Perceived Organizational Red Tape and Organizational Performance in Public Services

• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12817
• Published date: 01 January 2018

24 Public Administration Review • January | February 2018

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 1, pp. 24–36. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12817.

Mads Leth Jakobsen is associate

professor in the Department of Political

Science, Aarhus University, Denmark.

His research covers subjects such as

bureaucratization, red tape, innovative

behavior, organizational learning, and

performance management within a public

management perspective. He is in charge

of the Professional Master in Public

Governance program at Aarhus University

and University of Southern Denmark. For

more information, see http://au.dk/en/

mads@ps.

E-mail: mads@ps.au.dk

Christian Bøtcher Jacobsen is

associate professor of public administration

in the Department of Political Science,

Aarhus University, Denmark. His research

mainly focuses on leadership, motivation,

and performance in public service

organizations. He is currently working on

a large-scale field-experimental project on

leadership (The LEAP project).

E-mail: christianj@ps.au.dk

Abstract : The claim that perceived organizational red tape hampers public services has become a central theme in

public administration research. Surprisingly, however, few scholars have empirically examined the impact of perceived

red tape on organizational performance. This article empirically analyzes how perceived organizational red tape

among managers and frontline staff relates to objectively measured performance. The data consist of survey responses

from teachers and principals at Danish upper secondary schools combined with grade-level administrative performance

data. Based on theories of red tape and motivation crowding, the authors hypothesize that perceived organizational red

tape reduces performance within such organizations. The empirical result is a small negative relationship between staff

perception of red tape and performance and no relationship between manager-perceived red tape and performance.

Evidence for Practice

• Public administration theories predict that perceptions of organizational red tape will reduce performance by

constraining employees and reducing their motivation.

• Employees perceive significantly higher levels of red tape than managers.

• Employee-perceived red tape (but not manager-perceived red tape) is negatively but weakly associated with

objectively measured performance.

Christian Bøtcher Jacobsen

Mads Leth Jakobsen

Aarhus University, Denmark

Perceived Organizational Red Tape and Organizational

Performance in Public Services

R ed tape is a central topic in public

administration research and one of the most

investigated in recent decades (Bozeman and

Feeney 2011 ). The negative implications of red tape

for performance in public organizations is perhaps

the most central claim in the literature, which is

theoretically explained with reference to burdensome

rules. In practice, however, almost all studies

measure red tape subjectively rather than objectively.

Furthermore, although originally presented as a

central motivation for the study of red tape (Bozeman

and Feeney 2011 , 99), there is surprisingly little

theory or empirical evidence regarding the impact of

organizational red tape on organizational performance.

This article aims to advance

our understanding of red tape

by theorizing and examining

how perceptions of red tape

among public managers

and frontline staff can affect

organizational performance.

Perceived organizational red

tape refers to a belief among

organizational actors that rules

within and outside the organization are detrimental

to organizational performance. Defining red tape as

the perception that rules have negative consequences

follows Kaufman ’ s classic point that red tape is about

how people “mean that they are subjected to too

many constraints” (1977, 5). We lack both theoretical

and empirical knowledge about the relationship

between perceived red tape and objectively measured

performance, however, and this article provides three

contributions to the literature.

First, we show that the perception of red tape among

frontline staff is negatively related to objectively

measured performance. Nonetheless, the relationship

is weaker than that found in existing studies based on

perceptual performance measures (Brewer and Walker

2010b ), which can be subject

to common-source bias (Favero

and Bullock 2015 ; Jakobsen

and Jensen 2015 ; Podsakoff

and Organ 1986 ). The article

uses objective performance

measures and controls for

past performance in order to

account for performance being

highly autoregressive (Meier

and O ’ Toole 1999 ). These are

necessary steps if we are to increase our empirical

knowledge of this issue.

 is article aims to advance our

understanding of red tape by

theorizing and examining how

perceptions of red tape among

public managers and frontline

staf‌f can af‌f ect organizational

performance.