Measuring red tape in a hospital setting: A survey experiment

Public administration research is actively exploring alternatives for the General Red Tape (GRT) scale to measure red tape. Owing increasing criticism on GRT scale, scholars proposed Three-Item (TIRT) as an alternative. Using a repeated cross-sectional design, this article tests both scales in before–after analysis of major change organization hospital. The results indicate that does not capture resulting tape, which raises questions instrument's validity bottom-up design within one organization. TIRT however, measures tape at work environment level, reflect but shows empirical weaknesses its design. Additionally, by randomly assigning respondents substantially different definitions, definition significantly impact respondents’ ratings. Points practitioners predominantly used able increase intraorganizational hospital, validity. A more recent alternative specifically captures weaknesses. wording answers scale.