Public Employees’ Perceived Promotion Channels in Local China: Merit-based or Guanxi-orientated?
Do performance or personal ties (guanxi) matter more in the promotion of local public employees in China? In this paper, we examine public employees’ perceptions of the roles played by merit and guanxi in promotion. We adopt a configurational approach to classify public employees’ perceptions of the reasons for their promotion into four groups: merit-based, guanxi-orientated, ambidextrous (both), and fatalistic (neither). A recent survey of 886 public employees shows that around 40% see promotion as merit-based and 20% as guanxi-orientated, with 10% perceiving promotion to be ambidextrous and 30% fatalistic. Younger employees with higher rank are more likely to perceive promotion to be merit-based, whilst highly educated and highly ranked employees with strong public service motivation are more prone to see promotion as ambidextrous. Those who perceive promotion to be ambidextrous are more satisfied with promotion fairness, suggesting that a subtle balance needs to be maintained between merit-based and guanxi-orientated promotion channels, rather than rejection of any guanxi element.