Liang Ma

The Diffusion of Government Microblogging

Abstract Governments across many countries are adopting new social media (e.g. twitter), and police departments are engaging in the bandwagon too. We empirically examine the spread of police microblogging in Chinese municipal police departments from the perspective of organizational innovation diffusion. The results show that government size, internet penetration rate, regional diffusion effects and upper-tier pressure are positively and significantly associated with the adoption and earliness of police microblogging, whereas fiscal revenue, economic development and openness, E-government and public safety have no significant effects. We also find that police microblogging diffusion is contingent on different variables at different phases.

Diffusion and Assimilation of Government Microblogging: Evidence from Chinese cities

Abstract Internationally, the public sector is adopting social media applications (e.g. Twitter and social networking services (SNS)) to harness cutting-edge information technology (IT) developments, but we know little about what drives the diffusion of these applications. In this paper, I adapt the Berry–Berry policy and innovation diffusion model to explain the diffusion and assimilation of government microblogging, supplementing its four dimensions (learning, competition, upper-tier mandate and public pressure) with organizational resources and capacity. Data on 282 prefecture-level cities in China are employed to test several theoretical hypotheses empirically. Horizontal competition is found to be significantly and positively associated with the assimilation of government microblogging, although the other three dimensions are found not to be its key antecedents. Consistent with the studys hypotheses, the results support the significantly positive effects of fiscal resources and IT capacity. Municipal wealth, size and administrative ranking are also positively and significantly correlated with the number of government microblogs.

Does Super-department Reform Improve Public Service Performance In China?

Abstract Echoing the global public management reform movement, China’s authorities advocated ‘super-department’ reform (SDR) to curb interdepartmental conflict and administrative inefficiency. However, the related performance consequences have not been empirically investigated. We test the reform’s effects on citizen satisfaction with public services through a natural experiment involving twenty-five counties in Guangdong province (2009–2012) and the difference-in-differences method. The results show that the reform has improved public service performance, but its effects are marginal and unsustainable. We discuss the theoretical contributions and policy implications of the findings and identify future research avenues.

External Government Performance Evaluation in China: Evaluating the Evaluations

ABSTRACT Since the early 2000s, external government performance evaluation (EGPE) activities have been burgeoning in China as an important venue to enhance government’s external accountability, but there have been few studies of this important phenomenon. We bridge the gap by examining the emergence and development of EGPE in China and evaluating its performance. We find that EGPE in China is generally of satisfactory quality but has some serious problems. It needs to improve its independence, validity, and reliability. One way to enhance its quality, credibility, and functionality would be by releasing raw data to the public for verification and duplication. Although EGPE is a necessary and promising tool to promote external government accountability, systematic political and administrative reforms will be required to ensure an effective performance management system that does not only serve hierarchical control and internal accountability but also external and democratic accountability.

Public Employees’ Perceived Promotion Channels in Local China: Merit-based or Guanxi-orientated?

Do performance or personal ties (guanxi) matter more in the promotion of local public employees in China? In this paper, we examine public employees’ perceptions of the roles played by merit and guanxi in promotion. We adopt a configurational approach to classify public employees’ perceptions of the reasons for their promotion into four groups: merit-based, guanxi-orientated, ambidextrous (both), and fatalistic (neither). A recent survey of 886 public employees shows that around 40% see promotion as merit-based and 20% as guanxi-orientated, with 10% perceiving promotion to be ambidextrous and 30% fatalistic. Younger employees with higher rank are more likely to perceive promotion to be merit-based, whilst highly educated and highly ranked employees with strong public service motivation are more prone to see promotion as ambidextrous. Those who perceive promotion to be ambidextrous are more satisfied with promotion fairness, suggesting that a subtle balance needs to be maintained between merit-based and guanxi-orientated promotion channels, rather than rejection of any guanxi element.

