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Kaufmann, W. & Tummers, L. (2017). The negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction. Public Management Review, 19(9), 1311-1327.

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The negative effect of red tape on procedural
satisfaction

Wesley Kaufmann & Lars Tummers

To cite this article: Wesley Kaufmann & Lars Tummers (2017) The negative effect of
red tape on procedural satisfaction, Public Management Review, 19:9, 1311-1327, DOI:
10.1080/14719037.2016.1210907

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Published online: 27 Jul 2016.

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The negative effect of red tape on procedural
satisfaction
Wesley Kaufmanna and Lars Tummersb,c

aDepartment of Accounting, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands; bDepartment of Public
Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands; cSchool of Governance,
Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

ABSTRACT
In this study, we aim to replicate and extend the negative effect of red tape on
procedural satisfaction by conducting an experiment via the online crowdsourcing
service MTurk. Our findings indicate that a higher level of red tape is indeed
associated with lower procedural satisfaction. We also find support for a statistically
significant interaction between red tape and political ideology; the negative effect of
red tape on procedural satisfaction is stronger for individuals with more conservative
political views. These findings confirm the pathological nature of red tape and affirm
the relevance of experimental red tape research.

KEYWORDS Red tape; experiment; replication; procedural satisfaction

Introduction

Red tape has become one of the key research topics in public administration
(Bozeman and Feeney 2011). Red tape can be described as ‘rules, regulations and
procedures that entail a compliance burden without advancing the legitimate pur-
poses they were intended to serve’ (Bozeman 2000, 12). A variety of studies have
disentangled red tape from formalization (Bozeman and Scott 1996; Pandey and Scott
2002), tested and retested red tape measures (Bozeman and Feeney 2011; Feeney
2012; Kaufmann and Feeney 2012; Pandey and Marlowe 2015), and compared red
tape perceptions between public and private employees (Rainey, Pandey, and
Bozeman 1995; Feeney and Bozeman 2009).

Despite these important contributions to our understanding of ineffective rules,
the red tape literature is still characterized by methodological concerns (e.g. Bozeman
2012; Kaufmann and Feeney 2014). In line with public administration research in
general (Lee, Benoit-Bryan, and Johnson 2012; Groeneveld et al. 2015), red tape
scholars have overwhelmingly relied on cross-sectional survey data (Feeney 2012;
Bozeman and Feeney 2011). However, a major drawback of these types of designs is
that they do not allow for inferences of cause and effect (Brewer and Brewer 2011). A
handful of experimental studies exist (Scott and Pandey 2000; Feeney 2012;
Kaufmann and Feeney 2014; Tummers et al. 2016), but their main findings have

CONTACT Wesley Kaufmann w.kaufmann@rug.nl
© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and repro-
duction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW, 2017
VOL. 19, NO. 9, 1311–1327
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not been replicated in other contexts. This is where we seek to make our
contribution.

Replication of experimental studies is crucial for moving the field of public
administration forward, as this process strengthens the credibility of research
(Nosek and Lakens 2014). Tsang and Kwan (1999) identify six different types of
replication studies that can be used for verifying and generalizing prior research
findings. According to Tsang and Kwan (1999), replication studies can use the exact
same data set, a different data set from the same population of participants, or a
different population of participants when compared with the initial study.
Furthermore, researchers can employ the same or a different type of measurement
and analysis for replication purposes.

Our focus in this study is on the negative effect of red tape on procedural
satisfaction as found by Tummers et al. (2016) in their recent publication in
International Public Management Journal. Satisfaction is an important indicator
of firm performance in consumer research (e.g. Fornell et al. 1996) and public
agencies increasingly make use of citizen satisfaction surveys as part of results-
oriented management (e.g. Van Ryzin 2004). At the level of the individual, job
dissatisfaction can lead to a wide range of negative outcomes that includes
absenteeism and lateness (Farrell 1983). Hence, understanding the relationship
between red tape and satisfaction has important implications for organizations
and individuals alike.

