Blame Avoidance in Public Reporting

Abstract

Public managers operate in an environment characterized by a negativity bias fostering blame avoidance. In public reporting, blame avoidance can take the shape of omission, discretion, and arguments for limiting blame. Unique data on reporting from Quebec's Municipal Management Indicators regime are used to study the occurrence of a reporting strategy of blame avoidance whereby public managers provide justifications with their indicators so as to report their performance in a favorable light. The study tests two hypotheses that the use of justifications in reporting is more frequent with lower-performing public agencies. Municipalities with lower performance (internally benchmarked) tend to provide stakeholders with justifications in their reporting on indicators significantly more often than do other municipalities. Blame avoidance behaviors on the part of public managers are witnessed even in a regime with few incentives, no consequences linked to performance, and limited transparency to citizens.

Keywords:

• benchmarking
• blame avoidance
• performance regime
• performance reporting
• Quebec