Bureaucratic, market or professional control?
a theory on the relation between street-level task characteristics and the feasibility of control mechanisms
Chapter
Street-level bureaucrats do their work in different contexts and these contexts pose different control challenges. This study distinguishes two context variables: complexity and ambiguity. When ambiguity and complexity are simultaneously high, managers face a double control challenge - achieving both the expertise to address high complexity and the alignment to overcome high ambiguity. Traditional control mechanisms, enforcement, incentives or competence control, fall short. Using evidence from a wide cross-section of street-level tasks (42 cases), this study provides support for the claim that the double control challenge in contexts of simultaneously high complexity and high ambiguity is important in street-level bureaucracies and that it is difficult to devise a response. Usually one of the challenges is simply ignored. Where a response to both control challenges is devised simultaneously, tensions occur because some of the mechanisms conflict with each other. We found very few organisations that have found appropriate solutions.
Street-level bureaucrats do their work in different contexts and these contexts pose different control challenges. This study distinguishes two context variables: complexity and ambiguity. When ambiguity and complexity are simultaneously high, managers face a double control challenge - achieving both the expertise to address high complexity and the alignment to overcome high ambiguity. Traditional control mechanisms, enforcement, incentives or competence control, fall short. Using evidence from a wide cross-section of street-level tasks (42 cases), this study provides support for the claim that the double control challenge in contexts of simultaneously high complexity and high ambiguity is important in street-level bureaucracies and that it is difficult to devise a response. Usually one of the challenges is simply ignored. Where a response to both control challenges is devised simultaneously, tensions occur because some of the mechanisms conflict with each other. We found very few organisations that have found appropriate solutions.