Tummers et al. (2016) conducted a classroom experiment with Dutch students
where subjects were asked to fill out a fictitious form for a passport renewal. A basic
between-subjects design was used and the independent variable (red tape) was manipu-
lated in order to test its effect on the dependent variable (procedural satisfaction). The
treatment form contained a high level of red tape, which required participants to
provide superfluous information, such as colour of eyes (which can already be deduced
from the passport photo), whereas the control form was much more streamlined. The
authors found that participants in the ‘high’ red tape condition were significantly less
satisfied with the passport procedure than the ‘low’ red tape group.

Our goal in this study is to replicate and extend the negative relationship between
red tape and satisfaction, as studied by Tummers et al. (2016) in the context of
government–citizen’s interactions. Specifically, we are interested in the effect of red
tape on satisfaction in a different country (the United States versus the Netherlands),
for a different population (online versus students) and in a different setting (an
organizational promotion procedure versus a citizen passport renewal procedure).
Furthermore, whereas Tummers et al. (2016) included knowledge of politics and
emotional reactance as moderators in their setting of a passport renewal procedure,
we include two different moderators that are particularly relevant in the setting of our
organizational promotion procedure, namely managerial position and political ideol-
ogy. Hence, we only replicate the main effect of red tape on satisfaction, and not the
interaction effects as tested by Tummers et al. (2016).

We put forward an experimental research design that incorporates varying degrees
of red tape in an organizational promotion procedure. In so doing, we are able to
confirm if an organizational procedure that entails a high level of red tape results in
lower perceptions of procedural satisfaction. In terms of the Tsang and Kwan (1999)
typology, our study can be classified as an example of ‘generalization and extension’.
Hence, we aim to answer the following research question:

1312 W. KAUFMANN AND L. TUMMERS

How does red tape influence procedural satisfaction, and to what extent is this
relationship moderated by the individual’s political orientation and work position
(manager or not)?

The structure of this paper is as follows. In the following section, we first discuss the
state of the art of red tape research. Next, we argue how the literature on procedural
satisfaction can inform red tape research. We then present the data and methods,
followed by the results section. We conclude with a discussion of our findings,
limitations, and possible extensions of our research.

Literature and hypotheses

The red tape literature: Main findings and limitations

Early work on red tape has been published over 35 years ago, but most of the red tape
literature has taken shape in the past two decades (Bozeman and Feeney 2011;
Bozeman 2012). Starting point for contemporary red tape research is Bozeman’s
(1993) article in which the concepts of organizational and stakeholder red tape are
introduced. Whereas organizational red tape is defined as ‘[r]ules, regulations, and
procedures that remain in force and entail a compliance burden for the organization
but have no efficacy for the rules’ functional object’ (283), stakeholder red tape
acknowledges that the same rules can be red tape for some stakeholder groups, but
not for others.

Stakeholder red tape can be considered a richer conceptualization than organiza-
tional red tape (Bozeman 1993), but it has not proven very popular in red tape
research. The main reason for this is the potentially large number of rule stakeholders
(Bozeman 2012). As a result, existing research has often operationalized organiza-
tional red tape by asking respondents to indicate on a 10-point scale: ‘if red tape is
defined as burdensome administrative rules and procedures that have negative effects
on the organization’s effectiveness, how would you assess the level of red tape in your
organization?’ (Rainey, Pandey, and Bozeman 1995, 574; see also Bozeman and
Feeney 2011).

The general red tape operationalization put forward by Rainey, Pandey, and
Bozeman (1995) has been used extensively in the literature. Consequently, red
tape has been linked to such diverse topics as risk culture (Bozeman and Kingsley
1998), work alienation (DeHart-Davis and Pandey 2005), and public service
motivation (Moynihan and Pandey 2007). Another stream of research focuses
on political over-control as a source of red tape. Such external red tape has been
found to affect Dutch primary schools (Torenvlied and Akkerman 2012), English
local government authorities (Brewer et al. 2012), and research universities
(Bozeman and Anderson 2016). Furthermore, a small number of studies have
looked at the effect of red tape on clients (e.g. Scott and Pandey 2000; Moynihan
and Herd 2010).

