Chinese Public Administration Review

Government performance evaluation has a long history. However, major differences of opinion regarding its role still exist both in Western and Chinese academia, from theoretical, and practical perspectives. In this article, we conduct an empirical measurement of the role played by government performance evaluation and construct a regression model to explore the major factors influencing public officials’ perception, relying on survey data from a district government of county level in Guangdong Province. The study reveals that the average value of 14 items measuring government performance evaluation was 3.36 points (out of a possible 5 points). The role of the government in setting annual objectives, tasks, and priorities, as well as strategic planning, and target setting, and strengthening departmental accountability, had the most significant effect on the perception of efficacy of performance evaluation, whereas departmental budget setting, resource allocation, and reduction of operating costs had the least effect. Furthermore, performance communication and feedback, as well as the validity of the performance indicator system, also significantly influence the perception of the role played by government performance evaluation. The article concludes with a discussion of the differences between government performance evaluation in the West and in China.

This study investigates the impact of public service motivation (PSM) on job satisfaction and organizational commitment while controlling for four types of organizational processes and individual attributes. Furthermore, it tests whether PSM is unique to public organizations by comparing public and private organizations. We use individual-level microdata from the “Survey on the Comparison of Public and Private Organizations in Korea” to address these issues. The sample for this survey, conducted by the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA) in 2014, included 2,047 participants, consisting of 1,000 civil servants and 1,047 private sector employees. First, we find that PSM positively impacts job-related work outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment in both public and private organizations. Second, we show that public sector employees have significantly higher levels of PSM than their private sector counterparts. These results indicate the importance of PSM in public administration and have a policy implication that public organizations need to design effective methods to improve the PSM levels of their employees. Third, both PSM and organizational processes jointly influence job satisfaction and organizational commitment; however, their effects differ between the public and private sectors. In conclusion, our research confirms that PSM is a crucial determinant of public organization characteristics in the East Asian context, highlighting its significance for public administration.

Expert involvement has received increasing academic attention, and expert typology, organizational types and knowledge utilization have been well documented and well theorized. However, the literature on expert involvement is remarkably silent on how to understand the internal structure of expert groups and the influence they bring to bear. In this study, we seek to bridge this gap by theorizing and empirically demonstrating the internal discrepancy in expert network. We do so through an in-depth qualitative analysis of data from an empirical study on urban planning decision-making in China. Building on existing literature, participant observation and interview data, the study elaborates an expert network model that analyses how government choices, organizational characteristics, and capital in network resources shape expert influence. The empirical analysis indicates that the role an expert receives in policy making is a consequence of different expert networks. Based on this, we developed the concept of “resources empowerment expert network” to understand the logic of resource flow in network and discuss how this concept can contribute to the broader literature on expert involvement.

This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of highly cited public administration articles in the Social Science Citation Index published from 1900 to 2022. Results show that classic works were revealed to frequently occur in the 1970s, and most of articles are on collaborative governance research. The output of countries, institutions, authors, and journals in the field of public administration also was revealed. In addition, the study discovers the life cycle of highly cited articles, including three types: “delayed growth,” “steady growth,” and “rapid growth.” This study describes the citation behavior characteristics of academic entities in the discipline of public administration and the common rules of highly cited papers, which provides insights for the future development direction of the discipline of public administration research.

The paper examines whether Performance Management System (PMS) implementation in an Indonesian local government has reduced fragmentation in its administration. A qualitative case study is used, with data collected through in-depth interviews with the key actors, and also focus group discussions. The case site is a city that is implementing PMS while, at the same time, changing its mission from business-oriented growth to be focussed on outcome measures of village empowerment. The findings show that a PMS system was not fully implemented in the organisation. Despite this imperfect implementation, shared goals concerning developmental outcomes have overcome the issue of mission fragmentation, as they focus managers’ attention on organisational and national objectives. This has also led to better cooperation between units and departments/agencies within the city and with the village community. This study offers insights pertaining to PMS implementation and its influence on public administration fragmentation in a unique context.