A comparative study of bureaucracy in public and private construction project organizations

Projects are commissioned by public and private client organizations that have different organizational culture and structures that dictate the rules and procedures to be followed in project procurement. It has long been perceived that the public organizations are more bureaucratic than private organizations, yet empirical evidences are not entirely conclusive. Construction project organizations are often refer-red as temporary multi-organisations and shifting multi-goal coalitions. Temporariness is emphasized in the sense that participants join the project organizations only for the duration of the project and such temporary organisational membership may affect the individual's perception of the organization's bureaucracy. The research objective in this study is to examine the extent of bureaucracy and red tape in construction project organizations in the public and private sectors.