Recently, a number of studies have taken a first step towards conceptualizing and
measuring red tape from a rule-based perspective. In essence, this perspective takes
specific rules as a starting point, and subsequently derives subjective red tape
measures from these rules. Studies in the so-called rule ecology domain look at red
tape as a by-product of supranational, national, and organizational rule stock

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1313

increases (e.g. van Witteloostuijn and de Jong 2010; Kaufmann and van
Witteloostuijn 2016). Kaufmann and Feeney (2012) use a combination of organiza-
tional rule counts and survey data to show that in the context of a large Dutch public
organization, the objective number of rules does not correspond with red tape
perceptions. Hence, more rules do not necessarily mean more red tape.

In an experimental study, Kaufmann and Feeney (2014) find that the degree of
perceived red tape is not merely driven by the specific rule burden of a procedure, but
also by the favourability of the outcome. In other words, when the outcome of a
particular procedure is positive for a given stakeholder, then red tape perceptions will
be lower, irrespective of actual rule burden. Finally, Pandey andMarlowe (2015) develop
and test a so-called anchoring vignettes approach that can be used to improve survey-
based red tape measures by having respondents’ rate short stories about red tape.

In this study, we also conceptualize and measure red tape from a rule-based
perspective. Specifically, by taking ‘actual’ rules as the focal point of our analysis,
we are able to manipulate the degree of perceived red tape and the effect thereof on
procedural satisfaction, to which we turn next.

Red tape and procedural satisfaction

The concept of satisfaction, which can be defined as an ‘evaluative attitude towards
some object or experience’ (James 2009, 108), has been studied extensively in the
public administration literature. For example, a large literature has looked at citizen
satisfaction with public services (e.g. Van Ryzin 2004, 2006; Van Ryzin and
Immerwahr 2007), while other research has provided mixed results on differences
in job satisfaction between public and private workers (e.g. Schneider and Vaught
1993; Steel and Warner 1990; Wright 2001).

A limited number of studies have also explored satisfaction in the context of red
tape. Townsend and Kosloski (2002) show that higher levels of red tape reduce client
satisfaction with in-home respite and adult day care services. Giauque et al. (2012, 175)
use survey data of 3,754 Swiss public servants to examine the effect of red tape on a
specific type of job satisfaction, called ‘resigned satisfaction’, and identify a particularly
strong correlation between the two. Furthermore, DeHart-Davis and Pandey (2005)
find that organizational and personnel red tape is negatively related to job satisfaction.
Of particular relevance in the current context is the study by Tummers et al. (2016),
who show by experimentally varying the level of red tape in a fictitious passport
application procedure that higher red tape levels result in lower citizen satisfaction.

Given our focus on specific rules and procedures, we are not interested in
relatively broad satisfaction concepts such as general job satisfaction. Furthermore,
the only experimental study on red tape and satisfaction to date has focused on
citizens, whereas most red tape research is concerned with the adverse effects of
organizational rules on employees and managers (Bozeman and Feeney 2011). As a
result, our focus here is on the effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction, which is
defined as the evaluative attitude towards a particular process (James 2009; Bergman
et al. 2002). Based on the above, we hypothesize that procedural satisfaction will be
lower if the level of red tape in a given procedure is higher. We expect that:

H1: Red tape has a negative effect on procedural satisfaction

1314 W. KAUFMANN AND L. TUMMERS

Moderating variables: Managerial position and political ideology

In addition to the direct negative effect of red tape, we also want to test which
individual factors may moderate the impact of red tape on procedural satisfaction
(Giauque et al. 2012; Pandey and Scott 2002; Quratulain and Khan 2015). Indeed,
Pandey and Kingsley (2000, 783) argue that ‘one is hard pressed to find serious
students of red tape who do not, at some point or another, stress the importance of
studying the individual in order to gain a better understanding of red tape’. We
include two individual level factors that may moderate the negative relationship
between red tape and procedural satisfaction, namely managerial position and poli-
tical ideology (Moynihan and Herd 2010; Rudolph and Evans 2005).

The negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction is likely to be less
pronounced for individuals with a managerial position for two reasons. First, man-
agers may actually ‘use’ red tape in a strategic way. For example, red tape can be used
as a managerial tool to delay promotions to other positions or departments within the
organization of highly effective subordinates. Similarly, Moynihan and Herd (2010)
argue that policymakers can further their own interests by creating red tape that
deliberately limits political and social rights of specific citizen groups. More generally,
the strategic use of red tape reflects the existence of different stakeholder groups and
power coalitions within organizations. These groups may pursue very different and
sometimes contrasting goals (e.g. Pfeffer 1992; Cyert and March 1963); red tape can
be one of many strategic options for advancing a stakeholder’s own agenda.

