Perceptions of Public versus Private Sector Personnel and Informal Red Tape: Their Impact on Motivation

Abstract

This article presents the findings from a survey of public and private sector managers' perceptions of the formal and informal red tape encountered in their organizations. Formal red tape is perceived to be the result of personnel procedures, whereas the informal red tape is perceived as the constraint caused by the informal influence of the media, public opinion, political parties, and public officials. The article thereby also provides a partial test of the voluminous traditional literature containing assertions that public organizations experience more red tape than private organizations and the contemporary literature containing assertions that private organizations experience equivalent or greater red tape than public organizations. Going beyond typical public-private comparisons that do not consider the consequences of sector differences, the impact of personnel and informal red tape on a significant dependent variable-worker motivation-also is explored in this article.