The INSPIRE Framework: How Public Administrators Can Increase Compliance with Written Requests Using Behavioral Techniques

• Published date: 01 January 2019
• Date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13004

The INSPIRE Framework: How Public Administrators Can Increase Compliance with Written Requests Using Behavioral Techniques 125

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 1, pp. 125–135. © 2018 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13004.

Peter Bragge is associate professor at

BehaviourWorks Australia, an applied behavioral

research center within the Monash Sustainable

Development Institute. Peter specializes in

healthcare quality improvement by using behavioral

science to aid the translation of research evidence

into practices, systems, and policies. Peter regularly

provides expert healthcare quality improvement

advice to government committees, clinicians. and

healthcare organizations.

E-mail: peter.bragge@monash.edu

Twitter: @BraggePeter

Kim Borg is a research officer and PhD

candidate at BehaviourWorks Australia,

Monash Sustainable Development Institute,

Monash University. Her research experience

lies in the area of social and government

research, where she has worked with a number

of large organizations and departments such

as Australia Post, the Victorian Department of

Health and Human Services, WorkSafe Victoria,

and the Transport Accident Commission.

E-mail: kim.borg@monash.edu

Nicholas Faulkner is research fellow at

BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable

Development Institute, Monash University. His

research interests lie primarily in the areas of political

psychology and behavioral public administration.

He regularly consults and works with government

agencies on how to use behavioral science to

promote socially beneficial behaviors.

E-mail: nicholas.faulkner@monash.edu

Twitter: @nickjfaulkner

Nicholas Faulkner

Kim Borg

Peter Bragge

Jim Curtis

Behaviour Works Australia

Eraj Ghafoori

Behaviour Works Australia and Australian Super

Denise Goodwin

Bradley S. Jorgensen

Lena Jungbluth

Sarah Kneebone

Liam Smith

Breanna Wright

Behaviour Works Australia

Paula Wright

Behaviour Works Australia and Victorian Agency for

Health Information

The INSPIRE Framework: How Public Administrators

Can Increase Compliance with Written Requests

Using Behavioral Techniques

Abstract: Public administrators rely on written communications to send information to citizens and stakeholders,

and they are among the heaviest users of the postal service. Behavioral science research has identified several techniques

that public administrators can use to increase compliance with written requests and, in turn, increase effectiveness.

Currently, however, many written communications from government bodies are not written in a manner that utilizes

these techniques. It remains an ongoing challenge for public administrators to identify, understand, and use these

techniques in the written communications sent by their organizations. This article presents a framework capturing

seven prominent techniques in a simple mnemonic—INSPIRE—that is already being used by several government

bodies in Australia. It also provides practical examples of how to use each technique and demonstrates that using

these techniques could result in large aggregate improvements in effectiveness and socially desirable outcomes of public

administrators’ written communications.

Public administrators rely on letters and other

written communications to send information

to citizens and stakeholders. Governments

in most countries continue to be heavy users of

postal services (PwC 2013; Turnbull 2016), and

they are increasingly using digital services to deliver

written communications to citizens, businesses,

and stakeholders (Hassan, Shehab, and Peppard

2011; Titah and Barki 2006). Although many of

these written communications include attempts to

influence behavior (e.g., a request to return specified

information), most letters from public administrators

do not currently use techniques from the applied

behavioral sciences to maximize their impact. If

they did, even small percentage improvement

in compliance could have important aggregate

benefits, given the high volumes of letters, emails,

and other types of written communications sent

by governments (Cialdini, Martin, and Goldstein

2015).

There are many examples in which incorporating

behavioral techniques in written communications

has helped increase public administrators’ impact. To

name just a few, incorporating behavioral techniques

helped U.K. tax authorities collect £5.6 billion more

in overdue revenue in a single financial year (Martin

2012), reduced U.K. doctors’ overprescribing of

antibiotics by 73,406 doses during a six-month trial

(Hallsworth et al. 2016), helped attract more diverse

job applicants (Linos 2018), and encouraged more

people to use online e-government services (Castelo

et al. 2015; Faulkner, Jorgensen, and Koufariotis

2018). Additionally, letters from government are

often criticized for being unclear, cold, and lacking in

empathy (e.g., Faulkner et al. 2018, Wenzel 2006),

which applying behavioral principles may help address.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest

in how psychology and behavioral science can help

public administrators be more effective (Bellé,

Cantarelli, and Belardinelli 2018; Grimmelikhuijsen

et al. 2017; Oliver 2015; Thaler and Sunstein 2009).

Since Thaler and Sunstein’s (2008) influential book

Nudge illustrated how small changes to environments

and policies can help individuals behave in ways that

benefit themselves and others, the amount of research

on applying behavioral techniques in government

contexts has grown substantially.

A vast and growing literature in behavioral sciences

has identified several techniques that can be used in

Viewpoint

Stephen E. Condrey

andTonya Neaves,

Associate Editors

Jim Curtis is a senior research fellow at

BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable

Development Institute, Monash University. His research

focuses of understanding and influencing behaviors

that affect achieving positive circular economy,

environmental compliance, and social outcomes.

E-mail: james.curtis@monash.edu