Political ideology, social capital, and government innovativeness: evidence from the US states

ABSTRACT We use the number of finalists and winners recognized by the Innovations in American Government Awards (IAGA) programme to measure state government innovativeness from 1986 to 2013. The measure is moderately related to two existing state policy innovativeness indexes. The fifty states vary remarkably and persistently in government innovativeness, which is more driven by internal antecedents than external ones. We find that between-state effects outperform within-state effects in explaining government innovativeness. We also reveal that government ideology, citizen ideology, and social capital are positively related to government innovativeness. The index developed in this study can be used in pertinent studies, and the findings contribute to the literature on public sector innovation.

National e-government performance and citizen satisfaction: a multilevel analysis across European countries:

Are citizens more satisfied with e-government ranked higher in league tables? In this article, we empirically examine the relationship between objective e-government performance on the supply side and the perceptions of citizens on the demand side. A multilevel analysis of over 28,000 respondents across 32 European countries reveals that highly ranked e-government is warmly welcomed by citizens, suggesting that the supply and demand sides of e-government are, in part, consistent. Specifically, the e-government performance–satisfaction correlations in e-service and e-participation are more prominent than that of e-information. The results also show that citizens’ perceived e-government benefits are mainly from using online services. While e-government rankings are reasonably predictive of citizen satisfaction, they should be referred to with caveats in e-government policies. Points for practitioners The empirical findings reveal that objective e-government performance is partially congruent with citizens’ satisfaction and perceived benefits. While e-government rankings may not be good predictors of citizen use, they do coincide, in part, with citizen satisfaction. Ubiquitous e-government benchmarks can be referred to as reliable gauges of citizen satisfaction, though their susceptibility varies across the purposes of e-government use. The various benefits that citizens perceived from e-government are primarily derived through online services instead of electronic information or participation, and the government should pay more attention to e-service development in order to bring more benefits to its users.

External government performance evaluation in China: a case study of the ‘Lien service-oriented government project’

External government evaluation projects are playing an increasingly important role in holding government in China accountable to the public. This paper looks at a large-scale project funded by a philanthropic institution. The ‘Lien service-oriented government project’ has been monitoring government performance in mainland China since 2010. The case study highlights the challenges faced by performance evaluation projects in China, as well as their potential.

Mapping the evolution of the central government apparatus in China

The structure of political and administrative institutions is important for achieving public goals. It is not fixed, however, but may change as a result of environmental and cultural processes or because of changes in leadership. Structural changes in the central government apparatus feature prominently in the recent strand of reform and change literature, but we know little about structural changes in contexts other than Western democracies. In this article, we analyze the main types of and possible reasons for structural changes in the central government apparatus in China over the past 70 years. We find interesting patterns of structural change in line with administrative developments. Using the multiple perspectives of organization theory, these can be primarily explained by political cycles or action taken by the central leadership, but they have also been influenced by cultural elements, economic growth, and societal transformation. Points for practitioners We document the key patterns of organizational restructuring in China’s central government from 1949 to 2016. Political cycles and economic reform and development are found to be the key drivers of structural evolution. The results show that the political will of top leaders plays a crucial role in navigating structural reforms, yet institutional reforms are still largely confined to rhetoric and symbolism without substantively transforming the landscape of government architecture. Sustained structural reforms are difficult to achieve successfully, which suggests that alternative avenues may be required to streamline administrative processes and improve interagency coordination.

Households’ Noncompliance With Resettlement Compensation In Urban China: Toward An Integrated Approach

ABSTRACT: Political scientists and economists argue that citizens decide whether or not to comply by weighing the benefits of compliance against possible costs from an instrumental perspective, while legal scholars focus on the procedures by which policy outcomes are generated from a procedural perspective, and sociologists emphasize people’s motives to reciprocate with other community members from a collective perspective. However, we still don’t know how these three perspectives can predict citizens’ noncompliance. Concentrating on the experience from mainland China, this work aims to develop a general noncompliance theory by integrating these approaches to explore why households are noncompliant with policies for resettlement compensation provided by local authorities in city regeneration projects. Based on a survey from a minority community in Xi’an and follow-up interviews, households with larger-sized houses, lower trust in local authority, and higher reliance on other community members are found to be more noncompliant with the compensation, which suggests that these three perspectives work together to predict citizens’ noncompliance. Implications for public accountability research in China are also discussed.