Second, in certain cases, more burdensome promotion procedures also serve a
legitimate organizational goal such as ensuring that legal standards are not violated
(Gilliland, Benson, and Schepers 1998; Leventhal 1980). As Waldo put it (1946, 399):
‘one man’s red tape is another’s treasured procedural safeguard’, later reiterated by
Kaufman (1977, 4) as: ‘one person’s red tape may be another’s treasured safeguard’.
Such procedural safeguards are more likely to be valued by managers that are able to
oversee the larger organizational picture, as opposed to employees that find them-
selves confronted with (perceived) excessively burdensome procedures blocking their
individual promotion or pay raise.

Based on the above, we expect that the negative effect of red tape on procedural
satisfaction in the context of a promotion procedure is less pronounced for managers.
This leads to the following hypothesis:

H2: The negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction is weaker for managers

Next to analysing the moderating effect of a core situational characteristic (being a
manager or not), we also analyse the role of a core attitude: political ideology, which
can range from very conservative to very liberal. These ‘liberal/conservative self-
identifications’ have been extensively studied in political science and related fields
(Conover and Feldman 1981; Ross, Lelkes, and Russell 2012; Sibley, Osborne, and
Duckitt 2012). Studies have linked political orientations to very diverse topics,
showing that conservatives are more sensitive to disgust (Inbar et al. 2012), more
intolerant for ambiguity (Jost et al. 2003), and have a larger amygdala volume (Jost
and Amodio 2012).

In the context of core public management topics, it has been shown that liberals
are more likely to self-sacrifice, which is a dimension of public service motivation

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1315

(Perry 1997). Furthermore, Piotrowski and van Ryzin (2007) find that both liberals
and conservatives value transparency, but they value different types of transparency
(e.g. conservatives value safety-related information more than liberals). To our
knowledge, no existing studies have directly related red tape to political ideology.
Yet, we expect that political conservatives are more sensitive to red tape than are
liberals. Political psychologists and public administration scholars have argued that
conservatives value efficiency and freedom more than do liberals (e.g. Skitka and
Tetlock 1993; Rudolph and Evans 2005; Jacoby 2000; Lavertu and Moynihan 2013).
Since red tape is mostly linked to managerial and political over-control, which limits
both efficiency and freedom (Bozeman 1993; Bozeman and Feeney 2011), we expect
red tape to have a stronger negative effect on satisfaction for individuals with a more
conservative political ideology.

H3: The negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction is stronger for political
conservatives

Data and methods

Setting and design

We test our hypotheses using the crowdsourcing service Amazon Mechanical Turk
(MTurk), an online environment where researchers can posit experiments.
Crowdsourcing studies are novel to public administration research, but quite common
in other fields of research such as psychology and political science (Buhrmester, Kwang,
and Gosling 2011; Berinsky, Huber, and Lenz 2012). An important advantage of crowd-
sourcing is that it allows the researcher to use a more heterogeneous respondent group
than students (Germine et al. 2012). In their study entitled ‘Is the Web as good as the
lab?’, Germine et al. (2012) conclude that data from MTurk is a source of high-quality
data for cognitive and perceptual experiments that is similar to data collected in the lab.

Our experiment involved two treatments: a low and high red tape treatment,
which is in line with Tummers et al. (2016). In both treatments, participants were
shown a text about an organizational promotion procedure, as shown in the
Appendix. Our operationalization of red tape consists of two elements: procedural
length and administrative delay (Kaufmann and Feeney 2014; Bozeman, Reed, and
Scott 1992; Pandey and Bretschneider 1997; Bozeman and Kingsley 1998). The high
red tape procedure is based on the second author’s experiences with actual organiza-
tional evaluation procedures in the public and private sector, and includes an
extensive list of burdensome checks and balances. Specifically, the high red tape
treatment consists of eight procedural steps and is said to take 18 hours to complete.
By contrast, the low red tape treatment is much more streamlined, consists of just
two steps, and is said to take 1 hour to complete.

