‘Damned if you do and damned if you don’t’: a framework for examining double binds in public service organizations

Abstract

A key challenge for contemporary public service organizations is the requirement to incorporate different, at times conflicting, demands into their operations. Such demands and the organizational challenges they impose have been described in theories of institutional complexity, organizational paradox(es) and conflicting public values. In this paper, we complement these existing theories by developing an analytical framework based on the 'double bind' theory. The framework enables understandings of conflicting demands stemming from double communication and elusive mixed messages. We demonstrate the usefulness of the double bind framework by examining the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration.

How administrative reforms influence the capacity for implementing the social investment state

“…Our analysis shows that the job centres are forced to try to resolve an inherent discrepancy: they must seek to reconcile a performance monitoring system which incentivises them to prioritise standardised activation schemes, short-term goals and internal productivity, with formal policies which incentivise them to use their new organisational, fiscal and procedural autonomy to prioritise long-term investments in tailored and integrated services. While these demands may be especially contradictory in the Danish case, one would also expect to find co-existent and competing demands on SLOs (Røhnebaek and Breit 2021) across many other policy areas and countries, due to the many administrative reform waves that have swept across most of the Western world since the 1980s. Our findings thus suggest that future studies of the proliferation and consequences of SI policies need to be more attentive to both the internal consistencies of formal policies and operational conditions and the relationship between these.…”

The Values of the Management of Value Conflict

“…The complexity of modern life seems to have led to a growing discomfort with scholarly approaches limited to a strictly instrumental concern that neglects actual value conflicts. Røhnebaek and Breit (2022) note that scholars from all theoretical perspectives can no longer neglect this plurality of values, whether one is working with institutional theory, paradox theory, or public management. Findings in all these approaches call for strategies to deal with value pluralism, including observations of hybridity in policy networks, of internal conflicts in organizations, and of conflicts between styles and philosophies of governance.…”

“…According to these critics, practitioners and scholars in public administration often neglect this fundamental plurality and thus fail to see and recognize what is for the common good. (Most explicitly in Spicer, 2001;515ff;Jun, 2006;Wagenaar, 1999, p. 445; see also, e.g., Bijker et al, 2009;Le Grand, 1990;O'Kelly & Dubnic, 2006;Pielke, 2007;Røhnebaek & Breit, 2022;Van der Wal & Van Hout, 2009). Thatcher and Rein seek to show what it means to create public value by taking seriously the plurality of values in the public sphere: how can one combine diverse (even conflicting) normative demands for the common good in one's decisions and actions?…”

“…These include conflicts between efficiency versus honesty and empathy in the prison sector (Paanakker, 2019), strict adherence to rules versus quality of service in train stations and police stations (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2000; Steenhuisen & Van Eeten, 2008), affordability of services for clients versus quality of life in care provision (Oldenhof et al, 2014), privacy versus functionality in the design of digital services (Meijer & De Jong, 2020), tactical gain versus damage and casualties in military interventions (O’Kelly & Dubnick, 2006), to name just a few examples. Research also explores explanations for this (growing) diversity of values and the conflicts experienced by practitioners (e.g., Jaspers, 2021; Røhnebæk & Breit, 2022). Many studies include the question of how these public officials deal with value conflicts and what the strategies they use when they encounter such conflicts in their work (e.g.…”

A Reflection on Paradoxes and Double Binds in the Workplace in the Era of Super-Diversity

“…Bateson also specified that it is not necessary for all these elements to be present in a double bind; individuals have generally learned to perceive their environment in the form of a double bind such that they have incorporated the "norm", and the contradictory injunctions can emanate from themselves without being explicitly asked for or required by a person in a hierarchical position [28]. The contradictory message comes from within, after incorporating a general standard of performance or service delivery that runs counter to a personal work ethic or professional deontology [6,39,40]. In situations of this type, some authors speak of a shift from the direct to indirect exercise of power.…”