Reducing Administrative Burdens for Vulnerable Groups: The Role of Job Security and Organizational Commitment
通过实验研究公务员在政治上级施加行政负担时，如何因客户脆弱性和自身工作安全感、组织承诺而不同程度地减轻负担，发现仅对老年人群体有效。
Citizens experience onerous encounters with the bureaucracy for various reasons, often political. Administrative burden reduction (ABR) has been pursued to improve citizen-state interactions, especially for vulnerable populations who are disproportionately impacted by burdens. This study seeks to explain the degree of ABR by bureaucrats when the burdens are deployed by their political superiors. We conceptualize it as a function of client vulnerability and bureaucrats’ sense of job security and organizational commitment. We examine these linkages in the context of a COVID-19 rental assistance program for two vulnerable groups—elderly and Blacks. The findings from the two single factorial experiments show that clients’ vulnerability increases the degree of ABR, but only for the elderly. Moreover, bureaucrats who make decisions based on their organizational commitment approach ABR more slowly and only in the context of age vulnerability.