Alleviating or aggravating? How patronage ties moderate the impacts of performance feedback on data manipulation in public performance management

Original

Alleviating or aggravating? How patronage ties moderate the impacts of performance feedback on data manipulation in public performance management

Shaowei Chen

Abstract

This research investigates how performance feedback affects public organizations’ data manipulation behaviours and, more importantly, how patronage ties moderate the impacts. We theorize that negative performance feedback (NPF) increases data manipulation, while positive performance feedback (PPF) reduces it. More crucially, the moderating roles of patronage ties are contingent on the type of performance feedback: they attenuate the impact of NPF on intensifying public organizations’ inclination to resort to data manipulation, while diminishing the impact of PPF on dampening the inclination. Empirical analyses using the case of China’s official city air quality ranking provide robust evidence supporting these theoretical predictions.