Service Quality in Modern Bureaucracy: Parkinson's Theory at Work

Beate Jochimsen

Kyklos, 2009, vol. 62, issue 1, pages 44-64

Abstract: Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion and that the number of administrators in an office is bound to increase over time. A unique laboratory to test Parkinson's ideas are vehicle registration offices in Germany. Using their data we found empirical support for Parkinson's Law: First, service quality is no better in offices that have more staff per case. Second, service quality is worse if the service procedure is disaggregated into multiple smaller sub-services. Third, the staff size is a convex function of the number of customers. These results are robust to specifications in various alternative models. Copyright 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Date: 2009

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