From transparency to confidence: The mediating roles of responsiveness and job control among Vietnamese customs officers

Abstract

Focusing on Vietnam Customs, this study explores how disaggregated administrative transparency impacts the job confidence of frontline officials. The reality that many businesses still contact local customs directly, despite official digital platform, suggests that transparency means more than just publishing information online. This research deals with a significant gap by shifting the focus from systemwide transparency to its micro-level effects on individual workers. Methodologically, this paper is based on an exploratory sequential mixedmethods approach. The subsequent survey of 120 frontline officers was informed by initial qualitative interviews with three senior customs experts and analyzed via PLSSEM. Empirical findings indicate that IT strategy leads to transparency, which in turn engenders an autonomous and flexible work environment (AWF) – a post-hoc construct that captures both responsiveness and job control. AWF fully mediates the relationship between transparency and job confidence; the direct relationship is not statistically significant. Moderation checks demonstrated that supervisor and organizational support are not involved in this. Specifically, senior officials with more than a decade of service are far more adept than their junior colleagues at using transparency. In conclusion, this paper provides a new micro view on administrative transparency. It conceptualizes autonomy as a key mediator and argues against the assumption that younger “digital natives” are better prepared for digital shifts. For policy, the study calls for transparency reforms that proactively empower frontline officers, and training programs that value real-world experience