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Abstract
In a context where the amount of red tape in healthcare organizations continues to rise, head nurses’ job satisfaction is constantly under pressure. By building on the Job Demands-Resources model, we developed a theoretical model investigating the relationship between red tape and job satisfaction. By investigating the mediating role of discretionary room and the moderating role of autonomous motivation in this relationship, this study does not only aim to provide additional knowledge regarding the underlying mechanisms in this relationship, but also to increase our understanding of how this suffering at work can be mitigated. Our conditional process analyses (N = 277 head nurses) indicate that red tape undermines head nurses’ job satisfaction and that discretionary room acts as an underlying mechanism in this process. By revealing the mediating role of discretionary room, this study advances our understanding of the risks originating from red tape for leaders. Furthermore, our findings also indicate that autonomous motivation mitigates the negative relation between red tape and discretionary room and between red tape and job satisfaction. As autonomous motivation turns out to be an important protection mechanism against the negative consequences of red tape, organizations should put extra effort into stimulating the autonomous motivation of their leaders. When organizations make sure that their leaders’ job designs and work environments meet the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, leaders will become more autonomously motivated, which will buffer the negative impact of red tape.
Highlights
Red tape is an increasing problem in many organizations around the world (e.g., Kaufmann et al, 2019)
By building on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007), we focus on red tape as a hindering job demand with negative consequences for head nurses’ job satisfaction
We argue that autonomously motivated head nurses are better equipped to handle red tape since their autonomous motivation helps them to arm themselves with the resources it takes to cope with red tape (Trépanier et al, 2013; Bakker and Demerouti, 2018)
Summary
Red tape is an increasing problem in many organizations around the world (e.g., Kaufmann et al, 2019). Regulations, and procedures entail a compliance burden, but lack functionality, they can be categorized as red tape (Bozeman and Feeney, 2014). Healthcare workers in particular are complaining about the increasing levels of red tape they are facing in their job (e.g., Steijn and Van der Voet, 2019). This is alarming as past research demonstrates that red tape is negatively related to numerous outcomes (George et al, 2021). It is important to note that this characteristic should be interpreted as the perceived degree to which rules, regulations, and procedures lack functionality rather than as having absolutely no functionality at all (Bozeman, 2012; van Loon et al, 2016)
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