ARTICLE

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3 OPEN

The role of individual perceptions in the completion

of formalistic tasks
Wenjun Wu1 & Dengke Yu 1✉

Formalistic tasks are common in collective cultural societies such as China. They bring a great
loss of efficiency as well as some potential social benefits. The study aims to explore the
1234567890():,;

perception mechanism of formalistic tasks at the individual level, helping understand and
better manage them. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we proposed
that individuals’ perceived value (PV), perceived cost (PC), and perceived pressure (PP)
would significantly influence their participation in and completion of formalistic tasks. We
therefore developed two studies: Study 1 explored how individuals perceive formalistic tasks,
and Study 2 tested the effects of individual perceptions on the completion degree (CD) of
formalistic tasks. We collected the data from 319 and 536 Chinese respondents by ques-
tionnaire survey for the two studies respectively. Statistical approach and structural equation
model (SEM) were used to analyze the data. Through empirical studies, we substantiated the
positive role of PV and PC in the completion of formalistic tasks. Furthermore, coercive
pressure (CP) and normative pressure (NP), the two elements of PP, would significantly
moderate the effect of PC on CD. However, the moderating effects are weak. Our study
aroused scholars’ attention to formalistic tasks in organizations and filled the gap in for-
malistic management. Our findings therefore make a contribution to organization manage-
ment in collective culture and guide managers to better develop and promote formalistic
tasks.

1 School of Public Policy and Administration, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China. ✉email: yudengke@ncu.edu.cn