The experimental design consisted of three parts. In the first part, participants
were asked to provide some general information about themselves such as age,
gender, and political ideology. The second part asked participants to answer a
number of questions regarding their personality. In part three of the study, partici-
pants were randomly assigned either the high or low red tape text about the promo-
tion procedure, and subsequently asked to answer a number of questions about this
procedure with regard to red tape and procedural satisfaction.

1316 W. KAUFMANN AND L. TUMMERS

The experiment was implemented in the online survey program Qualtrics. One of
Qualtrics’ features is random assignment of respondents to different treatments,
which is an essential requirement for doing any type of experimental research. The
Qualtrics survey link was included in the MTurk task, which is called a human
intelligence task (HIT). When posting a HIT on MTurk, requesters can select criteria
that respondents must meet in order to participate. For purposes of this study, we
required workers to have a HIT approval rate of at least 95%, with a minimum of
1,000 approved HITs. Furthermore, to avoid any cultural bias in our study, workers
were required to be US based. These are standard criteria (Berinsky, Huber, and Lenz
2012; Jilke, Van Ryzin, and Van de Walle 2016).

Workers were rewarded $0.60 for completing our study, which was said to take
roughly 10 minutes to complete (the final average completion time was 12 minutes
and 34 seconds). To receive their reward, workers were given a three digit code at the
end of the Qualtrics survey that had to be entered in the MTurk HIT. Again, this is
common practice for MTurk studies (Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling 2011; Cohen,
Panter, and Turan 2013).

Sample

In total, 178 MTurk users participated in our experiment. We deleted twenty-four
participants as they did not fill out any of the dependent variables. To check if
participants were paying attention during our experiment, we inserted the follow-
ing attention check question in the survey (which was shown in a list of other
items the respondents should answer to): ‘Please do not provide a response here.
This is to control for random answers’. Including a control question in an
experiment is not only an effective way to determine if respondents are actively
participating in the study, but also helps increase the attention of respondents as
they do not know whether a similar question will appear later on (Peer, Vosgerau,
and Acquisti 2014). As a result of this check, an additional thirteen respondents
were deleted from the analyses. Hence, our final sample consists of 14

respondents.

We checked the sample for homogeneity for the potentially important back-
ground variables age, gender, managerial position, and political orientation that
could influence procedural satisfaction. As shown in Table 1, 57per cent of the
sample consists of females. Furthermore, the average age was 34 years, 28 per cent
of the respondents had a managerial position and participants’ political orienta-
tion was, on average, 3 on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from very left wing (1) to
very right wing (5).

Table 1. Background characteristics of control and treatment groups.

% Female Age
Political preference

(1–5 scale)
Managerial position

(yes/no)

Control group (low rule burden) 59.09% 34.45 3.05 24.24%
Treatment group (high rule
burden)

54.67% 33.28 2.87 32.00%

Mean 56.74% 33.83 2.95 28.37%
Difference tests Chi-square = .002,

p = .96

F = .420,
p = .520

F = .479,
p = .479

Chi-square = 1.040,
p = .352

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1317

Measures

Procedural satisfaction was based on the American Customer Satisfaction Index scale
as developed by Fornell et al. (1996) and applied by Tummers et al. (2016). The scale
consists of four items with five response categories that ranged from ‘very dissatisfied’
to ‘very satisfied’. These items were adapted to fit the fictitious promotion procedure
used in this study. The four-item scale had a reliability of .92 and adequate factor
loadings, as shown in Table 2. The items were preceded by the text ‘The following
questions ask you to indicate how satisfied you are with Organization Y’s promotion
procedure.’

Managerial position was measured by asking respondents ‘Do you have a manage-
rial position at work? (in other words, do you supervise others?)’, with ‘yes’ and ‘no’
as answer categories. Political ideology is measured by asking ‘In general, how would
you describe your political ideology?’, with a 7-point scale, ranging from very liberal
to very conservative (see also Baumgartner and Morris 2009).

