Organizational Effectiveness and Bureaucratic Red Tape: A Multimethod Study

Abstract

Abstract Although many efforts to improve the effectiveness of government agencies target bureaucratic red tape, little academic work has evaluated the implications of red tape for organizational performance. This article proposes and tests a model of organizational effectiveness that explicitly accounts for red tape and the mitigating effect of organizational culture. This multimethod study uses both quantitative data from questionnaires and qualitative data from in-depth interviews. Findings suggest that red tape in human resource systems and information systems has a negative effect on organizational effectiveness. However, a dimension of organizational culture, namely developmental, mitigates the negative effects of bureaucratic red tape. Keywords: budgetingorganizational effectivenessperformance managementred tape