The Politics of Bureaucratic Reputation

Abstract

The notion that bureaucratic organizations are strategic players in politics has been discussed for many years, yet only in the past decade did bureaucratic reputation theory emerge as a systematic approach to analyse the strategic behaviour of public organizations. Bureaucratic reputation is an intangible asset strategically used by bureaucratic organizations to achieve positive outcomes. Central to the bureaucratic theory is the outcome related to autonomy. While the evidence is mounting that reputation is a major driver of bureaucratic behaviour, research has only begun to scratch the surface of the explanatory potential of this theory. The abstracts included in the panel all address major gabs in the literature as well as recent calls for more systematic research on important issues. First, the abstract by Fredriksson addresses the vital question of how to explain differences in agencies’ orientation towards reputational aspects of their organization. While previous research has demonstrated convincingly how regulatory agencies indeed respond to reputational threats based upon strategic calculations including the relative strength of their reputation as well as the threat they are exposed to, more research is needed to identify the whole range of potential explanations for reputation sensitive behaviour beyond regulatory agencies. Second, the abstract by Scholz investigates the recent call from Maor (2016) on more research on the relative importance of agency heads’ reputation for the organizational ditto. Third, albeit agency autonomy is the main driver for agencies reputation sensitive behaviour according to the bureaucratic reputation theory, there is a major gab concerning the empirical validity of the alleged relation between reputation and autonomy. A first step in order to address this gab is taken by the abstract proposed by Kolltveit. Albeit agencies faces a multiplicity of audiences (Carpenter and Krause 2012), the media is of vital importance for contemporary agencies. In the abstract Kollveit suggests to investigate whether there is indeed a relation between autonomy and the media, and whether this in turn affect the relationship between agencies and their political principal. The two final abstracts contribute to the established research on regulatory agencies within the bureaucratic reputation theory. First, the abstract by Busuioc and Etienne theorises not only the relationship between reputational concerns and the agency behaviour, but contextualises this discussion in relation to an empirical domain so far neglected in existing research, the EU. Further this abstract theorises on how reputational concerns may be related to the very legitimacy of the EU regulatory state and the institutional design hereof. Second, the abstract by Bach, Boon, Salomonsen, Verhoest and Wegrich takes a first step in terms of expanding the external validity of previous single-case based studies on financial regulators behaviour when exposed to reputational threats, through a systematic cross-national comparative case design. This allows for exploring potential explanatory variables’ relation to agencies response to reputational threats beyond the level of the individual organization to a more systemic and institutional level.