring minorities. Sociopolitical and work-related beliefs do achieve substantial correlations with attitudes toward recruiting nonwhites, but the three other clusters of independent variables account for less variance than expected. A concluding section examines some implications of the data for minority hiring practices in urban bureau cracies.