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Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Performance‐oriented management has been proposed as a remedy to policy implementation failure, which is a persuasive woe globally. Recent scholarship on policy implementation through performance measurement and management focuses on client‐oriented services, with less attention paid to the inadequacy of performance indicators in covering all desirable policy goals and in incentivizing all government officials in a non‐client‐oriented service arena, for instance, environmental governance. Based on station‐level water quality data before and after the implementation of China's Huai River Basin Water Quality Accountability Program, we utilize a difference‐in‐differences (DiD) method to investigate how various water quality indicators in the Huai River Basin (HRB) have responded to the new personnel‐based performance measurement system which aimed to enhance environmental policy implementation at the local level. We show that the program succeeded in motivating government officials to meet targeted indicators, but it also led to the worsening of non‐targeted ones. We also find that the impact of this personnel‐based program was sensitive to personal and contextual factors: it affected younger local officials more strongly than those who were older and saw a more limited prospect for promotion. These findings provide evidence for the effectiveness of the personnel‐based measurement system, which may be considered by other countries, particularly those with authoritarian regimes and significant policy implementation failures. At the same time, complementary measures such as institutional arrangements that discover and report omitted important performance aspects, should be considered to safeguard the possible pitfalls of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies in collaborative governance examine system-level or agency-level drivers of the horizontal dimension of collaboration, that is, the specific forms of collaboration among an existing set of actors. Few have examined the vertical dimension, that is, what actors are involved and the scope of collaboration. This study examines the latter issue by studying the implementation of the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), passed in 2014, mandating collaboration among local agencies. We theorize that when their core mission and key constituencies' interests are at stake under a mandate, agencies focus on protecting organizational autonomy and bureaucratic turf in determining the scope of the collaborative arrangement, rendering other usual collaboration drivers less relevant. With data derived from administrative records and a statewide survey of local groundwater managers, we test this argument using several analytical methods, including probit regression, two-step estimation of an ordered probit selection model, and a linear probability model. The analyses consistently show that agencies are more likely to commit to regionally integrated collaboration that matches the scale of a groundwater basin if (1) their mission addresses a broader issue focus (lower issue specificity), (2) their core stakeholder groups have less concentrated interests, and (3) the organizational culture is less rigid and risk averse. In contrast, other well-known horizontal collaboration drivers do not matter. By unpacking the agency-specific sources of turf and reputation protection, this study contributes to an understanding of collaboration risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical issue in public accountability is how to reduce chances for dysfunctionalities. This research addresses it by examining both theoretically and empirically how quality reporting may reduce accountability deficit and overload in a multi-principal setting. Analyses of data from the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) during the Bush Administration show that programs exhibiting higher reporting quality attained higher performance ratings, which, in turn, led to larger budgetary recommendations. Higher reporting quality also helped reduce the differences between presidential and congressional budgetary decisions. This article contributes to developing a contingent, process-based theory of public accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Public Administration is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As a result of multiple waves of administrative reforms in the past three decades, China's civil service has become more professionalized. Yet public employees appear to have become increasingly dissatisfied in recent years. Based on questionnaire surveys and interviews with environmental enforcement officials in a southern city, this paper traces changes in the job satisfaction levels of these officials between 2000 and 2014. It shows that satisfaction with the extrinsic rewards received and overall job satisfaction declined during this period. These downward trends partly reflected the increasingly challenging institutional environments faced by the officials: rising political and societal demands, inadequate fiscal and personnel resources, and limited enforcement authority. In addition, as the officials became more highly educated and professionalized, mission match became a stronger antecedent of job satisfaction. These findings suggest the importance of meeting the motivational needs of a more professionalized workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how various aspects of institutional context, including the regulatory environment, government affiliation, and government work experience, shape environmental nongovernmental organizations’ (eNGOs) managerial networking in China. Data from a nationwide survey of 267 eNGOs and in-depth interviews in 2014-2015 are analyzed. The findings show that China’s restrictive political environment suppresses eNGOs’ peer and business networking but is not associated with government networking. Compared with government-organized NGOs (GONGOs), civic eNGOs network more with peers, businesses, and government agencies. Furthermore, eNGOs with leaders having government work experience conduct more government networking. Theoretically, these findings point to the importance of the political and institutional context of managerial networking. Empirically, this study provides the first set of quantitative data analysis demonstrating how institutional factors affect NGO managerial networking under authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lack of clear political commitment together with confusing rules and enforcement often characterize the institutional context of policy implementation and regulatory compliance in developing countries. By connecting such contextual features to existing models of policy implementation and regulatory compliance, we examine how regulatory factors are related to basic and proactive corporate environmental management practices in the Pearl River Delta region in China. Drawing on data derived from both a survey and in‐depth interviews, we show that a perception of clear political commitment to environmental protection across multiple government levels and units is positively associated with business efforts in basic environmental practices, regardless of the specific enforcement intensity. Nevertheless, a perception of clear political commitment is not related to proactive environmental practices. Conversely, a perception of policy ambiguity, in the form of confusing regulatory standards and enforcement, is negatively associated with corporate efforts in both basic and proactive environmental practices; yet, intensive inspections mitigate these negative associations with policy ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]