Informality in the Philippine Civil Service

Abstract

Philippine political and bureaucratic organisations are usually presented as weak, permeable, distorted and corrupt and, as such, lie some way from a proper condition of formality. There is no question that informal behaviour can and does have a deleterious effect on the civil service and the organisations it staffs. But it is also clear that, within the bureaucracy, there is a deal of positive informal behaviour. It is suggested here that informality is essential to the day-to-day operation of bureaucratic organisations, a vital source of innovation, and the base material from which the formal is shaped. Possible explanations for the emergence of these qualities are also revealed. There are, in particular, overlapping and mutually reinforcing circumstances or conditionsnegative informality, divergent representations, divisions in authority, and overconformity -that appear to excite positive informality, and that may constitute useful elements in developing an explanatory model of informality in Philippine bureaucracy.

Authoritarian values and institutional trust: Theoretical considerations and evidence from the Philippines

“…In a series of publications, Hodder (2009Hodder ( , 2010aHodder ( , 2010bHodder ( , 2014 asserted that the pejorative traits of Filipino attitudes when it comes to public administration and bureaucracy must be reinterpreted. This 'third-world informality' prominent in transitional states like the Philippines facilitates technical and emotional professionalism which itself facilitates positivity and signifies the congruence and synchrony seen among high-level political appointments (Hodder, 2010a(Hodder, , 2010b. In this way, patronage cultivates effective, humanitarian, flexible, and creative organizations.…”

Measure of Government Employees’ Career Intentions: Design and Validation of Questionnaire

“…It is interesting to determine the level of career intentions of government employees as they are working in an organization that is driven by various informalities in the civil service (e.g. merit, kinship, personal relationships, bureaucracy) as described by Hodder (2010Hodder ( , 2014 and Brilliantes & Fernandez (2011).…”