Obtrusive, obstinate and conspicuous: red tape from a Heideggerian perspective

Abstract

PurposeTheoretical innovation has been central to the study of red tape in (public sector) organizations. However, fundamental red tape concepts have failed to capture fully the lived experience of dysfunctional rules. This study addresses this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe study provides a critical review of existing red tape theory, highlighting its strengths but, more importantly, its limitations for analyzing red tape from an experiential perspective. To develop an experiential approach, the author draws on philosopher Martin Heidegger’s analysis of (dysfunctional) equipment, leveraging his insights to provide a cognitive account of established red tape concepts including functional efficacy, compliance burden, goal displacement and the bureaucratic personality.FindingsThe analysis suggests that, from an experiential perspective, impersonal organizational goals are unlikely to serve as the criteria by which evaluations of rule quality are made. Rather, a limited horizon of practical objectives, grounded in the individual work context, provides a more realistic standard. The practical implications of this insight for research in several areas are discussed.Originality/valueBy drawing on a literature largely overlooked by public administration scholars, this study contributes to the theory of red tape and organizational rules by providing a novel perspective that is not entirely discontinuous with existing work.

Red Tape, Organizational Performance, and Employee Outcomes: Meta‐analysis, Meta‐regression, and Research Agenda

“…We draw upon recent reviews of red tape scholarship (Campbell 2019; Davis and Pink‐Harper 2016; Pandey 2020) and research on related concepts to create Table 5. The first column provides the name of the concept and its definition, followed by characterization of the worldview in which the concept is grounded, identification of the primitive concept used in the definition, and a comment characterizing key aspects of the concept.…”

“…The theoretical and empirical advancements on red tape (also called “bureaucratic red tape,” as in the Public Administration Review symposium edited by Carrigan, Pandey, and Van Ryzin 2020) have been ably summarized elsewhere (e.g., Bozeman 2000; Bozeman and Feeney 2011; Pandey, Pandey, and Van Ryzin 2017; Pandey and Scott 2002). Campbell (2019) provides a good summation of theoretical developments identifying two distinct approaches, namely the functional efficacy approach and psychological process approach. The functional efficacy approach grows out of Bozeman's (1993) paper in which he defines red tape as “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 ” .…”

The financial and administrative burden of financially vulnerable households

“…We used the full cleaned sample data to investigate the discriminant validity of the SRB scale. As noted by Campbell (2019), evaluations of compliance requirements might be grounded in the holistic, lived experience of the interaction with the welfare department (staff). As a consequence, SRB might only be a derivative of evaluations of experiences with the welfare department staff thus violating discriminant validity.…”

“…Similarly, red tape measures typically incorporate a lack of functionality as a dimension (Borry, 2016;van Loon, Leisink, Knies, & Brewer, 2016), while this dimension will be less prominent in the conceptualization of SRB. From an experiential perspective, individuals evaluate regulations on the burdensomeness of the required compliance activities rather than their social goal (Campbell, 2019). Following administrative burden, SRB includes burdens regardless of the regulations' functional objective (Herd & Moynihan, 2018).…”

“…However, field experiments that test this causal relationship are absent. 88 Furthermore, field experiments in the field of administrative burden are scarce (Hansen & Tummers, 2020), while these experiments are useful to detect the effects of variations in administrative situations relevant for administrative theory (Campbell, 2019). Our work aims to fill this gap.…”