The limited impact of reference groups' symbolic gender representation on willingness to coproduce
通过两个预注册的因子调查实验（样本量2979），研究发现在囚犯改造和难民融入情境中，参考群体的象征性性别代表对公民共同生产意愿影响有限，仅平衡的代表有正向效果。
Abstract Previous literature presents a strong rationale for the positive impact of symbolic representation in coproduction contexts. However, empirical studies yield inconclusive findings indicating that meaningful effects are limited if citizens face high levels of uncertainty. This article combines symbolic representation with signaling theory, suggesting that the representativeness of central reference groups might reduce uncertainty. The theoretical framework suggests that the representation of supervisors and existing coproducers might positively affect citizens' willingness to coproduce. Contrary to the theoretical expectations, the empirical results from two preregistered factorial survey experiments ( n = 2979), situated in prisoner rehabilitation and refugee integration, indicate that the symbolic gender representation of these reference groups has a limited impact. Only a balanced representation of coproducers exhibits a positive treatment effect on citizens' willingness to coproduce. The results oppose central arguments in the representative bureaucracy literature. At least for gender categories, symbolic representation is less important than expected.