Institutional Amnesia and the Loss of “The Why Rationale” in Central Government Agencies

Data from 115 interviews conducted with officials in the Westminster systems of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom is used to substantiate a corrosive relationship between institutional amnesia and the ability of public servants to make sense of their organizational context. A process in which public servants question why the policies, procedures, and organizational frameworks that surround them is proposed as one medium through which this relationship operates. Four problematic effects produced by this relationship and process are subsequently analyzed: (1) public servants following but not understanding procedures, (2) inexplicable organizational aspects getting abandoned, (3) the layering of new organizational features on top of old ones, creating complexity, and (4) public service inefficiencies and associated public servant frustration. The article concludes with the implications of this important relationship for public administration scholars and practitioners.