Performance feedback, blame avoidance, and data manipulation in the public sector: evidence from China’s official city air quality ranking

Drawing upon the blame avoidance perspective, this study develops a holistic and extensible theory on how different performance feedback affects public organizations' data manipulation behaviours. The theory predicts that negative (positive) performance feedback increases (decreases) public organizations' tendency to engage in data manipulation. Moreover, organizational resources negatively moderate the relationship between negative performance feedback and data manipulation. Taking China's official city air quality ranking as the empirical case, our empirical analyses with the panel data approach and the regression discontinuity design find strong evidence supporting these predictions.