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ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3
F
Introduction
ormalistic tasks are common in collective societies. In tra-
ditional understandings formalistic tasks were usually con-
sidered as tasks set by superior leaders and pushed to the
subordinates in a compulsory way, little linked with the sub-
ordinates’ business post and performance. In the perception of
subordinates, formalistic tasks were characterized by mean-
inglessness, low-value, and disinterest, for superficial and face-
saving targets. For example, Chinese employees are often required
to take part in team building or political learning activities that
are against their will and lack direct perceived value. They are
required to save formalistic traces of their work, even though the
traces will not have a positive effect in the future. In addition,
organizational leaders are accustomed to carrying out their work
through calling meetings rather than taking action. Similar phe-
nomena exist in Chinese colleges. For example, students are asked
to attend lectures that they are not interested in and that have
little to do with their major, just to impress academic superstars.
Formalistic tasks are more likely to be fostered in eastern
cultures (e.g. China) which emphasize collective interests, face-
saving, and official rank standards. The trigger of formalistic tasks
is more diverse at the micro level. Their occurrence is probably
rooted in the need for organizational culture construction, a
reflection of bureaucratic leadership style, or the following of
organizational routines. They may bring some problems such as
increasing communication costs, reducing organizational flex-
ibility, and inhibiting individual creativity (Peng and Zhao, 2019;
Dai, 2018; Deng and Gong, 2021).
Different from the negative phenomenon-based view, our
study attempts to recognize and explore the potential value of
formalistic tasks in certain fields, such as establishing organi-
zational order, enhancing employee compliance, and keeping
work on track (Barkema et al., 2015; Wang, 2022). We proposed
that it is necessary to enhance the management of them for
improving organizational vitality and production efficiency.
When business tasks are closely related to organizational and
individual performance, the value of formalistic tasks is more
reflected in the level of organization and leadership. Formalistic
tasks produce indirect or long-term effects on the subordinates,
so the value is more difficult to be perceived. It then discourages
the enthusiasm of subordinates to accept and participate in
formalistic tasks, and in turn damages organizational expected
performance.
Considering the pros and cons, we need to develop a theory of
formalistic management for enhancing the value and curbing the
flaws. The theory should be demand-side or based on the inter-
action of the supply and demand of formalistic tasks. The
improvement of individual perception therefore becomes the key
to solving the problem. For example, individuals more easily
accept and effectively complete formalistic tasks when they
understand the causal relationship between the tasks and orga-
nizational performance through their leaders’ explanation, or
when the tasks are integrated into their post activities and help
improving job performance. Hence, our study aims to explore an
individual’s perception mechanism to guide the management of
the participation and completion of formalistic tasks. In the
study, individual perceptions were focused on the concerns of PV,
PC, and PP. Among them, PV and PC are individual’s percep-
tions of the benefits and costs of formalistic tasks from a rational
perspective, and PP is an individual’s perception of others’ atti-
tudes to the tasks from social and emotional perspectives. The
three would affect an individual’s recognition, decision, and
behavior in the process of executing the tasks.
Our study focused on the answer to two research questions.
First, how do individuals perceive and recognize the formalistic
tasks in their organizations. Second, how do their perceptions
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affect their participation in and completion of the tasks? We
therefore developed two sub-studies. Study 1 carried out a sta-
tistical analysis of individual perceptions in terms of the char-
acteristics, value, costs, and pressure of formalistic tasks. Study 2
developed a model to measure the effects of PV, PC, and PP on
the completion of formalistic tasks. Hence, the remainder of our
study were organized as follows. We proposed the basic theory
and reviewed the literature in the section “Theory and literature
review”. In the section “Methodology”, the methodology of the
two studies was displayed. Following that, their results were
summarized in the section “Results”. Finally, we discussed the
conclusions, implications, limitations, and future research in the
section “Conclusions”.
Theory and literature review
COR theory. COR theory initially emerged as a stress theory,
believing that the threat of potential and actual resource loss will
lead to individual tension and stress (Hobfoll et al., 2018). It
further points out that under pressure, individuals tend to use
existing resources to obtain new resources, so as to reduce the net
loss of resources. They would strive to maintain and protect their
cherished resources when they are unable to evaluate the mar-
ginal benefits of new resources and the threat of resource loss
(Hobfoll et al., 2018). In our study, the theory was introduced to
explain the psychological mechanism of individuals to perceive
the value, costs, and pressure of formalistic tasks.
According to Halbesleben et al. (2014), since resources are the
important “things that individuals perceive to help them achieve
their goals”, individuals would be motivated by their perceptions
of the increasing and loss of resources when they make decisions
on the behaviors requiring resource inputs. Because of the
characteristics of formalistic tasks, such as lip-deep, bureaucratic,
and ambiguous in cause and effect, individuals easily magnify the
perceived costs and risks of resource investment and under-
estimate the perceived value. Hence, COR theory could well
explain why individuals tend to reject tasks or complete them at a
low level under pressure. Under the theory, we would like to
develop a new framework of the relationship between individual
perceptions and the completion of formalistic tasks, for better-
predicting individuals’ decisions and behaviors in responding to
the tasks assigned by their leaders.
Individual perceptions. In economic decisions, an individual
always weighs their efforts against the rewards. Both of them are
composed of economic, material, and social elements. Economic
rewards reflect as PV before individuals get involved in a certain
activity. Material efforts reflect as PCs, such as time, energies, and
tools. Social elements include social rewards such as esteem and
communication, and social efforts through which individuals
could reduce their pressure in collective activities (Antoci et al.,
2012; Mamuneas et al., 2006). Hence, we introduced the capital
theory to lead the development of our framework and analyzed
the individual perceptions from three aspects, i.e. PV, PC, and PP.
PV is a kind of assessment of the benefits incurring in a
behavior (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011), e.g. obtaining and using
a product or deciding to do a task. It is a multidimensional
construct including monetary and non-monetary components
(Chahal and Kumari, 2012). The latter is composed of functional
and epistemic values (Peña et al., 2012). In terms of completing a
task, functional values derive from the achievement of the task
(Petrick, 2002; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001) and epistemic values
refer to the acquisition of knowledge in the process of task
completion (Duman and Mattila,2005).
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PC is a physical and emotional connection between employees
and the organization (Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2015). In the
completion of a job task, the need for resource inputs plays a vital
role (Bakker and Demerouti, 2009; Demerouti et al., 2001). PC is
defined as the physical and organizational aspects of the task that
require employees’ sustained physical and psychological efforts
and are therefore associated with physiological and psychological
costs (Perez et al., 2019).
According to the “resource caravans and resource caravan
passageways” principle of COR, resources exist in environments,
and environmental factors, for example, the language and
behavior of superiors or peers, therefore have an important
impact on the resource acquisition and culture shaping in
organizations (Hobfoll, 2012). When individuals engage in and
complete organizational tasks well, they would gain social
approval and self-image improvement. However, they would also
gain PPs, including coercive, mimetic, or normative demands
from their superiors and people around them (Wang et al., 2018).
Individuals would then engage in similar practices that are
required to do so, imitate one another, or simply do the
appropriate things.
Based on the expectancy valence theory, individuals’ behaviors
are affected by their self-perceptions and external environments
(Chung and Kim, 2022). In detail, PV could determine an
individual’s intention, decision, and behavior. The failure to change
behaviors arises when the changed behaviors have long-term rather
than short-term economic benefits. Individuals are less motivated
to engage in a task when they perceive that they need to invest
more resources (Perez et al., 2019). For instance, in an experiment
on operating robotic units, participants’ perceived performance
decreased with a larger communication delay, while their reported
frustration, effort, and mental demands significantly increased
(Kim et al., 2022). In the scenario of performing an air-to-surface
task, Li et al. (2018) found that extra workload has a negative effect
on pilots’ situational awareness performance and increases the
probability of operating hazards. They therefore proposed to
develop opportunities to compensate for the negative effect of
workload through human-centered organizational optimization (Li
et al., 2018). Furthermore, as proposed by Wang et al. (2018), the
pressure an individual perceived from institutions profoundly
impacted his/her behaviors in the organization.
The completion of formalistic tasks. Formalistic task has the
characteristics such as compulsivity, superficiality, and bureau-
cracy that are different from other tasks. To organizations and
individuals, it may be valuable in potential in certain contexts, but
it may also cause many problems in organization and motivation.
It is a kind of degenerate thing mixed with benign administrative
affairs. For one thing, value-neutral formalistic tasks take nor-
malized and standardized forms to organize rational adminis-
trative works. For another, derogatory formalistic tasks are
carried out with repetitive, inefficient, and superficial work styles
(Liu, 2021). They are often reflected in many forms in manage-
ment works, covering up and even deviating from leaders’ ori-
ginal purposes.
The fact that organization members are not willing to accept
formalistic tasks is attributed more to the ineffective and
inefficient forms than the tasks’ quantity and frequency (Jiang,
2019). In the context of national governance, the defects of
formalistic tasks have a negative impact on a nation’s compre-
hensive and sustainable development. The effects cover damaging
political ecology, reducing governance efficiency, cutting public
satisfaction, etc. (Liu, 2021; Tuo, 2013). It is necessary to improve
the management of formalistic tasks to clear the atmosphere and
increase work efficiency.
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From a top-down perspective, the generation of formalist tasks
is motivated by factors, such as authoritarian leadership style,
assessment-driven pressure system, and instrumental rational
behavior (Peng and Zhao, 2019). From the bottom-up perspec-
tive, the participation willingness and completion of formalistic
tasks are influenced by factors including individuals’ rational
evaluation of the value and significance, the correlation between
the tasks and job duties, and the imbalance between the needed
efforts and the expected rewards (Omansky et al., 2016). In terms
of the formalistic tasks for constructing organizational culture
which are difficult to predict the quantitative performance, Song
(2013) proposed that the lack of subjective evaluation of the tasks’
value and the inconformity between individual’s expectation and
the reality lead to an individual’s apathetic attitude, negative
support, and low work efficiency. Furthermore, Ren (2018)
highlighted the important role of activating an individual’s
willingness to support top-down formalistic tasks in the
realization of participatory governance. Consequently, the
management of formalistic tasks could be improved through
the optimization of top-bottom organization and the motivation
