Beyond Stereotypes

Abstract

Red tape is a significant management challenge, and this article seeks to understand how some managers are able to better cope with it. The authors find that managers with positive work attitudes cope better with personnel constraints as compared to those who have less positive work attitudes. The findings cast doubt on stereotypes depicting public managers as being engaged in aggressive red tape production or slothful permitting of red tape. The authors conclude by suggesting that future research should steer away from relegating study of red tape to the realm of negative stereotypes. Instead, managerial and organizational responses to red tape should be studied as part of the normal.