The Impact of Red Tape's Administrative Delay on Public Organizations' Interest in New Information Technologies

Empirical evidence shows that public organizations have greater red-tape based administrative delay than do private organizations. If public administrators view red tape, at least partially, as a result of organizational communications, then it is likely that burdensome levels of red-tape based delay could motivate interest in new information technologies for facilitating organizational communications. In this article we use a national sample of state program agencies to provide an empirical test to determine whether public organizations see new information technologies as a means to mitigate red-tape based administrative delay. The results suggest that an organizational response depends upon both the level of delay and the level of importance information technologies already play within the agency. For example, new information technologies are not seen as instruments for cutting down the negative effects of burdensome delay, unless the organization is already using new information technologies to perform key organizational communications activities. A commonly cited difference between public and private organizations is that public organizations have more red tape. The empirical literature on public and private organizational differences provides support for the above proposition (Baldwin 1990; Bozeman, Reed, and Scott 1991; Bozeman and Bretschneider 1994; Bretschneider 1990; Bretschneider and Bozeman 1995; Rainey 1979 and 1983; Rainey, Pandey, and Bozeman 1995). Red tape is a broad construct and may be conceptualized in different ways. Goodsell (1985) calls it a classic condensation symbol. Kaufman (1977) and Goodsell (1985) point out that, among other things, the epithet red tape is used to denounce procedural delays, excessive reporting requirements, and depersonalization of clients. Bozeman (1993) views red tape as good J-PART 7(1997): 1:113-130 mies gone bad with both objective and subjective impacts. 113/'Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory at A rona State U niersity on A ril 8, 2016 http://jpaordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from Symposium on Public Management Information Systems Bretschneider and Bozeman (1995) develop an operational measure of observable red tape in terms of bureaucratization and administrative delay (Bretschneider 1990; Bozeman et al. 1991; Bozeman and Bretschneider 1994). Prescriptions for dealing with red tape vary, from a smaller role for government to greater efficiency in the operation of public sector organizations. One current prescriptive view surrounding red tape, best exemplified in the Paper Work Reduction Act, Grace Commission Report, and the National Performance Review, begins with the idea that, at least in part, red tape and its principal observable effect, administrative delay, are information/communications flow problems (Kennedy and Lee 1984; Head 1982). This view argues that if the communication process were streamlined, many of the negative effects of red tape would vanish. A corollary of this prescription is that information and communications technology can be used to contain red tape. In this article we investigate whether public organizations see new computer technologies as tools to cut down red-tape induced administrative delay. In other words, do higher levels of red tape increase interest in new information technologies by public organizations? The first section presents a theoretically based discussion on the possible relation between red tape and new information technologies. The next section summarizes the data collection effort and the operationalization of the dependent and independent variables used in the study. The third section is an analysis, and the final section presents some implications and directions for future research. RED TAPE AND NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGD2S Historical Views of Red Tape The term red tape carries different meanings for different people. Paul Appleby quotes a public manager acquaintance: "Red tape is that part of my business you don't know anything about" (Goodsell 1985). Red tape can be functional and can serve useful purposes. Red tape, in the form of procedural safeguards and excessive filling and filing of forms, provides protection against arbitrary and capricious use of power, regulates aspects of business activities that citizens do not trust, and ensures fairness and equity in treatment of bureaucratic clients (Kaufman 1977; Goodsell 1985). However, these scholars do not make a case for red tape. Their point is that red tape, though undesirable, is inevitable if we want public organizations to be accountable to diverse and conflicting interests and at the same time to ensure fairness and equity in their treatment of clients. A more UAIJ-PART, January 1997 at A rona State U niersity on A ril 8, 2016 http://jpaordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from Symposium on Public Management Information Systems desirable composite objective would be to serve the desired goals while at the same time minimizing red tape. The term red tape expresses dissatisfaction. At a symbolic level red tape is an all encompassing symbol for the failures of government machinery (Goodsell 1985). The use of the term may express dissatisfaction with particular elements in the functioning of organizations—for example, procedural delays, excessive reporting requirements, depersonalization of clients, and excessive rule boundedness. Empirical studies on red tape typically have used one of the aforementioned effects of red tape to operationalize the concept of red tape—typically focusing on internal administrative effects—as opposed to its impact on service delivery. Buchanan (1975), Baldwin (1990), and Rainey et al. (1995) use measures that reflect managerial perceptions of the extent to which they are constrained by rules. Bretschneider (1990), Bozeman et al. (1991), and Bozeman and Bretschneider (1994) use a summative measure of time required for the organization to do certain core organizational tasks to measure red tape. Here it is necessary to go a step farther and note that the summative time measured may provide a measure of dimensions other than delays usually associated with red tape, namely, rule boundedness and reporting requirements. Finally, Bretschneider and Bozeman (1995) suggest that the administrative effects of rules can be decomposed into an optimal or expected level based on organizational and environmental factors and a residual component reflective of potential pathological red tape effect. Clearly it is difficult to disentangle the complex nature of cause and effect when discussing red tape. At the risk of oversimplifying, we begin with the following assumptions: First, some of the empirically observable effects of red tape are related both to the design of and the technology for organizational communications, and second, empirically observable effects of red tape, such as procedural delay, are produced by numerous other factors as well. The first assumption provides a framework for developing a theory of administrative red tape in public organizations, while the second forces us to empirically control for alternative sources of explanation in any variable designed to measure effects of red tape. Red Tape and Organizational Communications Organizations have been described and defined in many ways. One of the more insightful and useful ways to conceptualize organizations is to conceive of organizations as informationprocessing networks (Galbraith 1973 and 1977). To describe organizations as if they were information-processing networks is 115/J-PART, January 1997 at A rona State U niersity on A ril 8, 2016 http://jpaordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from Symposium on Public Management Information Systems not to depict the reality of organizational activities but rather to provide a useful means for understanding how organizations handle complexity (Galbraith 1973). This approach can be used to focus on organizational communications. Organizations as information-processing networks may be conceptualized as a number of information-processing units (IPUs) that take differing amounts of time for processing that is connected in a certain temporal sequence, with each unit taking an information input from the preceding unit and giving an information input to the next unit. The information-processing units may be connected in different configurations: • They may be connected in series. If there are n IPUs, only one of these processes information at a time and it passes the processed information to the next IPU down the line after a certain time delay. • They may be connected in a parallel manner. More than one IPU may process the same information input simultaneously. The processed information is passed on to the next IPU in the network at different time intervals depending on the processing times and time delays associated with the individual IPUs. IPUs that process information in parallel may be assumed to be working in a cooperative fashion such that each IPU does a component of the task that contributes to the completion of the overall task. • They may be connected in some combination of the two configurations described above. The time it takes to do a task is the time it takes for the preliminary information input to go through this informationprocessing network. An organization may be performing a number of different tasks and the particular information-processing route taken to complete these tasks may vary. The model of organization as information-processing network that is presented above may be modified to include more details about a particular class of organizations. However our primary interest is in a general model to determine the time it takes for organizations to do their tasks. Based on the information-processing network model of an organization that is described in the preceding paragraphs, the determinants of the total time it takes for an organization to do a task are the following: 1 \6IJ-PART, January 1997 at A