How are the bureaucratic structure of public sector organizations and their reputation causally related over time?

The rise of social media, fake news and government distrust have led to an increasingly hostile environment for many public sector organizations (PSOs), leaving them struggling with their reputation. In an effort to explain negative reputations, reputation scholars generally assume that more bureaucratic organizations are more likely to evoke negative reputations. However, empirical evidence for this claim is non-existent, while a growing body of research is also re-establishing the value of bureaucratic organizational forms. Furthermore, the reverse relation – that is: the effect of negative reputations on bureaucraticness – has also received scant theoretical and empirical attention. Yet insights from organizational psychology suggest that external threats (such as negative reputations) may provoke bureaucratic tendencies. If confirmed, this means that negative reputations may become a self-fulfilling prophecy that determines the internal structure of PSOs. Examining this claim has important societal implications for understanding how to respond to current distrust and critiques towards PSOs, as well as how to design better reputed PSOs. Through a multi-method design, the aim of this project is threefold: first, examining the causal effect of bureaucraticness on the reputation of PSOs; second, examining the causal effect of negative reputations on bureaucraticness; and third, analysing the causal mechanisms underlying these effects.

Keywords:PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, MANAGEMENT

Disciplines:Public administration organisations, Public management