More than Pathological Formalization: Understanding Organizational Structure and Red Tape

• Author: Erin L. Borry,Leisha DeHart‐Davis,Wesley Kaufmann
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12958

236

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 2, pp. 236–245. © 2018 The

Authors. Public Administration Review

publishedby Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on

behalf of American Society for Public

Administration. DOI: 10.1111/puar.12958.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

and is not used for commercial purposes.

Abstract: Most research has conceptualized red tape as being a pathological subset of organizational formalization.

This article argues that focusing on a single dimension of organizational structure as a red tape driver is unrealistically

narrow. Specifically, the article advances hypotheses as to how organizational centralization and hierarchy affect

perceived red tape, in addition to formalization. This reasoning is tested using survey data from employees of three

local government organizations in the southeastern United States. All three hypotheses are supported: higher levels of

organizational formalization, centralization, and hierarchy are associated with more red tape. Open-ended comments

also indicate that red tape is not solely perceived as related to formalization. The findings imply that red tape is a

multifaceted perception of organizational structure rather than perceived pathological formalization.

Evidence for Practice

• Research suggests that red tape tends to correlate with organizational effectiveness and public service

motivation, making red tape a matter of managerial concern.

• When employees talk about red tape, they are referring to structural aspects of the workplace that are

frustrating, including centralized decision making, tall hierarchies, and burdensome rules.

• While red tape is subjective, public organizations should carefully evaluate rule effectiveness, consider

pushing decision making downward, and investigate whether there are excessive managerial layers.

Public administration scholars have struggled

for decades to pin down the concept of

organizational red tape. Most organizational

red tape studies have followed Bozeman’s

definition of “rules, regulations, and procedures

that remain in force and entail a compliance

burden for the organization but have no efficacy

for the rules’ functional object” (1993, 283). In

this conceptualization, red tape is considered

a pathological subset of formalization, where

formalization denotes the intensity of written rules

within an organization (Bozeman and Scott 1996).

As such, formalization is a necessary but insufficient

condition for red tape. Yet red tape is commonly

associated with a wide variety of bureaucratic ills

that may or may not pertain to formalization (e.g.,

Bozeman and Feeney 2011; Goodsell 2004).

This article introduces a different perspective

on the rules and red tape debate and argue that

impressions of red tape are based on multiple

dimensions of overall organizational structure, not

just formalization. While many red tape studies

equate red tape with impressions of pathological rules

and procedures (e.g., Kaufmann and Feeney 2014;

Pandey and Kingsley 2000; Pandey and Scott 2002),

the literature is mostly silent on the causes of these

impressions. In particular, little is known about how

organizational centralization and hierarchy may affect

the extent to which an individual perceives red tape.

First, the level of centralization affects where

decision-making power is concentrated in an

organization (e.g., Pugh et al. 1968). Employees

working in a more centralized organization need to

defer decision making upward in the organization,

whereas a decentralized organization pushes decision

power downward in the organization. Research on

the outcomes of (de)centralization has produced

mixed results, but many studies have shown that

decentralization can positively affect employee

motivation, employee loyalty, and organizational

performance (Adler and Borys 1996; Baum and Wally

2003; Hill and Pickering 1986). In a decentralized

organization, employees are provided with many

opportunities to help shape their work processes,

whereas in a centralized organization, employees need

to wait constantly for input from their supervisors

before progressing with their work or starting a

process (e.g., Fredrickson 1986; Schminke, Ambrose,

and Cropanzano 2000). In this light, decentralization

has been suggested as a solution for cutting red tape

Wesley Kaufmann

Tilburg University

Erin L. Borry

University of Alabama at Birmingham

More than Pathological Formalization:

Understanding Organizational Structure and Red Tape

Leisha DeHart-Davis

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Leisha DeHart-Davis is professor of

public administration and government in

the School of Government, University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She studies

public sector organizational behavior

and is the author of Creating Effective

Rules in Public Sector Organizations

(Georgetown University Press, 2017).

E-mail: ldd@unc.edu

Erin L. Borry is assistant professor

in the Department of Political Science

and Public Administration, University of

Alabama at Birmingham. Her research

interests include rules and red tape,

organizational ethics, and race and gender

in public administration. Her work has

appeared in Review of Public Personnel

Administration, International

Public Management Journal, Public

Administration, and Public Integrity.

E-mail: borry@uab.edu

Wesley Kaufmann is associate

professor in the Tilburg Institute of

Governance, Tilburg University, the

Netherlands. His research interests

include red tape, rule effectiveness, and

good governance. His research has been

published in such journals as Public

Administration, Public Management

Review, and International Public

Management Journal.

E-mail: w.kaufmann@uvt.nl

Research Article