How do regulatory agencies acquire their reputation with their regulatees? A q-sort study of 10 regulatory agencies

How a regulatory agency is perceived by audiences like citizens, politicians, the judiciary, and regulatees has important implications for its effectiveness, independence, and survival (Carpenter 2001). While the mechanisms of reputation acquisition have been widely researched in corporate reputation literature (e.g., Fombrun 2012), this topic is still burgeoning in public organizational and bureaucratic reputation scholarship (Binderkrantz et al. 2023). Especially rarely has this topic been researched with the subjects of regulation: individual and organizational regulatees (Bustos 2021). This gap is notable, as prior scholarship suggests a regulator’s reputation with regulatees influences their compliance (Carpenter 2010; Lodge 2014; Capelos et al. 2016). To seek to address this gap, this study asked 286 regulatees of 10 Dutch agencies which factors were most important in forming their impressions of the agency. The study employed a ‘Q methodology’. In an online survey, respondents were presented with 24 different factors through which theory predicts regulatory agencies acquire their reputation with regulatees. They then sorted the 24 factors in order of importance. Survey data was subjected to descriptive statistical and factor analysis. This paper presents three sets of findings. First, drawing on the descriptive statistical analysis, we describe how the ‘average’ regulatee forms their impressions of their regulatory agency. Second, reporting on results of a factor analysis of regulatee ‘profiles’, we demonstrate how various regulatees differ in how they form their impressions of their agency, Finally, comparing current results with those from a previous study, we contrast how regulatee views on this topic compare to those of regulatory agency employees. The descriptive statistical results suggest regulator reputation is heavily influenced by regulatee judgements about the perceived procedural correctness of agency actions. Factor analysis results, however, indicate significant differences among regulatees as to how they form their impressions. Further, the comparison to employees shows meaningful differences between what each respondent groups considers most significant in the acquisition of agency reputation.