Manipulation check

Before discussing the results, we need to confirm that participants assigned to the
high red tape treatment (manipulation) perceived higher levels of red tape compared
to our control group (who were assigned the low red tape vignette). To this end, we
measured red tape in two ways. First, we used the general red tape scale of Rainey,
Pandey, and Bozeman (1995), which was adapted to fit our promotion procedure and
read: ‘If red tape is defined as “burdensome administrative rules and procedures that
have negative effects on an organization’s effectiveness”, how would you assess the
level of red tape in Organization Y’s promotion procedure?’. In line with existing red
tape research (e.g. Bozeman and Feeney 2011), we used a scale ranging from 0
(‘almost no red tape’) to 10 (‘great deal of red tape’).

Given the potential problems with this general red tape item (Feeney 2012), we
also used another item to measure the degree of red tape. Since our text is a
promotion procedure that relates to all employees, we adapted the personnel red
tape item about promotion from Rainey et al. (1995, 574) as follows: ‘This promotion
procedure makes it hard for a good employee to move up faster than a poor one in
Organization Y.’ We used a 5-point Likert scale with response categories that ranged
from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’.

ANOVA tests showed that the manipulation was successful. Respondents in the
treatment group indeed reported a significantly higher degree of general red tape
than respondents in the treatment group (MTreatment = 7.44, SD = 2.22;
MControl = 3.48, SD = 2.52; F = 98.00, p < .001). Furthermore, the treatment group

Table 2. Measurement of procedural satisfaction.

Items Factor loadings

How satisfied are you with this promotion procedure overall? .927
How satisfied are you with the length of this promotion procedure? .86

How satisfied are you with this promotion procedure compared to your expectations about
a promotion procedure?

.945

How satisfied are you with this promotion procedure compared to an ideal promotion
procedure?

.928

1318 W. KAUFMANN AND L. TUMMERS

reported higher personnel red tape (focused on promotion) than the control group
(MTreatment = 3.15, SD = 1.21; MControl = 2.44, SD = 1.05; F = 13.48, p < .001).

Results

Hypothesis 1 states that red tape will have a negative effect on procedural satisfaction.
The results provide clear support for this hypothesis. Respondents in the control
group (low red tape) assessed the procedural satisfaction of the promotion procedure
with a mean of 3.51 (SD = 0.87) on a scale of 1–5. By contrast, the treatment group
(high red tape) rated a far lower level of satisfaction, averaging 2.47 (SD = 1.06). This
difference is highly significant (F(1,137) = 39.751, p < .001, partial η2 = .225).

In order to test the moderating effects of managerial position and political
ideology, we specified two hierarchical regression models, which are shown in
Table 3. Using these regression analyses, we can analyse whether a combination of
factors impact red tape.

In Model 1, we include the main effects of red tape (control = 0 or treatment = 1),
managerial position, and political ideology on procedural satisfaction. In the second
model, the interaction effects are added. We calculate the adjusted R2 for both model
specifications and determine which model explains the most variance (adjusted for
the number of variables). In the first model (main effects only), the adjusted R2 is
.220. Since managerial position and political ideology have no significant relationship
with procedural satisfaction, most of the variance is explained by the negative effect
of red tape on satisfaction (in line with Hypothesis 1). Adding the interaction effects
in the second model increases the adjusted R2 to .243. The interaction between red
tape and managerial position is – as expected – positive, but insignificant. Although
the results are consistently in line with our predictions, effect sizes are small and fail
to be significant (β = .074, p > .05). As a result, hypothesis 2 is not supported. This
result is also shown graphically in Figure 1, as the dashed lines for managers are
above the solid lines for non-managers for satisfaction.

By contrast, hypothesis 3 is supported, as we find a significant interaction effect
between red tape and political ideology on procedural satisfaction (β = −.176/,
p < .05). Hence, the negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction is stronger for more politically conservative individuals than it is for people who are more

Table 3. Hierarchical regression analyses for variables predicting procedural satisfaction.

Procedural satisfaction

Model 1 – Control or treatment
Model 2 – Adding managerial position

and political ideology interaction

Red tape −.486** −.474**
Managerial position .067 .082
Political ideology −.092 −.114
Red tape and managerial position – .074
Red tape and political ideology – −.176*
Adjusted R2 . 220** .243**

Standardized beta coefficients are presented and reported in bold if significant. *p < .05, **p < .01. The following criteria are met (based on Field 2009). Criterion of no multicollinearity (No VIF values above 10 and average close to 1). No exclusion of influential outlying cases was required (using case wise diagnostics: <5% above standardized residual >|2|, Cook’s
distance < .01 (criterion < 1). Criteria of homoscedasticity and normality met.

