Leadership Mobility and Target Adaptation: Does Previous Target Achievement Matter?

AbstractTarget setting (or goal setting) is a process of incremental adaptation. Prior studies have mainly focus on organization-level adaptation of performance target setting. Based on the geographical leadership mobility within the Chinese political personnel system, this study explores leader-level adaptation of their organizations’ performance target setting. Using a Chinese province-level panel data-set from 1999 to 2019, we empirically confirm that performance targets in one administrative jurisdiction where the current incumbent provincial governor previously served positively influence performance targets in their current provincial leadership position. Furthermore, if the performance targets in the provincial governor’s previous working locality were achieved successfully, the provincial governor will be more motivated to learn from past target-setting experiences. Finally, provincial governors show significantly different policy learning motivation in economic growth target setting before and after the reform of China’s cadre evaluation system in 2013. These findings show that local executives display conditional learning in their individual-level targets aspiration adaptation process.Keywords: Target settinggeographical leadership mobilityconditional learning modeleconomic growth target Notes1 These functions are also supported by the Chinese Communist Party’s documents, such as Dangzheng Lingdao Ganbu Xuanba Renyong Gongzuo Tiaoli (Regulations on the Selection and Appointment of Party and Government Cadres), Dangzheng Lingdao Ganbu Jiaoliu Gongzuo Guiding (Regulations on the Exchange of Party and Government Cadres).2 We conducted a text analysis of the “major events” section of each province’s yearbook, which records important political and economic events that occurred in each province. We found that there were increased exchanges between them if there was leadership mobility between two regions. For example, Ji Yunshi, the governor of Hebei province, was transferred from Jiangsu province in December 2002. There were three exchanges between the two regions in 2003, and one important event was that Hebei province’s leader visited Jiangsu Province to investigate urbanization reforms. Yu Youjun, the governor of Shanxi province, was transferred from Hunan province in July 2005. A total of two exchanges were recorded in 2006, and the Shanxi province’s leaders visited Hunan province to investigate the reform of government administrative efficiency and business environment. Wang Xiankui, the governor of Heilongjiang province, was transferred from Hunan province in August 2010, and three exchanges between the two regions were recorded which also concentrated on economic development and government organizational reform. Wang Xuejun, the governor of Anhui province, was transferred from the State Council in March 2013, and there was also an increased exchanges between Anhui province and the Central Government and its functional ministries.3 The “scientific outlook on development” and “ecological civilization construction” were written into the party constitution of CPC at the 18th National Congress of the CPC.4 The establishment of the new system is marked by the CPC’s documents in 2013, including Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform, and Notice on Improving the Performance Appraisal of Local Party and Government Leadership Teams and Leading Cadres.5 We have followed one reviewer’s comment to replicate our analysis for party secretaries and found that the baseline results don’t support hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2. This may imply that there still exists significant difference between roles of provincial governors and party secretaries in target-setting.6 We further follow one insightful reviewer’s suggestion to estimate the actual economic growth rate using the satellite observed nighttime lights data. Then, we use it and the performance target data to calculate an alternative measurement of policy success. When we use the new variable of policy success to do estimation, our main findings are still robust.Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [no. 22ZDA052].Notes on contributorsPan ZhangPan Zhang is an Associate Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University—Xuhui Campus, China.Dingjie LiuDingjie Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University—Xuhui Campus, China.Shoujun LyuShoujun Lyu is a Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University—Xuhui Campus, China.