PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND CITIZEN SATISFACTION WITH THE GOVERNMENT: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE MUNICIPALITIES
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12275 |
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Author | LIANG MA |
doi: 10.1111/padm.12275
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND CITIZEN
SATISFACTION WITH THE GOVERNMENT: EVIDENCE
FROM CHINESE MUNICIPALITIES
LIANG MA
Despite the fact that performance management has been ubiquitously adopted in the public sector
across the world today, there is limited and inconclusive evidence that it improves citizen satisfac-
tion with the government. In this article, we use survey data and multilevel modelling to analyse the
effects of multiple performance management components on citizens’ perceptions of government
performance across 19 major cities in China. The results reveal that performance management does
have a positive impact on citizen satisfaction. In addition, citizen participation, performance feed-
back and accountability,and information openness are positively associated with citizen satisfaction
along various performance dimensions in different magnitudes. While we should take account of
and mitigate its unintended consequences, our results suggest that it is still promising for public
organizations to implement performance management.
INTRODUCTION
As one of the key components of the New Public Management (NPM) movement, perfor-
mance management (PM) has been ubiquitously adopted in the public sector across the
world. ‘Structured by three interrelated steps: measurement,i ncorporation, and use’, ‘per-
formance management is a type of management that incorporates and uses performance
information for decision-making’ (VanDooren et al. 2010, pp. 6, 16–17). Performance man-
agement is shown to reorient public managers from focusing on administrative procedures
and processes to managing for results (Hood 2012), but its impact on the performance of
public service has seldom been empirically examined (Yang and Hsieh 2007). The existing
literature on PM predominantly focuses on its adoption and design, while research on its
performance implications is scarce (Gao 2015). ‘Apart from some documented best prac-
tice, there is little evidence on whether performance management actually contributes to
performance’ (Van Dooren et al. 2010, p. 178).
One of the key goals of PM is to improve citizen satisfaction with the government, par-
ticularly public service performance, efciency, effectiveness, and responsiveness, among
other performance dimensions. In this connection, several recent empirical studies have
examined the performance impacts of PM, using various types of measures and data from
multiple countries and industries (Wang 2002; Yang and Hsieh 2007; Ariely 2011; Grosso
and Van Ryzin 2012; Andrews and Van de Walle 2013; Koning and Heinrich 2013; Pois-
ter et al. 2013; Hvidman and Andersen 2014; Sun and Van Ryzin 2014; Gerrish 2016; Kroll
2016). While these studies contribute to the understanding of the relationship between
PM and citizen satisfaction, they are inconclusive and limited in several aspects, which
are partially addressed in this article. Drawing on multiple sources of survey data across
19 major cities in China, we use multilevel modelling to analyse the effects of multiple
PM components on citizen satisfaction with the government. The results partially support
the argument that PM does matter for citizen satisfaction with the government, but the
Liang Ma is at the School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, China and the Nanyang
Centre for Public Administration, Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity, Singapore.
Public Administration Vol.95, No. 1, 2017 (39–59)
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
40 LIANG MA
impacts of its components (e.g. citizen participation, performance feedback and account-
ability, and performance reporting) vary across different performance dimensions. To the
best of our knowledge, this is one of the rst studies to quantitatively investigate the per-
formance effect of government PM in China, a large developing country governed by a
strong authoritarian regime (Su et al. 2013). The ndings reported in this article contribute
to the literature on PM, citizen participation, and public service improvement.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. Werst distil the key characteristics
of PM practices in local government in China. We then review the literature on PM, and
propose the hypotheses to be tested in this study. Next, we introduce the context of the
empirical analysis and research design, followed by a presentation of the primary results
of the analysis. We nally discuss the theoretical contributions and policy implications of
the ndings, and suggest a few directions for future research.
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been ruled by a single party, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), since its independence in 1949. As a unitary polity, the govern-
ment consists of ve administrative tiers (State Council at the central level; provinces,
municipalities and autonomous regions; prefectures and prefecture-level cities; counties,
county-level cities and districts; and towns, townships and subdistricts), with the latter
four levels being considered local governments. Party committee organs and government
agencies are usually juxtaposed on each level, and Party secretaries and governors share
formal power, with the former being more prominent. Local government is responsible
for the delivery of various public services including public education, healthcare, social
security, environmental protection, public security and so forth. Democratic elections
are generally symbolic, and local cadres are primarily appointed by their upper-level
Party commanders. In other words, local cadres are held accountable to the central
and upper-level authorities, while their responsiveness to local citizens is rather loose
(Rothstein 2014).
Performance management in the Chinese public sector is characterized by the rigid
top-down target responsibility system (TRS), which is the core mechanism to motivate
and control local governments (Yu and Ma 2016). In theTRS, performance targets are del-
egated annually from the upper tier to lower-level authorities alongside the hierarchy (Gao
2010). Performance targets are often statistical indicators related to economic growth,envi-
ronmental protection, and social development. GDP growth rate, for instance, is among
the most prioritized performance targets highly bonded with cadre promotion probabil-
ity (Li and Zhou 2005). TRS ensures that various central mandates and policies could be
effectively implemented by local agents (Jing et al. 2015), and local governments are keen
to achieve these non-mission-based performance targets in investment attraction, revenue
collection, industrial restructuring, family planning, work safety, and social stability (Gao
2010).
The past two decades have witnessed the dramatic transformation of government PM
in China. Many local governments have adopted citizen surveys and citizen delibera-
tion to reshape the top-down TRS that exclusively targets performance measurement and
cadre management (Walker and Wu 2010; Gao 2012; So 2014). The involvement of citi-
zens in PM is conrmed by experts as one of the key future prospects of PM in China
(Walker and Wu 2010). Previously, local ofcials were keen to please their superiors who
control their odds of getting rewards and promotion (Heberer and Trappel 2013). The
Public Administration Vol.95, No. 1, 2017 (39–59)
© 2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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