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1319

liberal. This finding is supported by Figure 2, which shows that while both con-
servatives and liberals are quite satisfied in the low red tape scenario, conservatives
are slightly more satisfied. In the high red tape situation, both groups are less
satisfied, but the effect of red tape on satisfaction is much more pronounced for
conservatives than liberals.

Discussion

Building on the replication typology put forward by Tsang and Kwan (1999), our
study aims to generalize and extend the Tummers et al. (2016) experiment on the
negative effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction. Specifically, we extend the
Tummers et al. (2016) study by using a different country (the United States versus
the Netherlands), population (online versus students), and setting (an organizational

1,5

2,5

3,5

4,5

Low Red Tape

High Red Tape

P
ro

ce
du

ra
l s

at
is

fa
ct

io
n

Not a manager

Manager

Figure 1. Main effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction. No significant interaction effect with managerial
position present.

1,5

2,5

3,5

4,5

Low Red Tape High Red Tape

P
ro

ce
du

ra
l s

at
is

fa
ct

io
n

Liberal views

Conservative
views

Figure 2. Main effect of red tape on procedural satisfaction. Significant interaction effect with political
ideology present.

1320 W. KAUFMANN AND L. TUMMERS

promotion procedure versus a citizen passport renewal procedure). Furthermore, we
include two different moderators that may affect the negative effect of red tape on
satisfaction in our particular context, namely managerial position and political
ideology (instead of knowledge of politics and emotional reactance).

We find that higher levels of red tape are indeed associated with lower perceived
procedural satisfaction. Furthermore, our results show evidence for an interaction
effect between red tape and political orientation, as more politically conservative
individuals perceive lower levels of satisfaction. Yet, we do not find evidence for a
significant interaction between red tape and managerial position. In sum, we were
able to both replicate and extend the negative effect of red tape on satisfaction in a
different setting. On the one hand, these findings imply that the main negative effect
of red tape on satisfaction seems quite robust. On the other hand, we have also
identified a need for future studies to further tease out the (contextual) specifics of
the relationship between red tape and satisfaction.

In addition to these theoretical findings, we also show how the crowdsourcing
service Amazon’s MTurk can be used effectively for experimental public administra-
tion research. Using a relatively small budget, we were able to get a diverse sample of
participants for our study. This platform does not only offer much potential for
testing and administering novel experiments, but is also a convenient and low cost
option for replication studies. Crowdsourcing studies are already common in other
research domains such as psychology and political science, and hopefully this study
will serve as a stepping stone for future crowdsourcing studies in public administra-
tion research.

Before discussing the implications of this research, it is important to note some
limitations of the current study at this point. First, the experimental design consisted
of a single stylized organizational promotion procedure, which raises concerns about
external validity. Second, in this study, we only focus on red tape effects. Future
research may want to incorporate both antecedents and consequences of red tape in a
single experimental design. Third, the current study could be extended to take into
account different stakeholder groups. For example, given its exploratory nature, our
experimental design did not include separate manager and employee roles. By
explicitly assigning different roles to participants, future studies can account for the
stakeholder specific nature of red tape.

More generally, this study shows that integrating concepts from other disciplines,
such as management and psychology, can help broaden the depth and scope of red
tape research (see also Grimmelikhuijsen et al., forthcoming). These interdisciplinary
studies need not be limited to procedural satisfaction. Indeed, organizational psy-
chology concepts such as vitality (Kark and Carmeli 2009), work engagement
(Schaufeli, Bakker, and Salanova 2006), and flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1997; Salanova,
Bakker, and Llorens 2006) offer much potential for enhancing our understanding of
red tape. In this light, the concept of work engagement seems especially interesting,
as some research argues that work engagement leads to lower red tape (Torenvlied
and Akkerman 2012), while others suggest that red tape leads to lower work
engagement (Bakker et al. 2007).

