Administrative culture in Vietnamese civil servants’ job performance: the grounded theory of compromising paradoxical entanglement

Abstract

This research explores the administrative culture of Vietnamese civil servants’ job performance. It seeks to understand the perceptions and experiences of Vietnamese civil servants pertaining to job performance practices, and the surrounding working environment in which the administrative culture is embedded. The research was driven by the inadequacy of interpretive, theoretically-based studies into public administration in general, and the limited administrative culture in developing countries where public reforms have been implementing in particular.

Three research objectives drove this research: first, to gain a greater understanding of the experiences and perspectives of Vietnamese civil servants concerning job performance; second to explore and gain an in-depth understanding of the environment influencing performance in practice; and third to generate a theory explaining the responsive interactions of civil servants’ job performance with the surrounding work environment. The study applies an interpretive approach and constructivist grounded theory methodology, based on 66 interviews with civil servants from different administrative organizations, roles, ages and years of experience from the north, centre and south of Vietnam. The data was analysed in accordance with grounded theory principles, using open axial, selective coding.

This research found that Vietnamese civil servants were constrained by the paradoxical entanglement of social cultural context, hierarchical centralization, red tape, status of civil servants, and weak performance management practice. The interplay of such conditions placed civil servants into situations of “Iron cage” and “VUCA” (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity). The study also identified compromising paradoxical entanglement as a core phenomenon, provoking a responsive strategy adopted by civil servants to deal with the circumstances, namely via compliance, accommodation, collectivization, inertness and distortion.

The current study integrated the emergent substantive grounded theory with the relevant extant literature, for instance the logics of appropriateness and consequences of NeoInstitutional Theory, and other relevant substantive theories, such as public administration and cultural studies. It was not intended to test the logics of actions and cultural dimensions, or theories of public administration, but rather to adopt them as theoretical lenses to support the interpretation, extension and validation of the research findings.

This study contributes to the interpretive approach in the public sector, specifically administrative culture studies. Additionally, the current research may be beneficial for policy makers, managers and professionals in Vietnamese public administrative organizations.

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ORCID for Pingli Li: orcid.org/0000-0001-5020-9126

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