of individual enthusiasm and organizational vitality from the
bottom-top perspective.
The management of formalistic tasks. Few scholars have focused
on the management of formalistic tasks, though some relative
constructs have been proposed. A similar concept is an illegiti-
mate task, which was defined as the employees are required to
perform roles beyond their expectations (Semmer et al., 2015). It
reflects as unreasonable and unnecessary work. However, for-
malistic tasks usually have some other characters such as nor-
mative, involuntary, lip-deep, and bureaucratic, and ambiguous
in cause and effect (Fang, 2019). It is therefore a new construct
with academic significance.
Similar to formalistic management, relative proposals include
symbolic management, performative governance, bureaucratic
management, etc. Scholars in the field of symbolic management
hold that leaders could establish organizational order, institution,
and culture through some formal and symbolic actions (Sun,
2020). Symbolic management may bring enterprises into a bad
situation where their leaders excessively pursue the satisfaction of
governments and the public by ostensibly acting in line with
external expectations, but lacking substantial contributions.
Performative governance is a thought at the national level similar
to symbolic management. It was defined as the theatrical
deployment of language, symbols, and gestures to foster an
impression of good governance among citizens (Ding, 2020).
Both symbolic management and performative management can
partly predict the generation of formalistic tasks, but their
connotation and emphases are quite different from formalistic
task management. Bureaucratic management highlights the
importance of control and obedience culture (Barkema et al.,
2015). It is a typical leadership style from top to bottom.
Formalistic tasks usually show bureaucratic style in the process of
promotion, but not all bureaucratic styles are related to
formalistic tasks.
Considering to fill the gap in theory, we would make two
differences, unlike the previous proposals. First, we tried to
reduce the criticism of bad management style but emphasized the
positive value of formalistic tasks and developed solutions to
improve the degree of task completion through enhancing
employees’ cognition. Second, we are concerned with the
relationship between individuals and environments as well as
the interaction between individuals and the tasks, and so we
aimed to propose a bottom-up theory to lead the management of
formalistic tasks, unlike the fact that some studies focused on the
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discovery of the problems in the management dominated by
forceful and hypocritical superiors.
Methodology
Our research included two quantitative studies. Study 1 was a
statistical analysis. It aimed to answer three basic questions. First,
what is a formalistic task, and what are its characteristics? Second,
how do individuals perceive its value and costs, and in turn how
do they support it? Third, how are individuals motivated by
others to complete the task? We then proposed three hypotheses
about the relationships between individual perceptions (including
PV, PC, and PP) and the completion of formalistic tasks, and
developed a SEM model to test the hypotheses in Study 2.
We selected Chinese college students as samples for the fol-
lowing considerations. First, the formalistic task is a common
phenomenon in the Chinese context, with a typical collective
culture. It is more serious in administrative and public institu-
tions such as colleges than in private organizations. Second, it is
observed that many kinds of formalistic tasks do exist in the
authors’ working universities and surroundings. The authors have
a better understanding of the operation of college organization
and therefore could make more in-depth investigations about
formalistic tasks. Third, for convenient sampling, we targeted the
students in the working university of the authors as samples in
Study 1. Furthermore, for increasing the generality of our find-
ings, we expanded the scope of sampling in Study 2 to the stu-
dents of other universities in China.
The methodology of Study 1
Investigation development. In order to execute Study 1, We
developed an exploratory investigation of student respondents in
Nanchang University through a questionnaire survey. The uni-
versity is the largest comprehensive university with the best brand
in Jiangxi Province, China. It has a complete range of disciplines
including science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, and
humanities and social sciences. More than 50,000 students were
enrolled each year.
The questionnaire was comprised of three sections. The first
one aimed to examine the demographic information of the
respondents, including their gender, grade, major, and politics
status. The second one was to inquire about their general feelings
and status when they were suffering formalistic tasks. Finally,
through the development of five-point Likert scale, the last one
aimed to measure their perceptions and the degree of supporting
and completing the tasks in three specific contexts with
formalistic characteristics: (a) a normative and probably unin-
teresting lecture, (b) a seeming inspection activity lacking actual
effect in the situation of COVID-19, and (c) a compulsory but
probably boring group activity. The selected contexts and the self-
developed questionnaire items were repeatedly discussed by the
research team members and confirmed by two professors in the
fields of sociology and management. In addition, we developed
two open items to make deep explorations. We judged the
carefulness of the respondents on the basis of the filling of the
open items.
Samples. The data of Study 1 was collected by questionnaires
responded to by the students recruited from Nanchang Uni-
versity. Three hundred and nineteen students volunteered to fill
in the questionnaire offline. Before the formal survey, we first
randomly sent out 39 questionnaires as a pre-survey on 15 March
2021, which confirmed the validity and comprehensibility of the
questionnaire items. From 23 May to 28 June 2021, we called in
respondents who voluntarily answered the questionnaire through
face-to-face inquiries. After removing invalid questionnaires, for
4 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2023)10:731 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3
example, the incomplete ones, 295 valid questionnaires were
finally collected through the formal survey. The effective recovery
rate was 92.48%.
The demographic characteristics of the respondents were as
follows. In terms of gender, 156 (52.9%) male and 139 (47.1%)
female participated in our survey. For major, 57.2% of the
respondents were from humanities and social sciences, 39% from
science and technology majors, and 3% were from others. Among
them, undergraduate, master, and doctoral students accounted
for 56.9%, 40.3%, and 2.7% respectively. In addition, 27.5% of the
respondents was a member of the Communist Party of China
(CPC), and others were not. Student cadres were the majority,
accounting for 51.5%.
Data analysis techniques. We used statistical methods to complete
the data analysis of Study 1. The results were presented by sta-
tistical charts and contingency tables. Since the study is an
exploratory analysis, it is not suitable for using traditional
methods to test the reliability and validity of the data. However,
we still checked the internal logical consistency between the data
of different items in each questionnaire through manual obser-
vation, so as to roughly determine the reliability of our data.
The methodology of Study 2
Hypotheses. As expectancy-value theory proposed, the decisions
on whether an individual chooses a task and how much the
individual engages in the task are determined by the comparison
of his/her expectancy for success and task PV (Chung and Kim,
2022). Individuals tend to excel in the field where they are con-
fident of success and choose the tasks that are interesting, per-
sonally useful, and important (Perez et al., 2019). However,
formalistic tasks are often resisted since they are boring, useless to
business development, and unimportant to personal achievement
(Yu, 2008; Ren, 2018). Individuals are often difficult to perceive
the value of formalistic tasks since it is generally implicit or
collectivist-oriented. Therefore, it becomes particularly important
to enhance individual’s value perception of formalistic tasks. The
promotion of PV can stimulate individual intention to participate
in formalistic tasks and in turn, increase the results achieved by
completing them.
For example, in the task of “building a civilized city” in
Liangjiang City, China narrated by Ren (2018), the problem of
indifference and resistance to the formalistic task occurred
because of the weak PV of citizens. In order to improve the
living environment of urban residents, the city government
launched a top-down mobilization of civilization creation, calling
on more citizens to participate in community service and
governance. However, there was a conflict between the single
government policy and citizens’ diverse demands for environ-
mental improvement. As a result, they lacked awareness of the
overall task and rational thinking about the value of participation,
therefore the gap between their expectations and the reality
happened. Finally, citizens passively participated in the task with
a cold attitude and a lack of initiative. Consequently, we proposed
the following hypothesis.
H1: Individuals’ PV has a positive effect on the completion of
formalistic tasks.
Guided by expectancy-value theory, individuals’ self-efficacy is
a function of the relation between PC and the outcomes. Kim
et al. (2022) substantiated that PC was negatively related to
different components of engagement and achievement. The effect
was generated through two mechanisms. First, PC is related to
perceived difficulty (Toma, 2022). When individuals predict a
greater demand for resource inputs in a task, they increase their
expectations of the task’s difficulty accordingly. Task difficulty
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and the expected probability of success stimulate individuals’
investments and effectiveness in task completion. According to
achievement motivation theory, moderate perceived difficulty can
make individuals reach the highest degree of task participation
and completion (Capa et al., 2008). Second, PC is also related to
perceived risk (Cheng and Lee, 2011). According to COR theory,
individuals would be sensitive to the potential loss of resources
when they make choices of task investment. When individuals
perceive a loss of resources, they are more likely to have stress
responses, such as job burnout and depression (Halbesleben,
2006). Formalist tasks with the style of authoritarian leadership
are usually collective interest-oriented and coercive, resulting in
the perceptions of temporary loss of and threat to individual
resources. The perceptions lead to the amplified perceived
difficulty of completing the task and the perceived risk of
resource loss, so individuals show the emotions of low support
and negative response.
According to the investigation reported by Deng and Gong
(2021), there was a typical formalistic phenomenon in the
supervision and assessment system of the market supervision
bureau of a Chinese city. The criteria of the assessment from
superiors is work trace rather than actual results, which gives
birth to the routine of trace management. Under the pressure of
frequent formalized assessment, subordinates spend a lot of time
writing reports and making written materials in order to complete
the tasks assigned by their superiors but lack the motivation to
really implement the tasks and serve the public. After job
burnout, the subordinates even choose to complete only a part of
the tasks. We therefore proposed the following hypothesis.
H2: Individuals’ PC has a negative effect on the completion of
formalistic tasks.
According to stress theory, for the common interests of
survival or the completion of common tasks, organizations would
promote their members to adopt common attitudes and actions
accepted by leaders or the majority through the influence of
institutions, leaders, or co-workers (Szalma and Teo, 2012).
When the requirements from institutions and leaders or the
influence from co-workers are inconsistent with individuals’
intentions, individuals feel tensive and depressed, resulting in CP
and NP (Liu et al., 2010). The former is derived from coercive
homogeneity driven by organizational system or leader power,
and the latter arises from social norms, morals, and the fear of
deviating from group opinions. The root of formalistic tasks is to
unduly pursue the routine, standardization, and normalization of
the tasks. Excessive demands on them by superiors lead to passive
acceptance rather than psychological approval by the subordi-
nates (Johnson et al., 2016). The actions of the subordinates
choosing silence, passive acceptance, and even resistance would
form a herd effect. When their co-workers choose passive
