TY - JOUR
T1 - Death by a Thousand 10-Minute Tasks
T2 - Workarounds and Noncompliance in University Research Administration
AU - Bozeman, Barry
AU - Youtie, Jan
AU - Jung, Jiwon
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - The article examines administrative workarounds in the context of university research administration. The empirical results from 116 semi-structured interviews with academic researchers with active National Science Foundation awards are framed by a “Rules Response” model positing relationships among rules compliance requests, administrative burden, red tape, and response choices, including compliance, appeal, rule bending, rule breaking, and workaround behaviors. Propositions are presented and reviewed in light of empirical results. The article concludes with implications of empirical results for improving the Rules Response model and a more general discussion of research needed to improve the understanding of both rules compliance and workarounds.
AB - The article examines administrative workarounds in the context of university research administration. The empirical results from 116 semi-structured interviews with academic researchers with active National Science Foundation awards are framed by a “Rules Response” model positing relationships among rules compliance requests, administrative burden, red tape, and response choices, including compliance, appeal, rule bending, rule breaking, and workaround behaviors. Propositions are presented and reviewed in light of empirical results. The article concludes with implications of empirical results for improving the Rules Response model and a more general discussion of research needed to improve the understanding of both rules compliance and workarounds.
KW - administrative burden
KW - research administration
KW - rule bending
KW - workarounds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089580249&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85089580249&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0095399720947994
DO - 10.1177/0095399720947994
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85089580249
SN - 0095-3997
VL - 53
SP - 527
EP - 568
JO - Administration and Society
JF - Administration and Society
IS - 4
ER -