Data manipulation as routine variation: how administrative pressures shape and normalize reporting practices

This study aims to understand how administrative pressures shape and normalize data manipulation in day-to-day administrative work. To achieve that, we conducted a case study of two student organizations as a revealing case. We examined the processual relationships between administrative pressures and data manipulation by using organizational routines theory. Our findings show that six emergent administrative pressures raise ostensive expectations. These pressures eventually intensify the routine misalignment between reporting requirements (ostensive) and actual routine enactment (performative). This misalignment gives rise to six distinct forms of data manipulation. Over time, each repeated data manipulation becomes normalized as an everyday practice. In the end, we contribute by extending the organizational routine literature by demonstrating recurring relationships between specific pressure types and their patterned data manipulation.