acceptance, they would also choose similar actions to avoid to
bear the pressure alone. Otherwise, they would choose to rebel
with their co-workers to achieve their own intentions. In the case
proposed by Yan and Zhang (2021), villagers with economic
rationality were indifferent to the rural public affairs promoted by
governments, and they responded negatively even when they were
required by the proprietors. Influenced by most villagers’ apathy,
few villagers took the way of supervision to express their
dissatisfaction with formalistic tasks, but they blended in and
became the silent majority.
PC generates pressure for individuals in completing formalistic
tasks, but the pressure is a psychological perception related to
social processes. According to social comparison theory, indivi-
duals achieve the self-adjustment of pressure through social
comparison (Kwon et al., 2022). When individuals make a
positive decision, they expect emotional support from superiors,
co-workers, friends, and family. Otherwise, when they make a
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ARTICLE
negative strategy for a formalistic task, they hope that surround-
ing persons make the same choice, so as to confirm their
judgment, improve the credibility of the evaluation, or at least
reduce the relative risk of resource loss caused by possible
decision-making errors. Therefore, to accept the pressure from
and keep pace with their superiors or co-workers could ease
individuals’ conflict between the perception of cost loss and the
completion demand of formalistic tasks, making them more likely
to accept the tasks. We therefore propose the following
hypothesis.
H3: Individuals’ PPs (a. CP, and b. NP) weaken the negative
effect of PC on the completion of formalistic tasks.
The above hypotheses are suitable for measurement in the
Chinese context. First, the long-term Confucian culture in China
has made collectivism and official rank standards deeply popular
among the people, so formalistic tasks are quite common in
Chinese organizations. Second, with the rapid development of
China’s economy in recent years, Chinese people have a stronger
sense of competition, and they are more sensitive to the
possession and preservation of resources. Therefore, COR theory
is suitable to interpret their psychological motivations. Finally, the
“guanxi” culture of Chinese people makes them hover between
rejection and acceptance when confronted with formalistic tasks.
The complex psychological mechanism is worth measuring.
The above hypotheses based on the evidence of diverse social
groups are well adapted to the colleges. First, the perception of
adult individuals is internally stable in a certain period. The
perception of formalistic tasks of college students and social
individuals are all affected by the same collective culture, so there
should be little difference. Second, compared with the decision-
making whether firm employees identify with and participate in
formalistic tasks, which may be affected by more diverse
environmental factors, the influencing factors of college students’
decision-making are more endogenous. Hence, college student
samples may be more suitable for our theoretical hypotheses.
Third, college students are a group with self-pursuit and free
minds, and their perception and response to formalistic tasks
should be more sensitive and real. In addition, existing literature
has shown that there is no significant difference between the
perceptual variable data of Chinese firm employees and college
students (Guo et al., 2019).
Measures. We developed two scenarios, high formalism and low
formalism, for measuring the variables in the completion of
formalistic tasks. Their features are described as follows. First,
high formalism. Each respondent was supposed as a student
majoring in mathematics. He/she was required to listen to an
academic lecture on improving moral standards. The lecture
might be boring and not relevant to professional development,
but mandatory. Second, low formalism. The respondent majoring
in mathematics was required to listen to an academic lecture on
the frontiers of mathematics. Though the lecture might be valu-
able, the respondent was not willing to participate in the activity
because of the inappropriate time. All respondents were invited to
answer the questionnaire items in one of the two scenarios that
were randomly assigned. The items are exactly the same in both
scenarios.
We used three techniques to control the accuracy with which
two scenarios were identified. First, we gave ample cues according
to the typical characteristics of formalistic tasks such as mean-
inglessness, irrelevance, and coerciveness in the scenario of a high
formalism task. The cues act as stimuli for forming perceptive
and behavioral decisions on the participation in and completion
of the tasks. In contrast, these cues did not appear in the scenario
of the low formalism task. Second, we have already completed the
data collection and analysis of Study 1 when designing the
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measures of Study 2. Therefore, we made the experimental design
of Study 2 by integrating the knowledge gained from Study 1.
Moreover, the effective identification of two scenarios was
conducted by a pre-survey among students in a master’s class.
The students were able to detect the cues and evaluate the
differences between the cues in two scenarios. The perceived
differences are basically consistent with the results of our Study 1.
Third, we evaluated the sample data collected in two scenarios
and found that the two data were significantly different in core
variables such as PV and PC. This proves the effectiveness of our
control. In addition, the reason why we defined the second
scenario as a low formalism task is because it does have some
weak characteristics of a formalistic task, such as the top-down
form of task layout, the soft constraint of voluntary check-in, and
the inappropriate time causing respondents to consider involun-
tary participation in the activity.
Our study involved the measurements of four variables: the
PV, PC, PP, and CD of formalistic tasks. In our research
framework, PV and PC are independent variables, PP is a
moderating variable, and CD represents the dependent variable.
We adapted the items from mature scales and integrated them
into a questionnaire for measuring these latent variables. The
items were measured by 5-point Likert scale, where 1 denoted
strongly disagree, and 5 denoted strongly agree. The items for
measuring PV were adapted from Lee et al. (2014), including four
items such as “the lecture is very helpful to my learning in the
major”. The items for measuring PC were adapted from Perez
et al. (2019), including four items such as “it’s a waste of time to
attend the lecture”. The measures of PP included CP and NP. For
measuring CP, three items including “college leaders will want
more students to attend the activity” were developed on the basis
of Mezias (1990) and Lee et al., (2009). Four items such as “my
roommates will actively participate in the lecture” were adapted
from Lobo and Greenland (2017) to measure NP. Finally,
inspired by Ju (2020) and Luo et al. (2020), we developed seven
items such as “I will attend the lecture on time and listen to it
carefully till the end” to measure CD. Since the CD of formalistic
tasks is usually not directly related to individual performance, it is
difficult for us to directly describe and observe the completion
effects. In the study, we measured the CD of formalistic tasks
through the external form and degree of individual participation
in the tasks, which is in line with the nature of formalistic tasks of
which the performance is surface. In detail, we used some
adverbs, for example, “carefully” and “actively”, to measure an
individual’s level of participation and completion. In fact, in the
current Chinese assessment system, timely and serious participa-
tion in formalistic tasks is usually considered to be a good
completion of the tasks. In addition, we added an open item
“what do you think is the purpose of the study” for checking and
controlling the potential common method biases. The ques-
tionnaires provided by the respondents who have guessed our
study purpose would be removed from our sample.
When designing the above items to measure individual
perceptions, we referred to some mature scales in the existing
literature. The items of these scales may be more suitable for
individuals in business or social organizations, but not necessarily
for college students. We therefore not only set up a research team
including 2 professors and 2 doctoral students to adapt the scales
to suit the situation of Chinese colleges but also conducted a test
on the items among a class of master students (18 people). We
inquired each student about the correct understanding of the
items and made several rounds of continuous improvement to
increase the validity of the modified items.
Samples. We launched a survey on Sojump website (http://www.
sojump.com) to collect data. It is a large professional online
6 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2023)10:731 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3
survey service platform in China. Many Chinese scholars have
been supported by it during their academic research processes
(Rui, 2017; Li and Yu, 2018). The authors paid 5 yuan (about 0.70
dollars) to the respondents.
The expected respondents were limited to college students.
Although our research hypotheses seem to be suitable for
individuals in any type of organization in the context of Eastern
collective culture, we still chose students as samples while
considering the feasibility of data collection. Several prior studies
provide us with references, all of which collected questionnaire
data of college students to measure the variables in terms of
individual perception (Atakan et al., 2008; Guo et al., 2019; Iqbal
et al., 2023). Guo et al. (2019) even found that there was no
significant difference between college students and firm employ-
ees in terms of psychological perception.
Data collection consisted of two stages. First, on 18 September
2021, we distributed the questionnaire set as a high formalism
scenario. After collecting enough sample data in the first stage, on
26 September 2021 we handed out the questionnaires in a low
formalism scenario. We finally invited 587 respondents in the
period of two weeks, but 51 of them were ruled invalid and
finally, 536 valid questionnaires were retained. The effective rate
was 91.31%. Since our study only involved 22 items, the sample
has met the recommendation proposed by Hair et al. (2015) that
the number of samples should be 10 to 15 times the number of
items in SEM.
Among the valid questionnaires, 242 ones (sample 1)
reflected the scenario of high formalism tasks, and others
(294, sample 2) reflected low formalism tasks. Considering the
complementarity of the two scenarios in the measurement of
formalistic tasks, we believed that the combination of two
samples could form a more complete measurement than any
separate one. Therefore, we carried out data analysis based on
the combined sample.
We used an independent-sample t-test to analyze the
heterogeneity of the variables in the two samples. We did find
significant differences in the variables of PV (t = −8.003,
p = 0.000), CP (t = −4.695, p = 0.000), NP (t = −7.127,
p = 0.000), and CD (t = −7.507, p = 0.000), confirming the
effectiveness in manipulating the scenario. The fact that
individuals’ PV and CD in high formalism tasks were lower
than those in low formalism tasks was consistent with our general
cognition. The lower CP and NP in high formalism tasks revealed
that individuals might perceive lower pressures from leaders or
co-workers since the tasks have been institutionally mandated.
However, there was no significant difference in PC (t = 0.964,
p = 0.328) between them, which indicated that an individual’s
perception of resource input required by a formalistic task was
not related to the high or low formalism, but related to some
other factors such as task difficulty.
The demographic characteristics of the respondents were as
follows. Male respondents accounted for 58.0%. In terms of age,
67.9% of the respondents were between 16 and 22, 28.9% between
23 and 28, and only 1.3% was 29 and above. In terms of
affiliation, 50.0% of the respondents were from first-class
universities in China, 45.3% were from ordinary universities,
and others (4.7%) were from other colleges. In terms of major,
37.7% of the respondents learned humanities and social sciences,
28.4% natural sciences, technologies, and engineering, 26.5%
medicine, biology, and agriculture, and finally, the respondents in
other majors accounted for 7.5%. In terms of grade, 66.6% of the
respondents were undergraduate, 22.8.3% were master students,
and the rest were doctoral students, accounting for 7.6%. In terms
of political status, 29.5% of the respondents was a member of the
CPC, and others (70.5%) were not. Finally, 80% of the
respondents used to be cadres.
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Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations.

