Death by a Thousand 10-Minute Tasks: Workarounds and Noncompliance in University Research Administration

• Published date: 01 April 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399720947994
• Date: 01 April 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720947994

Administration & Society

2021, Vol. 53(4) 527 –568

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0095399720947994

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Article

Death by a Thousand

10-Minute Tasks:

Workarounds and

Noncompliance in

University Research

Administration

Barry Bozeman1, Jan Youtie2, and Jiwon Jung1

Abstract

The article examines administrative workarounds in the context of

university research administration. The empirical results from 116 semi-

structured interviews with academic researchers with active National

Science Foundation awards are framed by a “Rules Response” model positing

relationships among rules compliance requests, administrative burden, red

tape, and response choices, including compliance, appeal, rule bending,

rule breaking, and workaround behaviors. Propositions are presented and

reviewed in light of empirical results. The article concludes with implications

of empirical results for improving the Rules Response model and a more

general discussion of research needed to improve the understanding of both

rules compliance and workarounds.

Keywords

research administration, workarounds, rule bending, administrative burden

1Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA

2Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA

Corresponding Author:

Barry Bozeman, Arizona State University, 411 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA.

Email: Barry.Bozeman@asu.edu

947994AASXXX10.1177/0095399720947994Administration & SocietyBozeman et al.

research-article2020

528 Administration & Society 53(4)

Introduction

As long as there have been rules, some persons subjected to rules have failed

to comply and have sought ways to work around the rules. Workers from

nearly every occupational group engage in noncompliant behavior, but for

many different reasons, including, for example, serving one’s self-interest,

providing unsanctioned service to clients and customers, and in some cases

seeking to save the organization from itself by not complying with rules per-

ceived as out of date, harmful or overly rigid.

We argue that theory about workarounds benefits from a more integrated

perspective that recognizes the kinship among various concepts and behaviors

relating compliance or noncompliance with rules and norms. Thus, this article

has two objectives. The theory objective is to set the study of workarounds

within a broader theoretical framework of individuals’ responses to rules and

regulations (for reasons explained in detail in the section on “Data and Method,”

we give only modest attention to behaviors in response to norms).

After developing a rules compliance/noncompliance conceptual model,

we use the model to help inform the qualitative research component of the

study. The model relates not only to work around behavior but also a number

of issues central to public administration theory and research, including not

only workaround behavior but also administrative burden, red tape, rule

bending, and rule breaking.

We focus on workarounds but within a specific context, academic research

administration. Our study analyzes data based on 116 interviews with univer-

sity researchers who, at the time interviewed, were principal investigators

(PIs) on U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) grants. We feel that this

context poses an excellent laboratory for understanding workaround behavior

inasmuch as NSF grants are subject to extensive rules (Bozeman & Youtie,

2020). In this setting, our study examines the frequency of workaround

behavior, the concerns triggering such behavior, and approaches taken in

workarounds.

Defining Workarounds

As workaround behavior is our chief focus, let us immediately turn our atten-

tion to defining this term and the closely related term rule bending. A typical

definition of workaround is provided by Seaman and Erlen (2015), who

define workaround as “an action that is performed by an individual in order

to circumvent a block in workflow and thereby achieve a desired goal”

(p. 235). This definition is typical because it focuses on workarounds in

response to workflow and procedures rather than rules. In the context

Bozeman et al. 529

examined here, grants administration, responses are almost always pertain to

formal rules rather than workflow problems or unofficial standard practice.

According to Borry (2017), “rule bending occurs when an employee

chooses to depart from the requirements of a rule or only partially follow a

rule” (p. 79). In a similar conceptualization, also useful for present purposes,

Sekerka and Zolin (2007) observe that rule bending “involves a decision to

go around the formally stated obligations by not fully following a rule,

requirement, procedure, or specification” (p. 228). According to these

authors’ conceptualization, rule bending may be attributable solely to employ-

ees’ ignorance of a rule. Our definition of rule bending is similar to these

authors but requires self-conscious action and also distinguishes rule bending

from noncompliance by simply breaking the rule. Thus,

Rule bending: Complying with only part of a rule and, for the part of the

rule not obeyed, either self-consciously ignoring it or complying in a man-

ner or to an extent different than mandated by the rule.

In contrast to rule bending, workaround behavior, by our conceptualization,

entails taking specific actions not sanctioned by the rule, typically making

adjustments to the rule, with the intent of serving any of a number of objectives,

ranging from personal convenience to helping a client to taking actions per-

ceived to benefit the organization.

While workaround behavior is clearly related to rule bending, workarounds

are generally more calculated and are less likely to be one-off behaviors. Our

concept of workaround requires direct action in pursuit of objectives that the

individual perceives as not well served by the rule. These objectives may

relate to the organization’s intended objectives, but they may also relate to the

individual’s personal objectives or objectives of stakeholders valued by the

individual. Thus, in our usage, workarounds are not just a matter of addressing

workflow problems and bottlenecks.

Workaround: An organization member ignores a rule’s requirements and

takes unsanctioned actions to achieve objectives not served by the rule.

In comparing the definition of workaround with rule bending, we see one

flows from the other. In many cases, the workaround is a specific category of

rule bending, one in which the individual takes direct action in applying a

strategy to remedy some perceived shortcoming of the rule. Workaround

behavior requires enacting a self-conscious approach perceived as remedial

to some perceived shortcoming of the rule’s objectives.