INNOVATION OR IMITATION--A COMPARISON OF PERFORMANCE EVALUATION MODELS IN CHINA.

• Author: Shang, Huping

1. Introduction

   Since the rise of the New Public Management (NPM), the importance of government innovation has been recognized for it can drive the performance of public sector and increase their excellence (Potts, 2009; Golden, 1990; Borins, 2000; Borins, 2014; Hartley, 2005; Walker, 2006; Hood, 1991; Osborne and Gaebler, 1993). Numerous policymakers and scholars around the world try to promote government and/or policy innovations, and China is no exception. Nowadays in China, the public sector, from central to local, all regard innovation as a critical approach to realize better governance and higher management efficiency (Yang, 2007; Chan and Chow, 2007; Wu et al., 2013; Lan and Galaskiewicz, 2012; Su et al., 2013; Liu and Li, 2013).

   However, innovation in China contains deeper implications. Usually scholars define innovation in a more lenient way as 'an idea, practice, or project that may not have been invented by the polity adopting it but that is new to that polity' (Berry and Berry, 1999; Gray, 1973; Walker, 1969), while innovation in the Chinese context has been much more narrowly-defined. Innovation means something which is new not only to the adopter but to others as well, at least to other jurisdictions in China. Policy innovation in China then is equivalent to what scholars defined as 'policy invention', which is original, unique, creative, non-traditional, and departing from the existing practice (Berry and Berry, 1999; Dewar and Dutton, 1986). The polity who designed and adopted this policy innovation can be called a pioneer while the other adopters, even though this policy is new to them, can only be regarded as followers since they followed, either by learning or by imitating, a policy which has been already adopted by others. (1)

   Even though quite a few innovation scholars deny the concept of 'policy invention', and insist that 'there is no new thing under the sun' (Dewar and Dutton, 1986; Dempster and Wildavsky, 1979; Kingdon, 1995; Majone, 1991), there are still some scholars believing that entirely new policy could be possible (Berry and Berry, 1999; Jordan and Huitema, 2014). Without joining this scholarly debate, we, based upon the opinions from both sides, can understand that invention, even if possible, would be highly difficult. But the difficulties of coming up with entirely new ideas do not block the enthusiasm of innovation in China's public sector. In the past decades, different forms of 'innovation' emerge at all levels of the public sector, and an 'innovation' movement is witnessed in China. To echo this innovation movement, several agencies with either political authority or academic authority, including the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, the Party School of the Central Committee of the China Communist Party (CCP), and the Center of China Government Innovations at Peking University have jointly set up a program of 'Innovations and Excellence in Chinese Local Governance' (IECLG) since the year 2000. This program, similar to the Innovations in the American Government Awards Program in the United States and Beacon Scheme in the United Kingdom, aimed at encouraging, communicating, and disseminating the 'best practice' of innovations in China's local governments (Wu et al., 2013).

   To ensure the justice and legitimacy of this program, IECLG publicized clear eligibilities, rules, standards, and procedures on its website, and all materials for finalists, including the final oral defense, were open to the public. Based on the rules of the program, all local governments and public organizations are eligible to apply for the program. The final decision, which was made through several steps by an expert committee, was made on the basis of six criteria--significance, effectiveness, innovativeness, economic promotion, public participation, and potential for replication and diffusion. The IECLG provides detailed explanation to each criterion. For 'innovativeness', it just coincides with what scholars defined as 'policy invention' (Berry and Berry, 1999), meaning that the innovation should be originally designed by the developer, and cannot be a replication of any others.

   Even with such strict eligibilities and requirements, IECLG never stops local governments' pursuit for innovation. By the end of 2014, the program has been held for seven rounds, and received more than 1,500 applications from all over China. More than 140 creative policies or program initiatives, abiding by the demanding criteria and passing through the competitive selection, are entitled winners or finalists. Over the years, the IECLG program attracted numerous attention from both practical and academic fields (Wu et al., 2013) and further motivated the local governments to keep reforming and innovating. Along this innovation movement as well as under the motivation of IECLG and higher authorities in China, nobody would like to lag behind and a competition, not just movement, for innovation also appears (Zhu, 2014a; Liu and Li, 2016).

   To have more innovations in the public sector is positive but not easy. Then here come our concerns. Among all the innovations in various levels of governments in China, are they really innovative as the IECLG required? Can they really be called 'innovation' or is this another 'Great Leap Forward' of innovation? In this article, we try to make such a judgment by evaluating China's innovation movement.

   To answer our research question, we conduct a quantitative comparison analysis with 66 so-called innovations in the area of performance management of China's local governments. We find that these innovations show more similarities than differences to each other. Therefore, most of these self-claimed innovations have few uniqueness or originality. Rather than innovation, they are merely imitation from each other. Lastly, we also proposed our tentative explanations to this phenomena.

   The rest of this article is deployed as follows. In the second section, we take a holistic view to discuss the situation of government/policy innovation in contemporary China. We also examine the existing literature on China's government innovation briefly. The quantitative comparison, including the sampling, methodology, results, and analysis, is presented in the third section. In this section, the results of data analysis show that the innovations in our sampled models are actually mere imitation. They did not show enough innovativeness and uniqueness as the IECLG program required. In the fourth section, we, from the perspectives of structure, process, and culture, provide tentative understandings for this phenomenon. We argue that the 'de facto federalism' of China's power structure, the incentive of China's bureaucratic system, and the organizational culture of public sector all result in such an outcome that rhetoric innovation is much more than substantive innovations. The last section provides policy implications and discusses the limits of this research.

2. Innovation of China's public sector--practice and theory

   Innovation drives development (Romer, 1994). This statement has been widely believed in China, and several generations of leaders all emphasize the importance of innovation. Innovation in the public sector was attended, encouraged, and advocated by China's highest authority, and finally became the national strategy.

   After China's market economy has evolved for decades, innovation in the public sector has been attended. In the 16th National Congress of the CCP, the highest leadership level confirmed that 'innovation is the soul for a nation's progress, the driver for a country's prosperity, and a source for a Party's vitality'. China should focus on theoretical innovation and promote innovation in institutions, technology, culture, and other aspects.

   In the 17th National Congress of CCP, innovation has been set up as a national strategy. It is believed that 'improving independent innovative capability and building an innovation-driven country is the core of the national development strategy, and also the key to improve comprehensively national strength'. To insist on China's independent innovation path, (we should) advocate innovation in all areas of modernization building. This concept of 'innovation' was soon brought to the field of public management and administration. When disseminating the main administrative tasks of the State Council, the then Premier Wen stated that promoting government innovation is an important content of economic and political reform. The second plenary session of the 17th National Congress of CCP issued an official statement, 'opinions on deepening the reform of the administrative system', setting up the goal of the CCP toward year 2020 and further encouraging public sector, under the leadership of the central government, to actively devote itself to local innovation. The then General Secretary of CCP Hu proposed that 'innovation should be encouraged and protected. All innovative ideas should be respected; all innovative behaviors should be supported; all innovative intelligence should be inspired; and all innovative achievements should be rewarded'.

   In the 18th National Congress of CCP, the Party set up the goal of reform during the current stage, which was to innovate the governance approach, to build-up governments' credibility, and to implement governmental performance management. Under Xi's leadership, China implemented the strategy of 'innovation-driven development', and depended on innovation to speed up the transformation of the economic development, to solve deep-seated contractions, and to enhance endogenous vitality of the overall development.

   With these advocacy and mobilization from the highest leadership level in China, all levels of local governments and public sector were dedicated to innovation. Along with this practice in China's public sector, quite a large amount of research about China's innovation in local governments...