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. PV 4.095 0.800 0.813
2. PC 3.535 1.267 0.482*** 0.741
3. CP 3.976 0.915 0.337*** 0.211*** 0.641
4. NP 3.956 0.952 0.605*** 0.514*** 0.456*** 0.741
5. CD 3.928 0.989 0.526*** 0.432*** 0.316*** 0.562*** 0.821

n = 536. The diagonal values are the square root of AVEs.

***p < 0.001.

Table 2 The results of CFA.

Models Variables χ2/df AGFI RMSEA NFI CFI TLI Δχ2

Hypothetical model
Five factors PV, PC, CP, NP, CD 3.275 0.866 0.065 0.924 0.946 0.936
Competitive models
Five factors plus CMB PV, PC, CP, NP, CD, CMB 2.908 0.883 0.060 0.933 0.955 0.946 74.776
Four factors PV, PC, CP + NP, CD 3.658 0.852 0.070 0.913 0.935 0.925 89.586
Three factors PV, PC, CP + NP + CD 3.918 0.840 0.074 0.906 0.928 0.918 153.459
Two factors PC, PV + CP + NP + CD 4.805 0.806 0.084 0.883 0.905 0.893 343.052
One factor PC + PV + CP + NP + CD 7.356 0.713 0.109 0.820 0.840 0.821 873.366

Descriptive analysis and the tests of validity and reliability. We

Table 3 Reliability and validity.
calculated the means, standard deviations (SD), and correlations
of the core variables. The results are summarized in Table 1. The
mean values showed that the individual perceptions and com- Variables Factor loading Cronbach’s α AVE CR
pletion of formalistic tasks were at a high level, and the deviations PV 0.764–0.881 0.894 0.685 0.898
were not large. The data complied with the requirements of PC 0.419–0.887 0.804 0.549 0.830
homogeneity and normality. The appropriate correlations con- CP 0.507–0.739 0.651 0.550 0.821
NP 0.695–0.798 0.825 0.410 0.672
firmed the relationships between the core variables and supported
CD 0.752–0.873 0.932 0.669 0.935
to completion of the subsequent work of hypothesis testing.
Furthermore, the table also exhibited the discriminant validity of
the constructs. The square root of the average variance extracted
(AVE) of each construct was found to be larger than the corre- criterion suggested by Hair et al. (2015). The KMOs of all constructs
lations between the construct and others, confirming the ade- were higher than the threshold of 0.600, and their p-values of the
quacy of discriminant validity (Hair et al., 2015). Bartlett test of sphericity were <0.001. The standardized factor
As the result of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), The loading of the items ranged from 0.507 to 0.887. Only the factor
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO = 0.959) and the significance of loading of an item of PC was 0.419. That is, most of the loading was
Bartlett test of sphericity (approximate chi square = 8310.562, greater than the recommended value of 0.500 (Hair et al., 2015). The
and p = 0.000) indicated the suitability of factor analysis. We then construct validity of our study was therefore confirmed.
added all variables for analyzing the rotation sums of squared Cronbach’s alpha shows the internal consistency of a construct
loading. The results (see Table 2) showed that five latent constructs as a measure of reliability. As shown in Table 3, the alpha values
were extracted after varimax rotation for our final analysis. Each of all constructs ranged from 0.651 to 0.932, most of which were
construct had an eigenvalue over 1, and all of them reported above 0.700 recommended by Hair et al. (2015). Referring to
64.473% of total variances. The results further confirmed the Hatcher and Stepanski (1994), the construct with alpha 0.651
discriminant validity of the latent variables and the adequacy of the could also be accepted since it is above the threshold value of
five-factor model for structural equation analysis. 0.600. In addition, the composite reliability (CR) values of all
We adopted procedural and statistical techniques to control constructs ranged from 0.672 to 0.935, above the recommended
common method bias (CMB). First, we disrupted the order of the value of 0.600 (Hair et al., 2016).
items in the questionnaire to reduce the effect of respondent’s self-
attribution. Second, according to Podsakoff et al. (2003), we Data analysis techniques. In line with the results of CFA, we
ensured the anonymity and voluntariness of the recruited constructed a first-order reflective SEM for data analysis, testing
respondents. Third, we used Harman’s single-factor test to measure the hypotheses developed in Study 2. The model included two
the CMB (Aguirre-Urreta and Hu, 2019). The first principal independent latent constructs (i.e. PV and PC), two interactive
component with the largest eigenvalue accounted for 50% of the latent constructs (i.e. CP × PC and NP × PC), and one dependent
total variance, just meeting the requirement of the recommended latent construct (i.e. CD). The independent and dependent latent
value. In addition, as shown in Table 2, the goodness of the constructs were measured by the corresponding observed items.
competitive model (five factors plus CMB) was not significantly According to the method proposed by Ping (1995), we measured
and largely improved on the basis of the hypothetical model. the interactive latent constructs by introducing the pairwise
Hence, the CMB of Study 2 was effectively controlled. interaction terms of the observed variables corresponding to the
The convergence validity was measured via AVE. As shown in two interactive constructs. For example, the construct CP × PC
Table 3, all AVEs ranged from 0.410 to 0.615, basically meeting the was measured by 12 interactive terms including CP1 × PC1,

