Bureaucratic Culture in Public and Private Construction Project Organisations

Abstract Projects are commissioned by public and private client organisations, which have different organizational cultures and structures that dictate the rules and procedures to be followed in project procurement. It has long been perceived that public organisations are more bureaucratic than private organisations, yet empirical evidence is not entirely conclusive. The research objective in this study is to examine the extent of bureaucracy and red tape in construction project organisations in the public and private sectors. The methodology comprises two parts: the first part is a questionnaire survey of project participants’ perceived extent of bureaucracy and red tape in project organisations, and the second part is a comparative case study of a public and a private client project organisation. The long debated argument of “organisations in the public sector are generally more bureaucratic than those in the private sector” is supported. In addition, it is found that there is some correlation among bureaucratic features and between bureaucracy and red tape. The public organisation in the case study has set up more rules and procedures in both the control and operating systems, and has a greater demand on role delineation/specialisation.

[1]  H. W. Dodds,et al.  Bureaucracy and Representative Government , 1937 .

[2]  Robert K. Merton,et al.  Bureaucratic Structure and Personality , 1940 .

[3]  C. Mills,et al.  The Theory of Social and Economic Organization , 1948 .

[4]  M. Crozier.  The Bureaucratic Phenomenon , 1964 .

[5]  Gary L. Wamsley,et al.  The political economy of public organizations , 1973 .

[6]  Robert W. Backoff,et al.  Comparing Public and Private Organizations , 1976 .

[7]  W H Newman,et al.  Managing not-for-profit enterprises. , 1980, Academy of management review. Academy of Management.

[8]  Anthony Walker,et al.  Project Management in Construction , 1984 .

[9]  Albert B. Cherns,et al.  Studying the client's role in construction management , 1984 .

[10]  Peter Smith Ring,et al.  Strategic Management in Public and Private Organizations: Implications of Distinctive Contexts and Constraints , 1985 .

[11]  Graham T Allison,et al.  Public and private management : are they fundamentally alike in all unimportant respects? , 1988 .

[12]  B. Bozeman,et al.  Red Tape and Task Delays in Public and Private Organizations , 1992 .

[13]  Barry Bozeman,et al.  A Theory Of Government “Red Tape” , 1993 .

[14]  Les Metcalfe,et al.  PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: FROM IMITATION TO INNOVATION , 1993 .

[15]  Sylvia Horton,et al.  Managing the new public services , 1993 .

[16]  Mak Khojasteh,et al.  Motivating the Private vs. Public Sector Managers , 1993 .

[17]  David Johnson.  Economics and Welfare , 1994 .

[18]  Barry Bozeman,et al.  Research Note: Public and Private Managers' Perceptions of Red Tape , 1995 .

[19]  Barry Bozeman,et al.  Bureaucratic Red Tape and Formalization: Untangling Conceptual Knots , 1996 .

[20]  Sylvia Horton,et al.  Managing People in the Public Services , 1996 .

[21]  T. Jørgensen,et al.  The ‘Publicness’ of Public Organizations , 1997 .

[22]  Barry Bozeman,et al.  Organizational Rules and the "Bureaucratic Personality" , 1998 .

[23]  Anthony Walker,et al.  Evaluation of project outcomes , 1998 .

[24]  Barry Bozeman,et al.  Risk Culture in Public and Private Organizations , 1998 .

[25]  Richard C. Box.  Running Government Like a Business , 1999 .

[26]  K. Cameron,et al.  Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework , 1999 .

[27]  Barry Bozeman,et al.  Bureaucracy and Red Tape , 1999 .

[28]  S. Pandey,et al.  The influence of red tape on bureaucratic behavior: An experimental simulation , 2000 .

[29]  George A. Boyne,et al.  Public and Private Management: What's the Difference? , 2002 .

[30]  Laurie J. Mullins,et al.  Management And Organizational Behaviour , 2008 .