Concluding, our study highlights the pathological nature of red tape as it
negatively affects procedural satisfaction, particularly so for people who are
more politically conservative. An extensive and diverse literature in consumer
research, management, psychology, and public administration has shown that

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1321

satisfaction has important implications for both organizational performance and
an individual’s levels of motivation and trust. At an abstract level, firms that are
unable to satisfy their clients’ needs eventually go bankrupt, while public agencies
with poor citizen satisfaction ratings face budget cuts or reorganizations.
Employees that feel dissatisfied with their job become demotivated, which can
result in absenteeism, an increased number of errors, and getting transferred to
another position. Our findings imply that high red tape procedures play part in
(dis)satisfaction assessments. As a result, (re-)designing rules to arrive at the
lowest overall amount of red tape can mitigate the negative effect of red tape on
satisfaction and subsequently yield substantial benefits for all rule stakeholders
involved.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Wesley Kaufmann is an assistant professor of accounting at the faculty of economics and business at
the University of Groningen and a research fellow at Arizona State University. His research focuses
on rule evolution, Europeanization, and red tape.

Lars Tummers is an associate professor of public management at the Utrecht School of Governance
and a research fellow at Arizona State University. His main research interests are public manage-
ment, leadership and government-citizen relations. Related to this, he is developing an interdisci-
plinary field combining psychology and public administration, called Behavioral Public
Administration.

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Appendix

Text of red tape vignettes

Low Red Tape

Organization Y has introduced a new promotion procedure.

The procedure consists of a number of steps. These steps relate to the promotion procedure of a single
employee. We will present these steps to you below.
Hereafter, you will be asked some questions about what you think of this procedure.

Step 1: Draft of Yearly Development Plan
At the start of the year, the employee writes down a number of goals for the following year in a Yearly
Development Plan and sends this Plan to his /her supervisor. The supervisor may add new goals or adjust
the goals formulated by the employee.

This step takes half an hour.

Step 2: Evaluation of Yearly Development Plan
At the end of the year, the employee and supervisor discuss to what extent the goals outlined in the Yearly
Development Plan have been achieved during a face-to-face meeting. After the meeting, the supervisor
decides whether or not to promote the employee.

This step takes half an hour.

1326 W. KAUFMANN AND L. TUMMERS

https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mup004

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a003515

High Red Tape

Start of the year
Step 1: First draft of Yearly Development Plan
At the start of the year, the employee submits a first draft of the Yearly Development Plan, describing the
employee’s general development goals (1,000–1,500 words in total).

This step takes two hours

Step 2: First draft of Project Development Plans
In addition to the Yearly Development Plan, the employee also has to fill out Project Development Plans.
These specify goals for the employee’s three most important projects (1,000–1,500 words in total).

This step takes two hours.

Step 3: Discussion of Plans
The employee discusses the Yearly Development Plan and Project Development Plans with his /her supervisor.

This step takes two hours.

Step 4: Finalizing Plans
Based on the outcomes of the meeting with his /her supervisor, the employee submits final versions of the
Yearly Development Plan and Project Task Development Plans.

This step takes two hours.

End of the year

Step 5: Self-evaluation of Yearly Development Plan
The employee rates his /her performance for all goals outlined in the Yearly Development Plan (500–1,000
words in total).

This step takes two hours.

Step 6: Self-evaluation of Project Task Development Plans
The employee rates his /her performance for all goals outlined in the Project Task Development Plans (500–
1,000 words in total).

This step takes two hours.

Step 7: Supervisor evaluation of Plans
The supervisor rates the employee’s performance for all goals outlined in the Yearly Development Plan and
Project Development Plans (1,000–1,500 words in total).

This step takes two hours.

Step 8: Promotion decision
All evaluations are sent to an internal promotion committee. This committee, which consists of three
directors from divisions other than employee’s own division, reviews the Plans and their evaluations and
decide on promotion.

This step takes two hours.

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1327

Abstract

Introduction

Literature and hypotheses

The red tape literature: Main findings and limitations

Red tape and procedural satisfaction

Moderating variables: Managerial position and political ideology

Data and methods

Setting and design

Sample

Measures

Manipulation check

Results

Discussion

Disclosure statement

Notes on contributors

References

AppendixText of red tape vignettes

Low Red Tape

High Red Tape

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