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CP1 × PC2, ……, CP3 × PC3, CP3 × PC4. The interactive latent
constructs have also passed the tests of reliability and validity.
We chose the SEM technique to analyze our data because of the
following considerations. First, it is an inferential statistical
method for testing causal hypotheses and derives “quantitative
causal conclusions and statistical measures of fit” (Bollen and
Pearl, 2013). Second, compared with the regression model, it is
more suitable for measuring the relationship between the latent
constructs set in our study. Third, it allows the model to be
measured with greater elasticity and can estimate the goodness of
fit of the entire model. Finally, the properties of constructs in our
study and the way we measured them are also suitable for
modeling and data analysis of reflective SEM.
The tool for data analysis was AMOS 24.0. In addition to the
advantages such as a friendly interface and easy operation, we
selected the tool because of two reasons. First, it meets the
demand of measuring first-order reflective SEM. Prior literature
has used the tool to infer causal relationships and measure
moderating effects (e.g. Kwak and Lee, 2021; Lee et al., 2013).
Second, the medium size sample of our study meets the
requirement of parameter estimation by this tool. In this case,
it can make a more comprehensive estimate than the Smart-pls
tool which is only suitable for small samples.
Model development. SEM is a linear cause-and-effect model that
combines path analysis and factor analysis. Among them, path
analysis expands the model of linear causal relationships. We
constructed an SEM to measure the measurement model and
structural model.
First, to measure the effect of PV on CD proposed by H1, we
constructed the following model.
ηi ¼ αη þ B1 ηi þ Γ1 ξ i þ ζ i ð1Þ
CDi ¼ αCD þ ΛCD ηi þ εi ð2Þ
PVi ¼ αPV þ ΛPV ξ i þ δ i ð3Þ
Second, we developed the model to test the effect of PC on CD
proposed by H2.
ηi ¼ βη þ B2 ηi þ Γ2 ξ i þ ζ i ð4Þ
CDi ¼ βCD þ ΛCD ηi þ εi ð5Þ
PCi ¼ βPC þ ΛPC ξ i þ δ i ð6Þ
In the equations, the subscript of i stands for the ith case, ηi is
the vector of latent endogenous variables, αη and βη are the vector
of intercepts, B1 and B2 are the matrix of coefficients that give the
expected effect of the ηi on ηi where their main diagonal are zero,
ξi is the vector of latent exogenous variables, Γ1 and Γ2 are the
matrix of coefficients that gives the expected effects of ξi on ηi,
and ζi is the vector of equation disturbances that consists of all
other influences of ηi that are not included in the equations.
Finally, we built the following models to measure the
moderating effects of NP and CP on the relationship between
PC and CD.
CDi ¼ i1 þ λ1 PCi þ μ1 NPi þ ν 1 PC*NP þ φi1 ð7Þ
CDi ¼ i2 þ λ2 PCi þ μ2 CPi þ ν 2 PC*CP þ φi2 ð8Þ
In the equations, i1 and i2 are constant terms, λ, μ, and v are
regression coefficients of the corresponding variables, φ is
random error term. PC*NP and PC*CP are complex matrices
with pairwise interaction terms of the items attached to the two
interactive variables respectively.
8 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2023)10:731 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3
Results
The results of Study 1
The definition of formalistic task. We aimed to make the defini-
tion of a formalistic task on the basis of the investigation of
respondents’ feelings and status when suffering the task. Hence,
we developed three items to achieve the purpose, including (a) in
what context do formalistic tasks often occur, (b) why do for-
malistic tasks happen, and (c) what’s about the PV of formalistic
tasks. The answers given by respondents from the perspective of
recipients are shown in Fig. 1.
According to part (a) of Fig. 1, college students were more
frequently involved in formalistic tasks or made a stronger sense
of the formalism of the tasks when they were in administrative
management situations than in spontaneous contexts such as
course activities and culture construction activities. The results of
Fig. 1b indicated that students would perceive strong formalism
of the tasks when task arrangers were pursuing superficial
performance, individual face, and formalization and routiniza-
tion. Figure 1c revealed that the characteristics of formalistic tasks
in terms of PV could be summarized as meaningless, mandatory,
utilitarian, etc.
Based on the above considerations, we therefore defined the
connotation of formalistic task. It is a kind of task that originates
from the managers’ pursuit of superficial performance, individual
face, and procedural formalization and managerial routinization
in administrative and controlling management situations so that
always being subjectively considered as not good by the recipients
due to their perceptions of meaninglessness, compulsion, and
utilitarianism. The definition does not deny the value of
formalistic tasks to leaders and organizations, but the value is
often difficult to be directly perceived by the student recipients.
The motivation for completing formalistic tasks. The willingness of
students to attend and complete formalistic tasks is motivated by
the psychological interaction of individual perception of
responsibility and the perceived expectation placed by environ-
mental factors such as institutions and the influence of others.
Hence, we developed several items to explore the potential
motivating factors. The results are displayed in Fig. 2.
According to the figure, the majority of the respondents agreed
that the factors involving the PP from morality, institution,
superior, and peer could influence individual behaviors when they
performed formalistic tasks. In the context of university
education, whether students are willing to participate in
formalistic tasks is not only driven by the pressure of self-
responsibility and assessment system but also influenced by the
motivation of teachers and classmates. Thus, we confirmed that
PP is an important moderator of the CD of formalistic tasks.
Formalistic tasks therefore may be performed in a herd effect, i.e.
the group decision would be led by some forerunners who choose
to support or not support the tasks.
The relationship between PV and CD of formalistic tasks. The
distribution of the respondents on different levels of PV and CD
is shown in Table 4. The table revealed that more respondents
tended to perceive a low level of the value of formalistic tasks for
individuals (50.85%) than for their organizations (72.20%). The
law is consistent with our existing knowledge. However, com-
pared with the perception of individual value, lesser people
(27.80%) failed to perceive the high organizational value of for-
malistic tasks. It might not indicate the low level of organizational
value, but revealed the difficulty for students as ordinary indivi-
duals to link the promotion of formalistic tasks with the pursuit
of organizational value. The phenomenon is related to students’
cognitive ability, constituting an important cause for formalistic
tasks easily being treated negatively. Furthermore, according to
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100 %

81.4
80 75.3 76.6
68.5
58.6
60
50.2 48.8
45.1
41
40 32.5
28.8 30.2 31.1
21
18.3 18.3
20 15.6 14.2
10.2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(a) (b) (c)

1=Course learning 1=Abuse of power 1=Normative
2=Course practice 2=Pursuit of superficial 2=Delusive
3=Code of conduct performance 3=Meaningless
4=Conference sharing 3=Emphasis of superior face 4=Mandatory
5=Administrative activity 4=Pursuit of formalization 5=Utilitarian
6=Class construction 5=Pursuit of routinization 6=Excluding in assessment
7=Team construction 7=Opportunistic

Fig. 1 The contexts, causes, and perceptions of formalistic tasks from the cognitive perspective of college students. The letter labels in parentheses
correspond to three items, i.e., a in what context do formalist tasks often occur, b why do formalist tasks happen, and c what’s about the PV of formalistic
tasks. The data in the figure represent the proportion of respondents who checked the corresponding options in the total sample.

