Mitigating Pernicious Gaming in Performance Management in China: Dilemmas, Strategies and Challenges

Abstract

Studies on gaming have made fruitful progress in diagnosing the problem and offering prescriptions for its mitigation. However, little is known about the actual reform efforts to curb gaming and the effectiveness of these strategies. This study contributes to the existing literature by examining the challenges of and strategies for mitigating distortion of performance data in Chinese local government in the past decade or so. It argues that curbing pernicious gaming such as information distortion is an uphill battle because it comes with a heavy political cost. In China, tackling the root cause of information distortion would jeopardize the key function of performance measurement, which is to ensure local compliance with the policy goals set by the authorities at the upper levels. Therefore, information distortion is selectively tackled and also selectively tolerated. This is achieved by concentrating on reducing distortion of key performance data that is vital for policymaking through strategies such as strengthening the state’s ability to collect raw data directly and building up accountability in the statistical system. This study shows that those engaged in fighting gaming must make a tradeoff between reaping the benefits of performance management and reducing its associated risks.