Organizational reputation and risk regulation: The effect of reputational threats on agency scientific outputs

Abstract

This article aims to explain the variation in the scientific risk assessments conducted by two regulatory agencies: the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES). To explain the merits of scientific risk assessments that have caused polarization within the EU, this article draws on bureaucratic reputation theory. The theory argues that regulators are political organizations that are active in protecting their unique organizational reputations. The findings obtained from interviews, direct observations, and primary documents yield support for this framework: depending on reputational threats, agencies choose to emphasize either their role as guardians of the prevailing social values, or send strong professional signals by delivering a scientifically rigorous risk assessment.

Building organizational reputation in the European regulatory state: An analysis of EU agencies' communications

“…We have learnt that supranational agencies choose to address multiple audiences and resist aggressive attacks by authoritative audiences by communicating their adherence to the highest technical/scientific standards. This finding suggests that higher reputational threats encourage EU agencies to fight external attacks by referring to their technical conduct (e.g., scientific gold standard), which is regarded as a powerful reputation‐protection mechanism in blame‐avoidance and diffusion games (Maor, ; Rimkutė, ). However, future research should focus on uncovering causal mechanisms behind the relationship between reputational threats and reputation‐management strategies.…”

“…For instance, an agency can start engaging in a “self‐consistent action that neither politicians nor organized interests prefer but that they either cannot or will not overturn or constrain in the future” (Carpenter, , p. 17). Finally, fruitful efforts to build good reputations may bring broad public support and even contribute to the legitimation of regulatory powers because “[l]egitimacy is…a product of successful reputation management by selectively responding to various reputational threats” (Rimkutė, , p. 72).…”

“…Government agencies carefully construct their communications with external audiences to shape the way in which their multiple audiences judge their roles and activities (Gilad et al, ; Maor et al, ). Given that they operate in settings marked by competing interests, organizations selectively respond “to reputational threats that can potentially harm their distinctive organisational reputation” (Rimkutė, , p. 72; see also Gilad, ; Gilad et al, ; Maor et al, ). In other words, as agencies are observed and judged by diverse—and often clashing—external audiences, they have to play different reputation–promotion games: “They [agencies] have a repository of ideas, values, and strategies that they may combine in various ways, deploy them politically and redeploy them between different audiences, thereby redefining relations with these audiences” (Maor, , p. 10).…”

International public administrations: a critique

“…Whether an organization is recognized as possessing analytical skills and capacity is a key dimension of bureaucratic reputation (Carpenter 2001). The technical capacities of an IPA thus affect how the organization is perceived by different stakeholders, which in turn conditions its ability to operate autonomously (Rimkutė 2018). Future studies could trace the scientific reputation of IPAs and the consequences for autonomy based on press coverage, surveys or interviews with stakeholders, focusing e.g., on IPAs in the economic/financial field.…”

“…But these processes have also been observed in less likely settings: Xu and Weller show how the Secretariat of the World Trade Organization (WTO) gained considerable policy influence despite its limited formal mandate, based on the accumulation over time of technical expertise and experience with trade issues (Xu and Weller 2008). Public administration scholars have also paid increasing attention to how organizations enhance their autonomy through the establishment of a strong 'bureaucratic reputation' (Carpenter 2001) -a notion applicable also to international bodies (Busuioc 2016;Rimkutė 2018).…”