Motivating factors No
Perception of self-responsibility 39.30%
Pressure of assessment 28.80%
Persuasion from classmates 32.20%
Guidance by teachers 35.30%
Fig. 2 The motivating factors of attending formalistic tasks. The answers
“no” and “yes” indicate the proportion of the respondents who disagree and
agree with the corresponding motivating factor, respectively.
the table, a majority of respondents (62.03% = 22.72% + 39.32%)
tended to express their weak willingness to complete formalistic
tasks. However, regardless of the level of willingness, most people
(73.90%) chose to support and complete the tasks. It could
probably be attributed to the coercive characteristic of such tasks.
The results of Study 2. A two-stage SEM procedure including a
measurement model and structural model was performed by
AMOS to test the hypothetical model of our study. Several
goodness-of-fit indicators such as relative chi-squared (χ2/df), and
AGFI for overall fit, as well as NFI, CFI, and TLI for measurement
model fit, have been developed to avoid poor model evaluation
(Cheung and Rensvold, 2002). The χ2/df should be around or <3.0
(Cheung and Rensvold, 2002). For our study, its value is 3.275,
slightly above 3.0, and within the acceptable range. For the
remaining four indexes, values above 0.90 are evidence of good
model fit (Hair et al., 2015). For our model, three of four values
were above 0.90 (NFI = 0.924, CFI = 0.946, and TLI = 0.936),
whereas AGFI = 0.866 was slightly below 0.90. Nevertheless, we
deemed the results as satisfactory in correspondence with the fit
Yes values. Furthermore, the RMSEA value for our model was 0.065,
which was slightly above the strictly recommended value of 0.05,
60.70% considered a close fit of the model (Byrne, 2013).
We examined the hypothetical model through a path analysis
71.20% by AMOS 24.0. The results shown in Fig. 3 revealed that (a) PV
was significantly and positively associated with the CD of
67.80% formalistic tasks (estimate = 0.847, p < 0.001), supporting H1,
(b) PC was significantly but negatively associated with CD
64.70% (estimate = −0.562, p < 0.001), supporting H2, and (c) PP
including CP (estimate = −0.0003, p < 0.05) and NP (estimate =
−0.0000, p < 0.001) made significant but negative moderating
effects on the relationship between PC and CD although the
effects appeared to be very weak, therefore supporting H3.
Consequently, all the hypotheses proposed in our study have been
passed the test.
In order to further confirm the results of the study, we
constructed an alternative model that highlighted the mediating
role of PC in the relationship between PV and CD in line with the
expectancy-value theory. We estimated the model and found that
although some effects were still significant, its fitting indicators
became worse. For instance, the value of χ2/df (8.808) was much
higher than the recommended value 3.0, thus supporting to rule
out of the alternative configuration.
Conclusions
Findings. Through the study, we mainly got the following five
findings.
First, formalistic tasks are significantly sensitive to contexts. In
formalized and top-down organizational culture, individuals are
more likely to perceive the formalistic characteristics of tasks. The
perception affects their support and completion of the tasks.
Second, the generation of formalistic tasks mostly stems from
leaders’ pursuits of face, formalization, and superficial perfor-
mance that differ from their subordinates in top-down organiza-
tional culture. These pursuits tend to consume the resources of
the subordinates but make them feel meaningless. The

