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Can Transparency Foster More Understanding and Compliant Citizens?
Author(s) -
Porumbescu Gregory A.,
Lindeman Meghan I. H.,
Ceka Erica,
Cucciniello Maria
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/puar.12790
Subject(s) - transparency (behavior) , compliance (psychology) , public economics , public policy , conceptual framework , turnover , policy analysis , policy studies , public relations , business , political science , public administration , economics , psychology , social psychology , sociology , law , social science , management
Voluntary policy compliance is an important yet rarely studied topic in public administration. To address the paucity of research, this article proposes and empirically tests a conceptual framework that ties policy transparency and policy understanding to voluntary policy compliance intentions. The reasoning is that the extent to which citizens understand a policy contributes to their intentions to comply with that policy. Further, the authors argue that policy transparency indirectly influences voluntary policy compliance intentions through a positive effect on citizens’ levels of policy understanding. To enhance the validity of the findings, the authors assess these relationships across two policy domains. The findings reflect an indirect positive effect of transparency on voluntary compliance occurring through policy understanding. However, this emerged only for one policy domain. These results suggest that the effects of policy transparency on policy understanding and voluntary policy compliance intentions may depend on the policy domain .