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Table 4 The contingency table for showing the relationship between PV and CD.
PV\CD Low level (26.10%)
Weak willingness
(22.71%)
Individual value Low degree (50.85%) 11.86%
High degree (49.15%) 10.85%
Organizational value Low degree (72.20%) 15.25%
High degree (27.80%) 7.46%
PV was divided into the perceptions of individual value and organizational value. CD was investigated from two dimensions: willingness to complete and level of completion. The high and low of the data
were measured by the scale. Individuals who chose the options of strong disagreement and disagreement were classified as low level, while individuals expressing general agreement, agreement, and
strong agreement were classified as high level. The data in the table represented the proportion of individuals with different willingness and levels of completion in the total sample under different PV
levels.
CP
-0.0003**
0.847*** -0.562***
PV CD PC
***
-0.0000
NP
Fig. 3 The results of SEM. ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.05.
compulsory characteristic of formalistic tasks is thus revealed due
to the psychological conflict.
Third, environmental factors play an important incentive role
in the completion of formalistic tasks. The requirements of the
tasks, the guidance of close leaders, and the advice of co-workers
put pressure on an individual’s decision and behavior for
completing the tasks.
Fourth, in terms of goals and perceptions, the inconsistency
between superiors and subordinates makes the subordinates
deviate from their perception and willingness in the CD of
formalist tasks. In other words, low willingness may be also
accompanied by high task completion.
Finally, empirical evidence shows that formalistic tasks are not
intrinsically different from general business tasks in the logic of
perception. The expectation and evaluation of the value and costs
of formalistic tasks fundamentally determine the degree of
individual support and completion of the tasks. PP does play a
significant role, but its effect is weaker than the influence of PV
and PC.
Discussion. Our study extends the application of COR theory to
the interpretation of formalistic tasks. Existing research on COR
emphasizes the decision-making and behaviors of individuals
under rational perception, which are controlled by the pressure
response of individuals to resource gain or loss in future strategic
actions (Sun and Chen, 2017; Yousaf et al., 2020). However, the
compulsion of formalist tasks may limit the role of individual
rationality and emphasize more on collective rationality. In this
case, whether COR can explain the response mechanism of for-
malistic tasks becomes uncertain. Our study confirmed that
individuals could perceive the context of formalistic tasks and
show their perception and evaluation of the value, costs, and
pressure of formalistic tasks under rational thinking, but indivi-
duals have a strong adjustment ability to balance their willingness
(individual rationality) and the completion degree of responding
to the tasks (collective rationality). The ability was unexpected
10 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2023)10:731 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3
High level (73.90%)
Strong willingness Weak Strong
(3.39%) willingness willingness
(39.32%) (34.58%)
1.02% 19.32% 18.64%
2.37% 20.00% 15.93%
1.69% 30.85% 24.41%
1.69% 8.47% 10.17%
previously. That is, COR is still suitable for predicting individuals’
responses to formalistic tasks.
Our study reinforces and integrates the consciousness-context-
behavior (CCB) framework (Wang, 2015) and the expectancy-
value theory (Perez et al., 2019). The CCB framework establishes
the unity of individual consciousness and behavior in a specific
context. However, our study holds that task context may also
separate individuals’ rational perception from their action
strategy. For example, in the context of formalistic tasks,
individuals may show low PV and low willingness but high
completion of the tasks. It could be explained by the expectancy-
value theory. The theory holds that individuals’ perception of a
task includes both positive value and potential cost (Perez et al.,
2019). We confirmed the significant effect of individuals’ PC of
formalistic tasks on the action. We also found that the effect was
mediated by contextual pressures, which in turn was consistent
with the theoretical expression of the CCB framework. Therefore,
the framework was strengthened by us.
Our results show that students’ behavior of formalistic tasks in
organizations would be moderated by PP, indicating that
individuals’ behaviors are easily influenced by collective culture.
In oriental countries such as China, collective culture is a part of
social morality and has a great normative influence on individuals
(Frederickson, 2002). The culture highlights the importance of
managing the relationship with others and the necessity of
obeying authority. Our result that individuals would be forced by
coercive and normative pressures to complete the tasks unwilling
to do and with low PV has confirmed such a phenomenon. When
an individual makes a decision on the completion of formalistic
tasks, the priority to integrating into a group or expressing
uniqueness is an important choice. The idea is in line with the
view proposed by Barkema et al. (2015) that Chinese pay more
attention to harmony at work. According to COR theory, the
choice would also be an individual’s dominant strategy, since
when he/she adopts the same strategy as the group, his/her risk of
resource loss would be minimized.
Since few studies have paid attention to the governance of
formalistic tasks, existing studies of illegitimate tasks and
bureaucratic tasks could give us some inspiration. However,
these studies focused on the negative effects such as individual’s
negative emotions (e.g., resentment, anger, and negative coping)
(Munir et al., 2017; Ahmed et al., 2018), the weakening of positive
attitudes (dissatisfaction, reduced engagement, and increased
turnover intention) (Eatough et al., 2016; van Schie et al., (2014)),
and the reduction of organizational performance (counter-
productive and passive work, and deviant behavior) (Schulte-
Braucks et al., 2019)). Nevertheless, a study is also worthy of
attention. Liu et al. (2019) proposed that instead of focusing on
the negative effects of illegitimate tasks, we need to pay more
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3
attention to how individuals deal with them. Liu et al. (2019)
suggested individuals adopt the positive coping strategy of task
crafting to alleviate the negative effects. The strategy emphasizes
that individuals properly adjust their perceptions and work
performance, making individual goal approach towards a
collective goal, so as to obtain more sense of work meaning and
identity. The view is basically consistent with the value
proposition of our study.
Regarding the governance strategy of formalistic tasks, we want
to introduce the suggestion proposed by Kishita and Shimada
(2011). As their proposal, the task performance could be
enhanced through increases in job control on the basis of work
redesign and in psychological acceptance on the basis of the
improvement of individual perception (Kishita and Shimada,
2011). Our study reached a similar conclusion to the study of
Kishita and Shimada (2011), that subjective stress or perceived
pressure was expected to play an important moderating role, but
empirical results suggested that the role was actually very weak
relative to the main effect. We therefore concluded that an
individual’s perception of task value and costs is the internal
motivator of the completion of formalistic tasks while the
perception of environmental pressure constitutes an external
motivator, and the internal motivator plays a decisive role in the
mechanism while the external one makes a weak moderating
effect.
It is possible that our conclusions can be extended to other
social contexts though the sample of the study is limited to college
students because of the following reasons. First, as far as possible,
we set up a context-free analytical framework to construct the
theory. In our model, the constructs such as PV, PC, and PP, are
not context-dependent. Second, according to the authors’
observation of Chinese cases, although formalistic tasks have
different forms and characteristics in colleges, enterprises and
government organizations, there is no fundamental difference in
their occurrence mechanism as well as subordinates’ perception
and support mechanisms. Finally, college students who are
mentally sound adults can make the right appraisals and show
their affection about opportunities and risks in task contexts, so
their psychological cognitive mechanism, behavioral decisions,
and task performance should not be very different from that of
firm employees or government officials (Chen and Qu, 2021).
Hence, our findings should extend to other social contexts, such
as civil servants being forced to do superficial face-saving work,
firm employees being required to attend unexpected and
irrelevant meetings, and children being impelled by their parents
to learn without effective supervision. The authors are actually
launching a survey in Chinese firms to further examine the
perception mechanism of formalistic tasks in the context of
employees’ routine work.
Implications. The contribution of our study to literature is
threefold. First, we initiated an exploratory analysis of the
formalistic task and made a clear definition of its connotation
and characteristics, which would arouse more scholars to pay
attention to it. Second, the study introduced COR theory into
the analysis of formalistic tasks, guiding to explore the strate-
gies for governing them from the perspective of receptor’s
perception. Finally, the study established a perception-
pressure-behavior theoretical framework for formalist tasks,
which leads to develop the bottom-up governance logic for
formalistic tasks.
The study inspired us to better assign, perceive and complete
formalistic tasks from five aspects. First, when arranging tasks,
we suggested improving the context of the tasks and integrating
them with general business tasks as much as possible, so as to
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2023)10:731 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3
ARTICLE
reduce individuals’ perceived risk of resource loss and in turn
their resistance to the tasks. Second, leaders who assign tasks
need to strengthen communication with their subordinates, so
that the latter can understand the purpose and expected effect of
the assigned tasks, so as to achieve consistency in cognition and
goals between superiors and subordinates. Third, organizations
should attach importance to the construction of soft environ-
ment and give full play to the positive influence of contextual
pressure on individual participation and completion of for-
malistic tasks. Fourth, organizations need to be able to tolerate
the bias of ordinary employees’ perception of the value of
formalistic tasks culturally. Tolerance is conducive to the
harmony of the organizations when the negative effect of
formalistic tasks cannot be fundamentally eliminated. Finally,
when assigning tasks, leaders need to have an accurate prediction
of subordinates’ perceived value and perceived cost of the tasks
and then strike a balance between the two in an appropriate
form, so as to reconcile the targeted performance of individuals
and organizations.
Limitations and future research. Our study has several limita-
tions that should be noted. First, though the sample size and type
of the study have addressed the requirement of SEM analysis for
parameter estimation, it is still insufficient according to China’s
large population. Second, the data of independent and dependent
variables rated by the same respondents in a time may cause
CMB. Third, our study limited the sample to college students,
which reduced the generalization of the findings. Fourth, cross-
sectional data used in our study can only reflect the correlations
between the considered variables but cannot infer the causal
relationships. Fifth, the self-developed scale in the study needs
more tests and improvements in the future. Sixth, in Study 2, our
classification of high and low formalistic tasks may bring certain
biases to the research results and conclusions. Subsequent
researchers and managers should carefully use our research
results according to the actual situations. Finally, the study only
completes a preliminary exploration of individuals’ perceptions
and behaviors of formalistic tasks. In the future, we plan to
expand and deepen the research by establishing an improved
framework through introducing mediating variables (e.g., self-
efficacy) and moderating variables (e.g., task difficulty), improv-
ing the measurements, and expanding samples.
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in
this published article and its supplementary information files. The
supplementary files include the questionnaires of Study 1 and
Study 2 as well as the collected data in an excel file.
Received: 12 December 2022; Accepted: 17 October 2023;
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants
No. 71962021) and the Postgraduate Innovation Program of Jiangxi Province (Grants
No. YC2022-B036).
Author contributions
WW: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, and writing—original draft. DY:
validation, methodology, funding acquisition, supervision, writing—review & editing. All
authors substantially contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical approval
The questionnaire and methodology for this study were approved by the Human
Research Ethics Committee of Nanchang University, China (No. Mar. 01 2021-001).
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all the participants.
Additional information
Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material
available at https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02251-3.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Dengke Yu.
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